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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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‘Alarm Bells’ – Rob and Kristen |
When Pastor Gary Gilley was here as the guest of ‘Take Heed’ Ministries [March/April 2006] I asked him to speak on 2 specific issues. One was the ‘seeker-sensitive’ or ‘user-friendly’ approach to preaching the Gospel as promoted in Rick Warren’s ‘Purpose Driven Movement’. The other was what has come to be known as ‘The Emerging Church’. This is a very loose ‘coalition’ of post-modern pastors and conference speakers. Many view Brian McLaren as being the main Emerging ‘guru’ and Gary Gilley devoted time in his talk to exposing some of the heresies of this man. I too have also addressed Brian McLaren in the article found on this link –
http://www.takeheed.net/SummerMadnessMcLaren.htm
However,
during the ‘emerging’ section of his talk Gary Gilley also mentioned the
husband and wife team of Rob and Kristen Bell. On the following link there are
biographical details of Rob Bell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Bell
and herewith are some helpful extracts from that link –
Robert "Rob" Bell (born August
23, 1970) is an author, Christian
speaker, and the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church located in Grandville, Michigan. He is also the featured
speaker in the first series of spiritual short films
called NOOMA. Bell
and his wife, Kristen, have two boys and live in Grand Rapids, Michigan…Bell, son of Judge
Robert Holmes Bell, nominated by Ronald
Reagan to the federal judiciary and publicly confirmed by the United States Senate, grew up in a traditional
Christian environment…Rob later decided to attend Wheaton
College without knowing what he wanted to study. While at Wheaton, Bell,
along with friends Dave Houk, Brian Erickson, Steve Huber, and Chris Fall
formed the indie rock band, _ton bundle, which was reminiscent of bands like R.E.M.
and Talking
Heads. Wheaton College was also where Bell met his wife, Kristen, whom he
married a few years later…Bell received his bachelor's degree in 1992 from
Wheaton and worked a job teaching waterskiing in the summers at Wheaton
College's Honey Rock Camp…During this time, Bell offered to teach a message to
the camp counselors after no preacher could be found. Rob says the Spirit
impelled him to accept the responsibility and taught a message about
"rest"…He believes that God led him to teaching at this moment. In
preparation for his message, Rob nervously walked through the woods of the
camp, he says he felt the presence of God and heard his words (not in an
audible voice but inner words) saying, "teach this book, and I will take
care of the rest"…Bell moved to Pasadena, California to pursue this calling
and received an M.Div.
from Fuller Theological Seminary. .. Bell
and his wife moved from California to Grand Rapids to …In February 1999, Bell
founded Mars Hill Bible Church, with the church
originally meeting in a school gym in Wyoming, Michigan. Within a year the church was
given a shopping mall in Grandville, Michigan and purchased the
surrounding land. In July 2000 the 3,500 "grey chair" facility opened
its doors. As
of 2005, over 10,000 people attend the three "gatherings" on
Sundays…Rob Bell is the featured speaker in the first series of NOOMAs - a series of
short films that explore questions that might arise as a person explores the
Christian faith. The title of the videos, "NOOMA", is an English
variation of the Greek word "pneuma" which means wind or spirit…While
Rob Bell has never claimed an association with the movement, Bell's critics
often associate him with the Emergent
Church movement, pointing out that Bell teaches that the church should
embrace mystery and doubt rather than certainty. In his writings, he prefers to
view the Bible as one of many possible sources of truth and he points out that
many different religious traditions can be useful in finding a path to God.
“This is not just the same old message with new methods. We’re rediscovering
Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life.”[3] His
teaching is often characterized as postmodern. He does not believe that all the
answers can be found in "Scripture alone." …Some conservative
Christians have claimed that Bell's teaching of the gospel as described in the
book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith is flawed and
compromises many essential Christian doctrines along with the basic message of
the gospel…In a Chicago Sun Times article entitled The Next
Billy Graham?, Bell says of his critics: "When people say that the
authority of Scripture or the centrality of Jesus is in question, actually it's
their social, economic and political system that has been built in the name of
Jesus that's being threatened," Bell says. "Generally lurking below
some of the more venomous, vitriolic criticism is somebody who's created a
facade that's not working."
That was
my first introduction to Rob Bell. Then
in the early part of March this year I was invited to speak at the house
fellowship of a church in Co Antrim and whilst there the minister explained to
me that his Youth Fellowship young people had recently attended a joint youth
meeting where a DVD of Rob Bell had been shown to them and from the feedback he
received from some of his young people he was quite rightly and justifiably
concerned. He then rented a DVD of Rob Bell speaking and he showed it at the
start of the house meeting. It was called ‘Bullhorn’ and lasted 12 minutes.
