A Sigh of Relief

Last night I watched OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) for the first time ever.  It sort of feels like an affirmation of comfortable adult manhood to be able to say that without shame.  I was watching to see what Rob Bell was actually up to.  As you may know, I was a little worried, what after he had been kicked around by the right-leaning evangelical types for questioning the existence of Hell, and actually using the sacred words of Scripture to justify his "heresy."  Bell left his Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids Michigan not long after the book firestorm, and I kind of had the feeling that he was just beat up, maybe more than he wanted to admit.
What we (by we I mean the American Church) don't need right now is one of our poster boys joining the "I love Jesus but I can't freaking stand Christians movement."  I was a little worried that Bell was going to take that route, but at least on the first show, he seems to still be in the boat with the other disciples.
If anything, the experience of being trolled by people who think they speak for Jesus instead of following him, seems to have pushed him more in the acceptance/forgiveness direction, and that was really the focus of the show last night (and yes, he did talk about the cross, so yay).
The whole thing was rather a relief for me, first because, I can still like Rob, and admire his sort of down to earth way of talking about faith, and not feel like I need to hedge when I tell people how great NOOMA was and is.  Secondly, because I can now say I've watched the show, I can stay the heck away from OWN.  There is still a lot about the Oprah Empire that I find disturbing, but I can rather happily say that I don't think Rob Bell is one of those things.  He just may be representing actual Christian faith in a world that is overrun with Wayne Dyer and Dr. Phil.
It's one show, I know, it could all still go horribly wrong, but it's not a bad start.  He had a couple people give testimony and talk about how they owned and accepted the tragedies of their life.  The stories were intense and harrowing enough that Michele wondered if maybe Jack shouldn't be watching, but grace and love come through in the end, then there was talky-time, then there were audience questions, and then the hour was over.  It was pretty much the standard talk show pattern: slightly voyeuristic, definitely melodramatic, and overall not too difficult to watch.  It was Christian in a fairly unassuming, yet definite manner.
I sort of hope that he will eventually get back to offering the same sort of NT Wright-esque biblical interpretations that he put into the NOOMA series and that he used to do pretty regularly in his preaching at Mars Hill.  I'm glad that he seems to have found a sense of humor and some peace of mind about the whole Love Wins backlash.
The long and short of it is that I think Rob represents Christian faith pretty well, even if he is just doing a pretty standard sort of talk show.  You don't hear him getting defensive, you don't hear him blaming some sort of bias, you don't hear him angry and hurt by the slings and arrows, even though I'm pretty sure he was.  There are worse ways to approach the Gospel than by emphasizing grace and forgiveness, a lot of worse ways as a matter of fact.
All in all, I 'm glad his voice is still out there, proclaiming the good news,