According to his own account, Tullian was raised in the church, but began living in serious sin even in his early high school years. He was finally kicked out of his house when he was sixteen and dropped out of high school.
He says that during this time, his parents would regularly bail him out of trouble. In fact, it was the beginning of my personal crash course in one-way love. Supposedly converted at age twenty-one, he went on to graduate from Columbia International University in philosophy and receive an M. Div degree from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He then became an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of America. James Kennedy. Tullian made news recently when he was found to be cheating on his wife, who, he says, was also cheating on him.
As a result, he was asked to resign as pastor of Coral Ridge. Shortly thereafter, he found another position on the ministry staff at a different PCA church in Florida. Bell comes from what is known as the Emergent movement, which was accepted in much of mainstream evangelicalism, but seemed to have little influence in the Reformed church. One Way Love represents an expansion of the antinomian plague to even the Reformed world.
I also discovered that Westminster Seminary was selling his books on-line. Part of the draw of One Way Love , especially for younger people, is its attractive edginess. The following is helpful in gaining a sense of the tone of the book:. It is time for us to abandon, once for all, our play-it-safe religion and get drunk on grace. Two-hundred proof, unflinching grace. One Way Love is fundamentally a polemic against legalism. He even calls legalism the one enemy of the church.
I do not survey the church in America and see it worshiping morality. Rather, I see it becoming increasing immoral. In other words, the definition of legalism is striving to keep the moral law. This is far different than the classical view of legalism, which is the trusting in your law-keeping in order to save you. Essentially, one-way love means that God loves us without expecting anything in returnโ no repentance, no obedience.