From the following website I downloaded the undernoted ‘promotional’ details
for this DVD –
Nooma #9: Bullhorn, DVD
Rob Bell
Retail Price: $12.99
CBD Price: $9.99
( In Stock )
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God loves everyone, so a Christian should, too. In fact, Jesus said the
most important thing in life is to love God with everything we've got and love
others in the same way. But it's not always easy to love everyone around us, is
it? Sometimes we strongly disagree with other people's political views,
religious beliefs, behaviours, or something else, and it makes it hard to love
them when we feel like we're right and they're very wrong. But Jesus doesn't
separate loving God and loving others. So maybe the best way for us to show our
love for God is actually by loving other people no matter how hard it sometimes
is. Maybe it's the only way. 12 minutes.
For your information - the name NOOMA
is an English phonetic spelling of the Greek word ‘pneuma’, which is commonly
translated to “spirit” or “breath”.
I should also add that the word
‘Bullhorn’ refers to what we in the UK would know as a ‘Megaphone’ – defined as
‘a funnel-shaped instrument used to amplify the voice’.
I must
confess that I felt a mixture of nausea and anger as I listened to what Rob
Bell had to say in this DVD. The main themes were firstly a mocking attack upon
street-preachers who, with the aid of a ‘Bullhorn’ are willing to publicly challenge
people with the reality of sin and its consequences. He was quite scathing in
his attack upon their methods. But secondly, as a theme, there was basically
his rejection of the message of these street-preachers. Rather than their
biblically honest message of sin and its consequences he was ‘over-the-top’ in
his insistence that only the message of ‘God is love’ should be set before
people. You can read my reaction to that in an email of mine that I include
later in this article.
In the last
few days I have visited the website of the church that Rob Bell pastors and it
can be accessed on this link http://www.marshill.org/
and I have extracted some quotes from it and will add my
comments to them.
We
are joining God in the restoration of all things by completely giving ourselves
to a revolution of love. Our desire is to bring hope and justice to our
neighbours and our world. [Cecil’s comments – Here we see right away
the major emphasis on ‘love’. In seeking to reach the lost we
must of course “speak the truth in love” [Ephesians 4:15] – genuine
Christian ‘love’ is never at the expense of ‘truth’ [see
1st Corinthians 13:6] – The goals stated here are to bring
‘hope and justice’ to people – what happened to ‘salvation’ through the
faithful preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as stated in Romans
1:16 – are Rob Bell and his associates ‘ashamed of the gospel of Christ’?
].
http://www.marshill.org/about/sundayGatherings.php
Mars
Hill Bible Church is located at 3501 Fairlanes Avenue, Grandville, Michigan. At
Mars Hill we refer to our Sunday church services as "the gatherings."
There are three identical gatherings on Sunday at 9am, 11am & 6pm. [Cecil’s comments
– The use in the name of the church of ‘Mars Hill’ and its
appellation of ‘Bible’ will unfold in all their hypocrisy as we
progress through this article].
http://www.marshill.org/mission/index.php
When we start to
make a big, noticeable difference among kids in West Michigan who need food and
shelter and when we can actually start pulling loads of poor people out of
poverty in Grand Rapids and beyond through micro finance... a whole new
conversation will start about what the church is and who Jesus is.
As we prepare to engage the problems of our neighbourhoods and world, we want
to do so as a community that is unified in spirit and mind. Because of this, we
invite you into a season of
discernment.
- [X] -
Every kid in West Michigan should have food and shelter.
more info - [Y] - The
poorest of Grand Rapids who are willing and able should
be given a chance to earn a living.
more info - [Z] - The
poorest people in the world should be given a chance
to help themselves.
more info
[Cecil’s
comments – This sounds more like a party-political manifesto than the
Bible-inspired mission of a church. The church is meant to be “the pillar
and ground of truth” [1 Timothy 3:15] proclaiming the sinful estate of all
mankind and the only remedy for that estate as being salvation through faith in
the finished redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church is not meant
primarily to be a ‘feeding station’ for the poor – even disciples in Jesus’ day
made that mistake and He corrected their thinking as we read in Matthew
26:7-11].
http://www.marshill.org/about/believe.php
Can you imagine what would happen if a group of people with untold resources, passion and energy started asking the question, "How do we hear the cry of the oppressed?". What if they were actually willing to wade into the cultural, economic, racial, global and personal issues involved without fear, with the confidence that no matter how painful, messy and volatile it got, Jesus would guide them the whole way?
