Monday, October 6, 2008

Foxes Book of Emergents With Hurt Feelings - Rob Bell (Part 1)

Yersterday I posted the youtube video that has caused a lot of furore among many within the emergent crowd. It is an expose of Rob Bell's humanistic teaching found in his Nooma video called Dust. In reality this video only scratches the surface of the many "robellian" heresies and false teachings.

The video I posted was a biblical critique that questioned only Rob Bell's teaching and not his motive or character. It's a shame that many emergents could not afford me the same courtesy and continually pretended to know my motives, resorted to name calling, and failed to reason from Scriptures. There were many supportive comments as well. But what surpised me was how judgmental many people are within the emergent movement - the very thing I was continually accused of. Out of the hundreds of abusive comments there were only three people I can recall who were willing to reason from Scripture. Though we disagreed I have genuinely enjoyed dialoging with them.

Most of the criticisms have been as repetitive as a scratched record so I have decided to post responses to many of the criticisms over the coming days. I have been continually surprised by the number of people who have rebuked me for not taking the matter up with Rob Bell privately without een knowing if this was the case. The truth is that I have written to Rob Bell's church and I will post that letter tomorrow. But it is not a matter that demands private dialogue (and it is very hard to get a private hearing with Rob Bell anyway) because I am criticising publicly marketed material and it warrants a public response. Furthermore Scripture madates the testing of teaching (Romans 16:17) and Rob Bell even invites it on the back cover of Velvet Elvis (“We have to test everything... Test it. Probe it. Do that to this book”). So in reality I was only taking up Rob Bell's offer.

Tomorrow - My letter to Rob Bell's church.

Go On To Part 2

2 comments:

Cameron Buettel said...

I recommend reading Mark Sohmer's in depth biblical analysis of Rob Bell's book "Velvet Elvis". Search for it on the web or on my website.

Glen said...

This Rob Bell issue is how I found your blog. Enjoying reading it.