“We believe people should not be denied the right to have someone to journey with.”īooks & Culture, a journal published by Christianity Today, mocked Bell’s latest work, inventing a fake publishing executive to push the man behind the Gospel of Zimzum. If he could question the existence of hell, they said, why wouldn’t he shift on his views about sexuality?īell says he would conduct a same-sex ceremony, and he encourages churches to welcome gay members and allow them to be ordained. He came out in favor of same-sex marriage in 2013, and few evangelicals seemed surprised. “It seems like marriage is one of the central things in life that needs all the help it can get,” Bell said.įor anyone looking for any hints to his theological shift, his new book, “The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage,” is likely to disappoint. And like other leading evangelicals, he’s trying to stake out some ground on marriage. To be sure, Bell still holds his evangelical credentials, with degrees from Wheaton College and Fuller Theological Seminary. “One way of looking at this is less a merger of two equal powers than it is the acquisition by one large corporation of another small business.” She remains, as ever, the determining corporate deity,” said Lofton, a professor of religious studies at Yale. “I think an interesting way to think about Bell and Oprah here is to observe how easily she incorporates him into her pantheon of spiritual advisers. In many ways, some elements of typical evangelicalism are a good fit for Oprah’s lineup of public confession and personal transformation, said Kathryn Lofton, author of “Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon.” The difference, however, is that The Church of Oprah incorporates as many religious concepts as possible, while evangelicalism commits to exclusivity. He also recently toured the country with Winfrey on a “Life You Want Weekend.” 21 on the Oprah Winfrey Network, a one-hour show that features Bell and is co-produced by him. He left his Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids and headed out to California to work on TV projects. “If we mean Jesus’ message of God’s revolutionary love for every person, and we can surrender and give our life to acts to loving kindness, then man, sign me up,” said Bell, 44.Īfter the initial battle over “Love Wins” died down, Bell seemed to disappear from the public eye. “I never spent a minute wondering whether I’m in or out.”ĭoes he still consider himself an evangelical? Which is not to say that Bell cares very much what anyone says these days. Instead, he surfs the waves near Hollywood and has teamed up with the goddess of pop theology, Oprah Winfrey.Įxchanging his evangelical bona fides for the blessing of Oprah may yet prove to be his most unforgivable sin, at least in some circles. Now, the man who built a church of an estimated 10,000 people isn’t even attending an organized church.

Names of places in hell