[Cecil’s
comments – Again we have a ‘party-political’ type manifesto that is merely
tinkering with ‘the fruits’ of sin rather than confronting ‘the roots’ of sin]
Join in with all your heart, soul, mind and
strength . . . don't hold back. Sing from your toes. Pray from your guts.
Worship the Eternal Creator from your soul. It's not about perfect music; it's
about joining the holy roar of a community honestly wrestling with what it
means to follow their Creator.
[Cecil’s
comments: We are taken here on a trip round the human body from ‘the toes’ to
the ‘guts’ and to the ‘soul’ - what is noticeable by its absence is any
reference to the ‘heart’ – the Lord Himself spoke of “This people draweth
near unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me” and added “in vain they do worship me” – and
why was that – because they were “teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men” [Matthew 15:8-9] and as you will read shortly Rob Bell is ‘teaching
for doctrines his commandments’ rather than the biblical doctrines and
commandments of God].
To
illustrate how the teachings of Rob Bell represent ‘the commandments of men’
rather than true biblical ‘doctrines’ I want to quote some extracts from
one of a number of articles that Pastor Ken Silva of ‘Apprising Ministries’ has
written on Rob Bell. [There is a link to Ken Silva’s website on our own
ministry website COOL LINKS section that can be accessed on http://apprising.org/ ]
The
particular article that I am quoting from is found on this link
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/08/rob_bell_gospel.html
and herewith are the extracts…
In
his article STAR POWER|A HIGHER CALLING: His
message packs the house covering the final night of
Rob Bell’s recently wrapped up tour of “bars, music clubs and theatres in a
huge circle of the United States he made by tour bus,” David Crumm of the Free
Press writes:…
“In
his [Rob Bell’s] road show, he dismisses creationism, the idea that the world
literally was created in six days. And he argues that the Bible's message is
more about helping the world's poor than about personal success.
Bell
said that, even though his own nondenominational church is often described as
evangelical, he doesn't like to use that word anymore. "The word
evangelical has been hijacked by people with a loaded political agenda.
“What
got Jesus angry was poverty, institutional racism and religious people who were
indifferent to suffering people,” Bell said. “And what got Jesus very angry
were religious people going around proclaiming who was in and who was out of
God's kingdom.”
…The actual mission of Jesus Christ is a real area of
confusion with leaders within the Emergent
Church. In fact Tara Dooley, who interviewed Rob Bell for
the Houston Chronicle, gives us Bell’s own vacuous version of the Christian
mission:
“We
are passionate about people being healed on the inside, and we are passionate
about society being healed on the outside,” Bell said. “We would call that the whole Gospel.”
(emphasis mine)
The Gospel of Jesus Christ without Jesus? Um, I don’t
think so Rob. And I’m hardly the only one who can see that his presentation is
off…Let’s consider this bit of testimony from pastor Jason Woolever, who along
with Emergent theologian Leonard
Sweet, happens to be with the very liberal United Methodist
Church. In his post Rob
Bell and hell Woolever tells us:
‘I just watched
Rob Bell's Nooma video, “Bullhorn.” In the video Rob is speaking out against
Christians who stand on the street corner and use a bullhorn to tell people
that they need to repent or they are going to burn in hell. Rob seems very
concerned because people like this are misrepresenting God. He says Jesus never
talked that way and that he would never do that. Rob talks about the centrality
of love in Christianity. Loving those who are different than us and who don't
believe the same thing as us. He says that when we do so, we are actually
loving God. Agreed.
It
seems to me that Rob is largely reacting to bad Christianity by presenting a
half gospel’.
Well Jason, as we’re about to see it’s
more like no gospel at all…The question that needs to asked is just what kind
of Christianity are you “communicating” there Rob when you leave out the
central element–the Cross of Jesus Christ? …there’s good reason why Rob Bell’s
not more cross-centred…, because in his own warped and toxic view of the
atonement Christ redeemed the universe on the Cross and allegedly everything in
it. As such there would be no need for repentance and even being born again
because Bell believes that everyone is already redeemed. And then, right in
line with Brian
McLaren and Doug
Pagitt, we have the reimagined social gospel because
the Emergent
mission is to simply awaken people to what they already have and then
teach them how to be “followers of Jesus” in the “kingdom” regardless of what
their own particular “faith traditions” might happen to be.
