I would typically just put this on my news blog, www.drfuzzy.blogspot.com, but because of the information provided I find it to be worth putting on my opinion site. I fully agree with this particular commentator and also encourage Christian leaders to start standing up and defending our faith that is under attack right within our church.
By Brannon Howse Posted: 02/11/2007
The Emerging Apostasy Among Some Kids Who Should Know Better
By Brannon S. Howse
The last time I checked, 1 Timothy 3:5 was still in the Bible, and it should be making a lot of evangelical leaders squirm. The verse is a parenthetical comment about qualifications for a church leader: “(If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church?)” Unfortunately, the squirm factor is missing virtually everywhere you look.
Many now-prominent adult children of long-prominent evangelical leaders are enmeshed in an oppressive affair with the Emerging Church. EC authors and pastors are extremely popular with these children, and it’s recently dawned on me that this just may explain why so many of the aforesaid leaders remain strangely silent on the bizarre and unbiblical spirituality of the Emerging Church movement.
These leaders (I could name names but won’t) have had no compunction about going after Bill and Hillary, Nancy Pelosi, the NEA, ACLU, and liberal judges. But the EC has largely received a huge pass despite the fact that some of its authors and leaders see no problem with abortion, homosexuality, big government, socialism, and radical environmentalism. As this condition demonstrates, there are Christian celebrities among us who are more interested in reclaiming Congress than they are the church. I even fear that if you ask some of these folks about a few doctrinal points—like how we know the Bible is true, how we know Jesus rose from the dead, and how we know Jesus is God—you would get nothing but a blank stare in return. At least they might be able to update you on the latest political news and legislation, and tell you who is secretary of state, secretary of defense—and probably attorney general, too.
Although I’m reluctant to bring up names of the leaders for whom I still harbor at least a sentimental level of respect, there is an EC name you should know about—if for no other reason than to guard against the influence of his rising popularity. Rob Bell is a favorite of several adult-children-of-evangelical-leaders. He’s the author of an extremely popular book, Velvet Elvis, and has produced Nooma, an avant-garde DVD series viewed in thousands of churches across the country.
In “Emergent Mystique,” a recent article in Christianity Today, Bell admits to a new view of Scripture (hint: it’s not so divine any more) and credits his changed views on the Bible and Christianity to a book by EC guru Brian McLaren. As the title of McLaren’s book suggests, Bell is apparently now A New Kind of Christian. To give you a flavor of this “newness,” I’ve included below an extended excerpt from the CT article. This is as emergent as it gets:
"…these Wheaton College sweethearts [Bell and his wife, Kristen] have more on their minds than just cultural adaptation. “This is not just the same old message with new methods,” Rob says. “We’re rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don’t deliver a way of life. We grew up in churches where people knew the nine verses why we don’t speak in tongues, but had never experienced the overwhelming presence of God.”
In fact, as the Bells describe it, after launching Mars Hill in 1999, they found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church. “Life in the church had become so small,” Kristen says. “It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working.” The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself—“discovering the Bible as a human product,” as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. “The Bible is still in the center for us,” Rob says, “but it’s a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.”
“I grew up thinking that we've figured out the Bible,” Kristen says, “that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again—like life used to be black and white, and now it’s in color.”
The more I talk with the Bells, the more aware I am that they are telling me a conversion narrative—not a story of salvation in the strict sense, but of having been delivered from a small life into a big life. The Bells, who flourished at evangelical institutions from Wheaton to Fuller Theological Seminary to Grand Rapids’ Calvary Church before starting Mars Hill, were by their own account happy and successful young evangelicals. Yet that very world, as the Bells tell it, became constricting—in Kristen’s phrase, “black and white.”
An earlier generation of evangelicals, forged in battles with 20th-century liberalism, prided themselves on avoiding theological shades of gray, but their children see black, white, and gray as all equally unlifelike. They are looking for a faith that is colorful enough for their culturally savvy friends, deep enough for mystery, big enough for their own doubts. To get there, they are willing to abandon some long-defended battle lines.
“Weak is the new strong,” it turns out, is not just Rob Bell’s knowing reference to the world of fashion, nor just his clever reframing of Paul’s message of Christlike life. It’s a roadmap for a new way of doing church, even a big church. And how did the Bells find their way out of the black-and-white world where they had been so successful and so dissatisfied? “Our lifeboat,” Kristen says, “was A New Kind of Christian.”"
…To this day McLaren continues to receive grateful e-mails from readers. The book also confirmed the intuitions of many who sensed that major changes were under way in the culture. By offering a fundamentally hopeful, rather than despairing or defensive, reading of those changes, McLaren staked out an attractive position for young people like Rob and Kristen Bell.
Many evangelical and pro-family leaders are either asleep at the wheel or deliberately hiding in tall grass because calling EC people on the carpet would hit too close to home. But these guys need to find a voice and the courage of their convictions or get off the stage.
If today’s Christian and evangelical leaders will not join in defending the true Gospel, the inerrancy of Scripture, and essential Christian doctrines, then I say the real goal of these leaders is unity—and maintaining big organizations, popular radio programs, their own celebrity status, comfortable salaries, and profitable book sales—at the expense of truth. And though I may applaud their efforts to fight a particular lady running for president, even that is secondary.
