The Clanging Bell
In the wake of the the Justin Taylor V. Rob Bell twitter-rama, I have been both heart broken and deeply encouraged. We, as the Church, are in a pivotal point as we are on the brink of exposing a false gospel. In Kevin DeYoung post, not intended to defend Taylor, but rather to explain the emergence of action on Rob Bell's doctrine. He starts the post by saying, "I am eager to read the book, not to pick a fight (though sometimes we need to fight, and this is one of those times.)"
For those of you who do not know/care story goes like this:
- Bell wrote a book, yet to be read but the publicity is provocative and damaging suggestion the non-existence of Hell or God's Judgement.
- Taylor posts blog claiming Bell a Universalist
- Bell is silent
- Taylor takes heat for assuming the position of critique without reading the book, though he was resounding to the promotions of the book and not the book's page by page substance.
- Bell is still
- Piper tweets "Farewell Rob Bell" (side note: that's like the ultimate 6th grade "oooooooooooooh" by the surrounding crowd)
- DeYoung blogs explaining, a sheep pretending to be a wolf is not a sheep pretending to be a wolf, but a wolf, fooled into thinking he is a sheep (my personal interpretation)
- Bell is sleeping
There is a movement that we are witnessing in this country but we need to pay attention. David Platt has a platform of self denial, Rob Bell taught that Peter fell through the water because he lacked faith in himself. (Velvet Elvis pg 133) Francis Chan has expressed that he has served at funerals, knowing the people in the casket have a spirit in Hell. Bell seems to think Hell is too mean for God (Velvet Elvis pg 148), the same God that killed everybody on earth but Noah's family. John Piper teaches that Scripture memorization is the best way to ensure successful ministry. (Psalm 119:11) Rob Bell doesn't believe the Bible.(Velvet Elvis pg 68)
The movement is upon us, we are seeing people take sides in front of our very eyes. We are witnessing denominations split based on what may appear as political views but always comes down to Scripture, weather we are aware of it or not. The head of the Episcopalian Church is a driving force in the mass exodus of Scripture study, The Presbyterians are on their 3 or 4th split, the Methodists quietly tried to avoid judgment and controversy, while the Baptists are presented as the school yard bully. It is happening, we are witnessing the Re-Formation of this country, marriage will no longer be defined the way we have always known it, fornication, pornification(that ones made up, but you get it), drug use, and alcoholism can no longer be judged, but expected. We are all victims of our own existence, the consequences of broken homes with no one to blame but media, not to mention Mark Zuckerberg. China is becoming evangelical, Seoul is Christian and the American church is splitting up. The question of, "Who gets the kids?" will only be answered with time. The church has been categorized as both a societal problem and the on the counter she has been called our cultures savior. When the church began forsaking Truth for inclusively, she abandoned Truth for popularity, maybe I am the lunch room school girl telling my web friends how Bif and Marty went at it at the Dance Under the Sea. The sole thing that needs to be heard by believers is that we must work in haste, for those on the fence, well you aren't really on the fence. There is no fence. The fence was made in to a cross that bore the sin of man inside the Son of man, though man's sin is serving any/everything under the sun.
Farmers make a sword, fishermen make a spear, the weak will say, "I am warrior." Joel 3:10 tells us that no one is going to miss this fight. This is one of those times!