…what
follows now is a brief look at Rob Bell’s spiritualised universal view of the
atonement from Velvet Elvis:
So
this reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody.
Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross he was
reconciling “all things, in heaven and on earth, to
God.” All things everywhere.
This reality then isn’t
something we make true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality or cling to a
reality of our own making. (146, emphasis mine)
This poses an interesting question: Rob, does “all things
everywhere” include Satan himself?… In his short review of Bell’s Velvet
Elvis pastor-teacher Gary Gilley…reminds us that
Bell’s “message apparently has incredible appeal.” Then he asks the critical
question for the Christian:
But
what is his message? Bell echoes many of the themes found in the writings of
other emergent leaders, such as Brian McLaren. For example:
1)
Redefining the gospel message. Bell seems to have a better grasp of the gospel
than McLaren but, like a fly buzzing around, he never quite lights long enough
for us to be sure. He admits to Christ coming to bring forgiveness,
righteousness and restoration. But he is critical of people having to believe
the right things (the gospel) to get “in” (pp. 34-35).
2) Who
is “in” or “out” does not seem to be an issue to Bell. He never discusses his
position on universalism/inclusivism, but the implication is that God must have
others who would not call themselves Christians (pp. 166; 146, 161).
3) Of
course, if that is true, the need to bring others to Christ is not necessary.
In fact, Bell is highly critical of those who would evangelise, preferring that
we would just “be a blessing.” He writes, “God chooses people to be used to
bless other people….God blesses everybody” (p. 165).
For those of us who have studied this
neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church we recognize immediately that this is
indoctrination into the new pseudo-Christian message of the alleged “spiritual
journey.”
…Dale
Van Dyke of Reformation 21 correctly states in his very thorough review of
Bell’s book Velvet
Elvis:
According
to Bell, Jesus’ death actually and really accomplished the forgiving of
everyone’s sins and the reconciliation of everybody to the Father. In other
words, God’s wrath has been propitiated for everyone. He now loves everybody in
the same way and seeing everyone as robed in the righteousness of Christ. All
that is left is for people to “live in this new reality”…
This
doctrine is not only erroneous, it has disastrous results. Bell’s error here is
precisely what has lead to the abysmal decline of missions in the mainline
churches. After all, if the nations are already reconciled to God because of
Christ, why bother them with pesky, fundamentalist missionaries who demean them
by telling them they still need to be saved from the wrath that is to come?
If the Lord is angry enough with what is
attempting to pass for His Church in America today …just how do you think He’s
going to handle a punk rock appreciating pseudo pastor like Rob Bell? A mixed
up man who will enthral audiences with his theories about quantum physics and
evolutionary fairytales until people nearly believe in his almost the gospel
message?
Another very helpful website [again
one of the COOL LINKS on our own ministry website under the heading of ‘Beware
of Contemplative Prayer] is that of Lighthouse Trails
Publishing and the following link
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/robbell.htm
will
take you to a selection of helpful articles and websites.
Earlier I wrote ‘The
use in the name of the church of ‘Mars Hill’ and its appellation
of ‘Bible’ will unfold in all their hypocrisy as we progress
through this article’. We have already seen from Ken
Silva’s article how, unlike Paul who on Mars Hill affirmed the Biblical
revelation of God’s creative work, Rob Bell chose to ‘dismiss’ such creation truth. In the
following extracts from an article posted on this link
http://www.gender-news.com/article.php?id=37
you will be able to gauge for
yourself just how much the ‘Bible’ does actually govern and direct what
happens in Rob Bell’s church.
Monday, September 27th, 2004
by Jeff Robinson
Mars Hill Bible Church opened
its doors in February of 1999 with a stated desire to exist as a "church
where scripture would be taught in a new way, a way that would reach a changing
culture."
…In those early
days of church plant exhilaration, Knapp did not dream that within four years
Mars Hill’s desire to engage the Gen-X culture would result in no small
capitulation to the feminism incipient within that very culture. On June 9,
2003, Mars Hill amended its constitution and statement of faith, opening all
offices-including that of elder-to women. Today, the church has two women
serving on its eight-member elder board. Mars Hill’s original
constitution/confession of faith clearly set forth-in Section 6.400-the
traditional view that Scripture limits the office of elder to
males…"During the annual church meeting in September of 2002, (Mars Hill
pastor) Rob Bell mentioned in a very tangential way that the church board and
he were looking into the issue of women in church leadership,"… A vote took
place after a series of Tuesday evening gatherings of the congregation, called
the "Areopagus Meetings," during which Bell presented leadership’s
rationale for moving toward egalitarianism. Three such meetings were initially
planned, but due to the overwhelming number of questions from those who
attended the first three, a fourth was added,… What drove Bell’s seemingly
abrupt ardour for egalitarianism? …it apparently stems from Bell’s drinking
deeply from the well of a radical new hermeneutic proposed by William Webb in
his 2001 book Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of
Cultural Analysis…"Truth for them [Rob Bell and Mars Hill Church] seems to be more subjective and experiential
than a product of a worldview developed by means of an interaction with God’s
Word, an interaction that often requires rigorous exegetical study and a
measured reflection upon the results of that study."
