Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins, was released amongst quite a stir, controversy creates cash. I did my best to avoid most of it before reading the book, it arrived today, but not all of it could be avoided.

This isn’t a book review, not in the traditional sense anyway, although I will make comments on the book here and there.

This is the first of several posts – neighbours, bagged & tagged, you want answers?!, & love doesn’t win – where I’m more interested in sharing a few thoughts, that the events surrounding the books release provide a nice framework for.

What has intrigued me the most is people’s response to it, some who’ve never read it have voiced strong opinions, opinions about the book & about the writer. I have read of, and I know of people who’ve thrown away previously treasured Bell books & dvd’s.

As for the book, if you’ve read a Rob Bell book before you know what you’re getting, Love wins is a well written easy read, which asks some great questions (Rob is good at that). Some of the ideas raised I’ll have to sit with a little longer, some I’ll sit with a lifetime, some I may ultimately reject.

But this isn’t just about Rob Bell, what it is about will become more clear.

So apologies for those looking for a review, apologies to those looking for some anti-Rob rant or pro-Rob love letter, the blogosphere is full of them and my voice is certainly no authority in the matter.

So from here we move to neighbours