Rick Warren on Rob Bell

Um, shouldn’t he have said something about Bell’s heretical doctrine? I mean, why would something like Bell need to be in a church anyway.

Yes, because pastoring a church means you produce more orthodox sermons and books.

Oh wait, nevermind.

I find Warren moving at times, though he seems conventionally liberal, too.

I’ve been utterly uninterested in Bell since he wrote Love Wins Out. It seems he’s taken the same trajectory as Origen, whose position on universalism was struck down early on. And that was for a good reason. The Bible teaches a future and eternal separation of the righteous and the wicked.

There are many ways to work and many ways to minister. One does not have to be a pastor to be carrying out effective, responsible, accountable ministry.

Granted, I don’t expect respectability, accountability, or faithfulness from Bell, but the problems with Bell are not the same thing as issues with this type of ministry.

I guess if people will flood into huge buildings to hear Osteen, then they’ll do the same to hear Bell’s heresy, too.

I know one ole boy that wont be going to hear either one of them…

David

But I think Bell genuinely believes it. He stretches the Bible like a rubberband until it snaps. All will be saved, eventually. All religions will work as channels in that process. And so on.

I wonder if the itinerant “revivalists” are anything remotely approaching the evangelists seen in the Bible. They didn’t seem to run from established church to established church preaching, and they didn’t seem to be ex-local church pastors who couldn’t handle the shepherd half of their calling. Nor do I see local church pastors merely preaching somewhere else for a week to supplement their income via a “love offering”.

I am not at all sure I’m in favor of “churchless pastors”, as it were.

Anybody who believes that Warren is “accountable” to anyone at Saddleback, I have some beachfront property in Ark to sell you.

As someone who at one time followed Rob Bell when he first came onto the scene and really enjoyed his style of preaching and teaching compared to the “Three and an Alter” that I constantly hear even today, I have to say that the past two years have been incredibly tough for me to stomach.

I love Rob Bell’s Nooma series because they set such a high standard for production quality and they are written in such a way to promote discussion in just about any setting. It kills me that there have been no legitimate attempts by pastors to emulate this style of medium with a theological underpinning more to where I firmly stand on many issues.

I went to his first two speaking tours, “Everything is Spiritual” and “The Gods aren’t Angry” which I enjoyed tremendously. However, as I eagerly listened to his sermons week in and week out, I noticed something going on.

Where he was once very solid in where I thought he should be, he began to make points and takes stances where I constantly thought to myself, “Rob, I can’t go with you there…”

Then he released his books, Sex God and Drops Like Stars, and something in me snapped. It was like watching someone that you admire do something that you knew was morally reprehensible and having your image of that person shattered forever.

By the time Love Wins came out, I was hoping that all of the hoopla was misinterpreted quotes taken out of context like with Velvet Elvis but alas, I read the book.

I can’t go with you there, Rob…

So, I have long ago taken Mars Hill off my Ipod auto-download each week and now I don’t even bother looking to see which upcoming project that is coming down the pipe.

I still have many of his works because though I think he’s gone off the reservation now, many of his early works are sound works which have great use and I’ll still hold on to them. I just will never patronize his works until such time he comes back into the fold.

I just can’t go there with you, Rob…

Surprisingly, Bell said much that was true. But he’s since departed from the Christian storyline. He’s rewritten the ending. I don’t know if this says anything about his spritual state. I do know it renders him unfit to teach and preach.

Bell is completely unoriginal in his universalist proposal. Many Christians have found it difficult to accept the eternal damnation of souls. George MacDonald couldn’t. Neither could Madeleine L’Engle. The philosophic urge is toward synthesis, and we desire a comic outcome for all. But the Bible teaches a future and eternal separation of the righteous and wicked. Outside the gates are all those who choose not to enter. As C. S. Lewis stated, “the doors to hell are locked from the inside.” I don’t wish to imagine a world where all are forced to enter in.

When one considers what really bothers these people, I think it’s the prospect of the pain they feel must be involved. I think that’s what really strikes them. I think that’s what moves them toward universalism. Not an effort to theodicize, but to eliminate the prospect of ultimate terror in the Christian cosmos. But I don’t think these lost souls are burning and roasting in fire. I think they’re experiencing alienation, confusion, darkness, with a certain sense that no resolution will ever arise. That, in itself, is bad enough…..just saying.

Bell’s Nooma series was a creative endeavor. I’m sorry it can’t be more beneficial for people. I think others should replicate it.

I’m not familiar with Chan. I certainly hope it works out.