Unlike the Apostle Paul, who on Mars Hill in Athens
[see Acts 17:22-34] was totally faithful in his preaching to God’s truth as
revealed in His scriptures, Rob Bell in his modern day ‘Mars Hill’ Church in
Michigan, USA is, with calculation, being unfaithful to those same scriptures.
Rob Bell is disobeying the Word of God and dishonouring the God of the Word.
In the DVD ‘Bullhorn’ that I mentioned earlier he
mocks those who publicly proclaim the need for men to repent of their sins and
turn to Christ for salvation. What a contrast this modern-day ‘Mars Hill
Message’ is from that proclaimed by Paul in Athens when he declared to his
listeners “God who made the world and all things in it…And hath made of one
blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and hath
determined …that they should seek the Lord…overlooked the times of this
ignorance but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent [A ‘Bullhorn’
message?] Because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge [Another ‘Bullhorn’
message?] the world in righteousness” [Acts 17:24-31].
I think John the Baptist would have fallen foul of
Rob Bell’s views on ‘Bullhorn’ preaching for saying in Matthew 3:2 “Repent
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” and for telling the Pharisees and
Sadducees in verses 7-8 “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee
from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits befitting repentance”. We
learn in Luke 3:19-20 that through being bold enough to challenge Herod’s
immoral relationship with his sister-in-law Herodias, this led to John being
incarcerated in prison – obviously if he had simply preached that ‘God is love’
he would not have ended up behind bars and would not have been executed. How
did the Lord Jesus view the ‘Bullhorn’ preaching of John the Baptist – He said
in Matthew 11:11 “Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women
there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist”.
When it comes to challenging people publicly through
preaching and witness with their need to repent of their sins and believe the
Gospel the Bible shows clearly that this can be done in a ‘general’ sense as
with Paul and John the Baptist addressing crowds in public places or it can be
done on an ‘individual one to one’ basis in the normal course of everyday life
as we see with the Lord and the woman at the well [see John 5:5-30].
On the following link I came across a very well
thought out response to Rob Bell’s ‘Bullhorn’ DVD. A Christian broadcaster
called Todd Friel has made a DVD using the same ‘street evangelism’ approach
and presentation to show that it is perfectly possible to present the true
gospel message [denied and decried by Rob Bell in ‘Bullhorn’] in such a way that it does
not engender the type of hostile reaction portrayed by Rob Bell. This is the
link –
http://www.wayofthemaster.com.au/Bullhorn.htm
If you’re perhaps wondering who Todd Friel is the
following information on him was downloaded from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Friel
Todd Friel is the principal host of "The Way of the Master Radio",
a two-hour daily Christian talk show
with Ray
Comfort and Kirk Cameron as frequent co-hosts. The program is
available live on Sirius Satellite Radio, terrestrial radio
stations, streaming Internet radio, and podcasts. Other
Christian teachers that have influenced him include Charles
Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, John
MacArthur, and John Piper.
Originally from the St. Paul, Minnesota area, Friel went to college[citation needed] and got a
degree in theology. However, instead of entering into Christian ministry, he
became a stand up comic for six years, performing alongside with Jay Leno, Louie
Anderson, and Ellen DeGeneres. In retrospect, he believes that at
this time he was in fact not a Christian at all, based upon his lifestyle,
though he did later become "truly converted".[1]
He began his career in talk radio while substituting for T.D. Mischke in
the Twin Cities area on AM 1500 (KSTP). Intrigued, he moved into the profession
full-time. Friel initially hosted a talk show on Northwestern Bible College
Radio's local AM station (KTIS, 900 AM) called "Talk the Walk."[citation needed] After a
couple of years, the show was cancelled, and Todd moved his show over to AM 980
KKMS in the Twin Cities, where the show grew in immense popularity. One of the
reasons for this, as well as a reason he is often criticized, is that he rarely
refuses to talk about controversial issues in Christianity (except perhaps
predestination).[citation needed] In late
2005, he planned the move to a national spotlight, transforming "Talk the
Walk" into "The Way of the Master Radio" on January 2, 2006,
with a heavier emphasis on evangelism and with Comfort and Cameron as regular
co-hosts. Making fun of his own height, the radio show frequently introduces
him as "..Todd 'Freakishly Tall' Friel."
