The Christian Gospel isn't the only thing that Rob Bell perverts. He also does a bang up job of sounding authoritative in his handling of history. Rob Bell disappeared off the radar of this blog for a long time and I was of the hopeful opinion that Bell's theology was in the cargo hold of the "emergent ship" when it sank. But alas, Bell managed to grab an enormous amount of publicity through his latest book "Love Wins" where he becomes a lot less vague about some of his heretical views including universalism. On the positive side of the ledger, Bell is doing a lot more strutting around without his sheep suit these days and it appears that he may have shot himself in both feet in the process. Even Zondervan (a greek word meaning "anything that'll make a buck") publishers ditched Bell because of his latest book (I don't know if it was principle or pragmatism)!
And to his legion of defenders out there in cyberspace, Bell's confession that "I am not a universalist" is not exactly a watertight legal defense. The proof is in the pudding and Bell has been writing and preaching a whole lot of pudding for more than half a decade now. And all that hate mail is a great way to champion your "love wins" motto!
A big part of Bell's MO in gaining believability in the false gospel he proclaims, is the way he sounds so credible in the way he reinvents history (always at the expense of historic orthodox Christianity). A very popular post that was done on this blog at the end of 2009 gave a compare and contrast between the Gospel according to John Piper and the gospel according to Rob Bell. I recently had an interesting video from James White drawn to my attention that I thought would be very worthwhile posting on my blog today. If there's one thing I know about Dr. James White it is that he has a brain the size of a planet. If there's one thing I don't know about Dr. James White it is how that giant brain fits inside his regular sized head. Whatever the reason, the guy has an excellent working knowledge of church history and the following critique is an excellent rebuttal to Bell's "gospel presentation" and perversion of history that appeared in that post. This is well worth the look for all of us who heard the alarm bells (pardon the pun) but didn't know enough history to put our finger on what the exact problem was with how Bell recounts church history:
6 comments:
Cameron you crack me up, love your definition of Zondervan that definition could also be used for Koorong. Keep up the good work.
love your sense of humor re: Zondervan. I emphatically agree.
also, re: James White's comment that emergent stuff just doens't do it for reformed baptists... au contraire, my friend, are those lava lamps I see behind you?? haha
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/160231/48/Pastor-defends-views-on-Heaven-and-Hell?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Cimg%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cp
In "Love Wins," Pastor Bell says he doesn't think heaven is reserved just for Christians.
"If I am a Christian do I have to consign all Buddhists to hell," he asks. "No, you don't. You don't at all."
What i find tough is to discover a blog that may capture me for a minute however your blog is different. Bravo.
Perhaps he's right about Mithras and Attis--perhaps. But the idea of resurrection and subsequent immortality was common in traditional Greek mythology. What the Athenians were scoffing about was the fact that they've heard all this before from their own cultures and they are philosophers, above such a nonsensical idea of an immortal body. Even the one of the first Christian apologist Justin Martyr (103-165 AD) said, "when we say … Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus." (1 Apol. 21) I don't know how such an acclaimed historian as Dr. James White could have missed that. I think there is still much merit to Rob Bell's statement that the gospel of Christ sounded pretty familiar to 1st century Rome.
I 'agree it took me like five seconds to find these two gods rob bell is speaking of on the internet
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