Saturday, February 16, 2008

Rob Bell: Relevant

Relevant magazine recently published an article about Rob Bell in their most recent issue. It was an interview with him and they asked him some pretty thought provoking questions. I have always liked Rob Bell, but I felt like in the past few years he has wandered from the mission of preaching the gospel. I'm not necessarily sure that it true anymore. I think that his understanding of the gospel has changed. I still think that he is leaving out a fairly significant issue - the fact that Jesus called us to make disciples and that he was constantly calling people to follow him. But, what I liked about the interview that I read in Relevant was that Rob Bell is extremely consistent. He believes that a large part of being a follower of Christ is realizing the interconnectedness of humanity. There are many ripple effects for this view - being an environmentalist, caring about social justice type issues, being involved in what's going on in Africa...

I agree with Bell that we should be involved in these issues, but we can't leave out the fact that Jesus called us to make disciples. Last time I checked that was the great commission. Otherwise will end up propagating the powerless social-gospel all over again. I like Bell because he is such an innovative thinker - but let's always measure what everyone says against scripture. I don't think that Bell is unscriptural at all, but I just don't think he is teaching the whole counsel of the word.

3 comments:

WorshipNotes said...

I love Rob Bell's videos. Didn't know he has a tendency to leave out a large part of the gospel. Thanks for making me aware of that. Seems to me the MAIN thing Jesus said to people was "follow me." So it follows that one of our main messages to people as his disciples should be "follow Him."

Assad Saif said...

Rob Bell looks freaky

Anonymous said...

He sounds heretical too. "Hell is full of forgiven people." Velvet Elvis pg 164