Todd has also published YouTube videos combating
the Nooma series produced by Rob Bell of Mars Hill Church (Grand Rapids, MI).
Specifically targeting the Nooma video "Bullhorn", Friel is depicted
sitting near a bus stop, refuting the ideas of Bullhorn as unbiblical.
- Friel,
Todd. "My Salvation Story." Talk the Walk Ministries. 17 Mar
2005. Talk the Walk Ministries. 07 May 2006 http://www.ttwministries.com/articles/My%20Salvation%20Story.pdf
Earlier I wrote
‘Rather than their [The ‘Bullhorn’ preachers] biblically honest message of sin and its
consequences he [Rob Bell] was ‘over-the-top’ in his
insistence that only the message of ‘God is love’ should be set before people.
You can read my reaction to that in an email of mine that I include later in
this article’.
Herewith
is the email that I referred to – it was my message of appreciation and
encouragement to Todd Friel to which he graciously responded.
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Subject: |
Response to
'Bullhorn' |
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Date: |
28/03/2007
18:26:55 GMT Standard Time |
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From: |
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Dear brother Todd,
Thank you for your video
response to 'Bullhorn'. It's really only in recent months that Rob Bell has
been impacting the 'Christian' scene here in Northern Ireland. I was shown the
'Bullhorn' DVD a few weeks ago and was absolutely appalled by this unscriptural
'God is [only] love'
mantra that is proclaimed in so many 'churches'.
A former Pastor of mine
once said 'when a half-truth is proclaimed as the whole truth it becomes a lie'
and this 'mantra' fits that bill.
I'm working on an
article that will have 'Alarm Bells' somewhere in its title and there will
certainly be a link to your video - so - many thanks and every blessing.
Yours by His mercy
Cecil Andrews
'Take Heed' Ministries
I
began this article by mentioning how Gary Gilley had first alerted me to the
problems posed by the teachings/views of Rob Bell and his wife Kristen. A
recent ministry letter by John MacArthur [15
March 2007] has reinforced those very same concerns.
John MacArthur wrote –
‘A
couple of years ago Christianity Today published
a major cover story introducing the Emerging Church to their readers…One brief
series of quotations from Rob and Kristen Bell seemed to capture the general
drift of the movement…As the article puts it, the Mars Hill church took shape
during a period when the Bells
‘…found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church. “Life
in the church had become so small,” Kristen says. “It had worked for me for a
long time. Then it stopped working”. The Bells started questioning their
assumptions about the Bible itself – “discovering the Bible as a human product”
as Rob puts it rather than the product of divine fiat. “The Bible is still the
centre for us” Rob says “but it’s a different kind of centre. We want to
embrace mystery instead of conquer it. “I grew up thinking that we’ve figured
out the Bible” Kristen says “that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea
what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again – like life used
to be black and white and now it’s in colour”. [Gary
Gilley also used this last quote in his presentation].
Those
shocking words sum up the Emerging Church movement’s most dangerous
characteristic: an unhealthy preoccupation with mystery, doubtfulness,
uncertainty, vagueness and at times rank scepticism – while casually brushing
away the Bible’s divine authority. “Truth” in the Emerging system is
deliberately portrayed as fuzzy, fluid, and flexible, open to any and all new
interpretations or novel perspectives. There are no theological or doctrinal
absolutes – all truth is on the table for discussion, debate and
deconstruction’.
Those
last comments by John MacArthur in his excellent summation of the so-called
Emerging Church reminded me of the old but ever-relevant couplet concerning
divine “truth” -
If
it’s new, it’s not true
If
it’s true, it’s not new
In
that same ministry newsletter, John MacArthur gave details of an upcoming new
book by himself on this whole subject of the Emerging Church. The book will be
called ‘The Truth War’. I have a copy on order and so cannot give
a judgement based upon having read it but knowing the excellent discernment
exercised and subsequently published by John MacArthur on other past
‘controversies’ I would feel confident that this will be a valuable tool in
defending God’s ‘truth’ against the latest devilish assault of ‘Yea, hath
God said?’
Truly
when it comes to the Emerging Church there are lots of ‘Alarm Bells’ ringing!