Provocative

One thing that's very striking is that here is a generation of writers not afraid to be rather provocative. And in a way that implies doubt in "core beliefs", or indeed in a way redolent of heretics of bygone eras. [Is theology like war? The victors get to write history in the latter case, and arbitrate on orthodoxy in the former. Does truth work like that?]

Very often, that is just a modern rhetorical style, and serves just to pep up some actually quite mainstream beliefs. Rob Bell caught a lot of flack for his "what if Jesus had an earthly father named Larry" line. But his whole book seems quite orthodox to me, if well-expressed in a Gen-X sort of way.

But for others, it really is that they are expressing something heterodox. Of course, that's valuable too: if what we believe isn't robust enough to be questioned and subjected to searching analysis, then it's really quite weedy. But are those who turn out to be expressing something quite different from what I believe also my fellow-travellers in the journey of faith?

I don't know, but if I'm going to look upon those who hold an `inerrant' view of scripture, or hold with creationism, as part of the family, then the tent is going to have to be pretty big. So there's probably room for some people with way-out whacky perspectives that head in other directions, too.