Something felt a little bit off in one particular line of “Critical Praise / Review” for Rob Bell (and ostensibly, his new book How to Be Here):
Bell will be joined by the likes of Brian McLaren, James Martin, Diana Butler Bass and Carol Howard Merritt.
— Christianity Today
I could see it working if Bell “joins the likes of…”, but there’s something about how it was written that sounded like a high-schooler’s essay pieced together with sentence fragments taken from all over the internet.
Not far off, that line is actually taken from a Christianity Today article about a podcast/YouTube channel that Rob Bell is involved with — where he is “joined by the likes of Brian McLaren, James Martin, Diana Butler Bass and Carol Howard Merritt.” (It’s so important the article states it twice.)
Now, I know pull-quotes are used out of context all the time, but at least they’re usually coherent. 😛
And then I then read the first pull-quote from Publisher’s Weekly….which sounded familiar because it was already used wholesale as part of the publisher’s product description.
I’m going back to my cave now — the internet is making my head hurt.