Credit Where Credit is Due
I listened to Rob Bell’s most recent Sunday sermon today, and in the interest of demonstrating that I am not a maniac, I’d like to offer a response.
It was awesome. It was fantastic. It was balanced, clear, biblical, exegetical, and utterly entirely convincing. In his opening prayer he even mentioned that the words of Jesus contain edges, which was nice to hear. I honestly cannot think of any one point where I would disagree or ask for clarification. Listen to it yourself, because it was awesome.
Does this mean that I retract what I wrote last month on Velvet Elvis? Hardly. I had not listened to Bell’s sermon when I wrote that review, and it was never my intention to review the person, Rob Bell, I was reviewing his book - Velvet Elvis. Based on that book alone, if the author’s name on the cover was different, I would have come to the same conclusions. Having heard Rob Bell speaking two years after publication, it doesn’t mean that I don’t still disagree with some points of the book, some aspects of his teaching, or where I think his teaching might be heading, but based on the sermon I just heard, I could not say what I said last month in good conscience - to the degree that I had said it. It just wouldn’t be fair. But I still would not retract what I had wrote as Velvet Elvis should not have to be read with the knowledge of Rob Bell’s thoughts gained through listening to online audio messages, it ought to be judged upon its own merits. It ought to be read knowing what you can learn from cover to cover.
Augustine wrote a book at the end of his life called The Retractions. Over the course of his life, others critiqued his teachings and he ended up revising some and retracting others. This is the nature of conversation, dialogue, and mutual constructive criticism, such that iron would sharpen iron. It is good and it is healthy. John Piper (who was footnoted in Velvet Elvis) has remarked that he might have to write his own edition of Retractions one day. It is a good thing to stay humble when approaching theology, admitting that we might get it wrong, but for now we’ll do the best that we can to understand in part, through the Spirit’s guiding. Admitting that you might be proven wrong someday doesn’t mean abandoning adequate theological and moral categories and propositional statements for the ambiguities of mystery and ignorance.
I do not think that Rob Bell would necessarily retract some things he wrote in his book Velvet Elvis, but I do think that I have misread him on some points. As his thought is still emerging, we’ll eventually find out where he’s trying to go with all this. And while I think he needs to be refined more, while I think that at points his thought is troubling, I feel the need to give credit when credit is due for two reasons:
1) My own thought needs refining also, because it’s not like I am somehow free from bias or blindspots myself.
2) Everyone needs critics and accountability partners. The last two things that Rob Bell needs now is either yes-men who never critically question what he is teaching, or no-men who find in his every word something to criticize and claim as heresy.
Semper Reformada
2007
Careful you bite off more than you can chew. In the case of men like Rob Bell an old adage applies: “There’s no such thing as a litle bit pregnant.” peace.
We’re not talking about pregnancy. We’re talking about theology. If you can recomend men like Walter Martin who was a self-professed “Cal-Minian” (according to Matt Slick) and A.W. Tozer who was an Arminian through-and-through and a mystic, you know yourself that some men are closer to orthodoxy than others. There is such a thing as “a little bit Calvinist,” i.e.; 4-point Dallas Calvinism, right?
there’s a huge difference between “a little bit calvinist” and “a little bit heretic”…
Of course in Christian charity we can grant some grace on doctrinal differences, within the bounds of orthodoxy.
The key phrase there is “within the bounds of orthodoxy”. IF you think Bell is within the bounds of orthodoxy then you need to read and listen to more of his work.
Best Regards,
Eek
i think i remember lordship salvation making people question the doctrine of grace too a while back. we should filter everything through scripture regardless of the author…especially those who just rebadge the same book again and again.
Sorry Tyler. I’m still going to link to your blog because I like what you say, but this sermon is typical of Rob Bell. Heavy on the impressive 2nd Temple Judaism background, and light on the soteriology.
Follow me. Bell says “God isn’t just interested in saving you. God isn’t just interested redeeming me…in your own morality, purity, and devotion to the way of Jesus.”
No, on the contrary, he points out that “God wants to use us to do something about the greatest suffering in the world.”
So, as my gf points out, “What is the greatest suffering in the world?”
For those of us who know Jesus, we know the only real reason he came was to “seek and save that which was lost.” But when Bell says it, he means to point out that God is interested in saving us unto works of social justice. Frankly, I don’t believe anyone is saved from injustice. Life isn’t fair. He saves us from His justice. We deserve hell. That is the point of Jesus’ teaching.
Note this: Rob Bell has conflated the Pharisees legalism with the concept of evangelicalism’s focus on individual salvation and then mischaracterized it as narcissism. It isn’t. We are saved as individuals so God can use us to save other individuals in his ultimate redemptive plan. We will do good works, acts of grace, as He lives through us; but ultimately, social justice is not the point, salvation is.