Dangerous Minds

Not very long after I started working at Mardel I came across a series of videos known simply as Nooma, the brilliant creation of Pastor Rob Bell. The short sermon series struck me as odd, interesting, groundbreaking, and a little bit too expensive. I found these videos interesting enough that I thought this man must have a book and indeed he did. I eventually bought the book in order to cite some of Pastor Bell's findings on Jewish culture in a seminary paper I was working on. I read the first chapter and then the chapter I used for the paper before placing the book next to my bed so that I could finish it.

Although I never actually finished Bell's book, Velvet Elvis, I now feel as if I have been duped by some of Satan's craftiest schemes, half-truth. Yes, some of what Pastor Bell teaches is groundbreaking and maybe even useful in the evangelical world. But in my foolishness I put Bell on my short list of favorite pastors without really knowing what he believed. It turns out Pastor Bell is the face of what I will simply refer to as the emgerging/emergent movement. These are two different and yet often considered interchangeable movements, both of these movements have claims to Bell. I will try to read the entire book in the future and post a full review (who knows I might critique this post) but here is a very disturbing quote and a quick biblical response to complete my example of why we should be careful to whom we lend too much ear.

The setting to this quote is that Rob is addressing a lecturer he once heard saying that if you deny that God created the world in six literal 24 hour days you are denying Jesus' death on the cross. A critique of the lecturer is certainly in order assuming he was quoted in the correct context but this is Bell's response.

"It hit me...that for him faith isn't a trampoline; it's a wall of bricks. Each of the core doctrines for him is like an individual brick that stacks on top of the others. If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble... What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archaeologists find Larry's tomb and DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if you study the origin of the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word virgin could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being 'born of a virgin' also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? (Velvet Elvis 26)

Bell goes on to defend that he believes in the virgin birth and biblical inspiration but that Christians should not let their faith fall apart due to the reexamination of one "brick".

I don't think it is wrong to draw attention to Paul's words in 1 Corinthians as he speaks of a "brick" that would tear his entire wall down. The reason I don't think it is unfair to draw the comparison here is because Bell doesn't merely challenge a small brick but the virgin birth as something that we should allow to shake our faith.

"And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:14-19 ESV)"

Paul says that the resurrection is crucial for two basic reasons. (1) the importance of the testimony. Paul makes it clear that if his Christology was wrong his faith was wrong. One might argue that we are all wrong about something but on things as large as the virgin birth and the resurrection our faith is certainly contingent. We may not know the facts about them but we at least know that they did happen according to the gospel. The second reason Paul gives is (2) the function of what is being testified to. It's not just that we were wrong but it's what we were wrong about. If there was no virgin birth Christ was 100% man and 0% God meaning that he was depraved and there is a reason the gospels skipped his teen years.

Rob is certainly popular for a reason but it's more because of the intelectual stimulation he provides than actual theological inside. It strikes me as odd that he went to the same college (Wheaton) and seminary (Fuller) as John Piper.

In the virgin-born and victoriously resurrected Christ,
Stephen