Fred Clark has an interesting blog post about conflict brewing between Rob Bell and what he refers to as 'Team Hell' entitled "The epistemology of Team Hell".

While I don't necessarily agree with all the points he raises, I think he found a fundamental truth. Rob Bell and 'Team Hell' (kind of catchy isn't it?) come at the issue from such divergent viewpoints there is no way that their views can be reconciled. It just isn't that they can't agree on an answer, but what a correct answer would even look like.

I've posted an excerpt below; however he has a number of interesting posts on the issue which are worth reading.

“What is God like?” Bell asks.

Not, mind you, “What does God like?” or, worse, “Who does God like?” but “What is God like?” What do we know of the character of God and how do we know it?

The Christian answer to both of those questions is, as that word Christian suggests, based on Christ — on Jesus of Nazareth, on the story of Jesus of Nazareth, his life and teachings, his parables and parabolic acts, and especially on his death and resurrection. I suspect that much of what has people so angry with Bell is that this is how he seems to be approaching these questions. “What do we know of the character of God?” We know what we see in the story of Jesus Christ. “How do we know what we know of the character of God?” It is revealed to us through the story of Jesus Christ.

By addressing those questions in that way, Bell has inadvertently offended the many American evangelicals who would answer them differently. They would say the Bible is the ultimate revelation and authority for Christians — the only sufficient, necessary and infallible source of certainty and clarity. This is why they’re likely to describe themselves not merely as “Christians” — a term suggesting, again, that Christ is the center — but as “Bible-believing Christians,” which is wordier, but more euphonious than “Biblians” or some such more precise term.

Bell’s question — “What is God like?” — is wholly different from the question they are asking — “What is the source of authority?” And the difference there suggests why this disagreement is likely to get heated. Not only are we looking at two different and divergent inquiries, but two different and ultimately incompatible epistemologies. Disputes involving competing epistemologies tend to get heated because by definition they involve two sides that are unable to agree not just on the correct answer, but on what constitutes a correct answer.