Fighting the liberal left outside the church has become big business and big money. Fighting the liberal left inside the church requires the courage of Luther, nailing right doctrine on the door, and risking the fallout. If the kind of sell-out we see can happen among well-known evangelical and pro-family leaders, it’s no wonder Jesus asked the question, “When I return will I find true faith?”
[Here's a link to the Rob Bell article that originally appeared in Christianity Today: http://culture-makers.com/articles/the_emergent_mystique]
Distributed by www.ChristianWorldviewNetwork.com
7 comments:
The thing is - I don’t aanything he quoted as so terrible. Christianity is not a western, rationalized faith - that there is an Eastern element to it (this use of the word eastern doesn’t mean Hindu or somehting - it is simply referring to the conept of ‘Orientalism’ in cultural academia) which has existed as part of Christian thought from the very start. Christianity is a Semitic religion at root, not a Greek one.
Bell doesn’t question the virgin borth - he asks what would happen if our traditional understand turns out to be incorrect - he later affirms his orthodoxy on this issue just a page later in the book.
This is just scaremongering.
What do you make of his comment below? I would have to say that he is not orthodox if he believes the Bible is just a human product and not divinely inspired by God. What about his views on a literal Hell? Salvation? He is on the slippery slope with Brian McClaren and the rest of the Emergent's.
In fact, as the Bells describe it, after launching Mars Hill in 1999, they found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church. “Life in the church had become so small,” Kristen says. “It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working.” The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself—"discovering the Bible as a human product,” as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. “The Bible is still in the center for us,” Rob says, “but it’s a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.”
If scaremongering is pointing out the errors and warning people of the direction a movement is going, then so be it.
The Bible was written ( obviously inspired by God) by real people living in real places. Discovering the human element in the Scriptures is important - why was something written, what was happing at the time etc. The phrase 'Divine Fiat' is surely referring to the misguided idea that the writers wrote culturally neutral content robotically. This isn't questioning the truth that all Scripture is God Breathed, it is trying to see scripture as the original readers would have seen it, and to interact with Scripture as the living word of God, not some dead letters.
I think the problem is that people have their 'boundary markers' that define what is OK, and unless someone uses just the right language and keeps everyone happy, and is always putting their minds at rest by answering the questions thrown out there (such as "what about a literal hell?") people get upset. The thing is, it seems to me that Rob isn't doing this for the Church, he is looking out beyond there and isn't going to use the right language and make sure you can see he's ticked all the right boxes to keep the Church happy.
I still don't see anything to get so upset about though.
Rob Bell's book is replete with bad and false information, especially his theology. He says on page 22 that the understanding of 3 in oneness started several hundred years after Jesus' resurrection. Unfortunately, Justin Martyr separates it out, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexander and Tertullian, all well under his given time by a couple hundred years. It is and always has been a foundation to the truth. Paul uses all three in Rom. 1:7, and we see all three at the baptism of Jesus.
Just because a word is not used does not mean it is not there. We see the Trinity all over the Bible. Even if they did not use the word until 300 years later does not mean the trinity does not exist.
What about questioning the virgin birth on page 26? Do you believe a person could truly be a Christian and not believe in the virgin birth and the Trinity? Those are foundational. Rob bell leads you to believe you can be. There is so much wrong there theologically it would take too much space to write about it on a comment. He actually makes a case for why she is not a virgin in the way Christians believe, and then never shows why that is wrong. Not to mention his poor hermenutics in doing so.
Page 35 he says that the point is our joy and that is when God is most pleased. Why? We are to glorify Him and not He us.
Page 46 he calls the Bible open-ended when in fact it is closed. We just discover truth out of and we dare not add or take away from it. It is not a work of art to continue to interpret, as it transcends time. Sure we can look at what was going on in those times, but truth is truth and it transcends culture and place.
Page 48 he says that Jesus came to show what the torah looked like, but that is missing the point and not true. He came to fulfill the prophecies of the O.T. and to take the sins of humans on His shoulders, so by accepting Him we have eternal life and if not the we are bound for eternal separation from God, i.e. Hell.
Rob Bell tries to apply the same standards of cultural situations, as the holy kiss, with the absolute truths of the Trinity and the virgin birth and it is bad philosophy, theology and preaching.
I could go on and on about the book and write another book about the danger of Rob Bell and the Velvet Elvis. I think he is deconstructing truth and has moved into heresy. I think he is dangerous and is teaching fruit punch with poison mixed in it so people will follow. Just Neo-Orthodoxy, and liberal theology wrapped up in a new package with a new smell and resold. Same stuff Jude, Paul and James dealt with in the Bible. He is by all definitions a false teacher, and I feel sorry and pray for those that do not see it.
There is so much here, and I understand that I am commenting on old entries that maybe no one reads anymore, but these spark my attention. I can't begin to address everything written in this article and following comments, but I will ask one question...
Why are politically conservative views and theologically conservative views ( as well as liberal in both cases) so inexorably entwined in your worldview?
What do conservative and liberal mean to you? I think you'll find that they have very different meanings in the different arenas of politics, government, theology and so on.
Do you see Jesus as a conservative? I suppose you are defining conservative as "right, true, upholding the absolutes and rejecting false teachings." If this were true, why would anyone want to be called liberal in any sense? "Oh yes, I hold a liberal view of most theology, I like to change things because I got bored with the old system. I'm not worried that my views are completely unrelated to the Bible." -No on would say that. If someone holds what you call a liberal or radical view (two completely different terms, not synonyms) they do so because they believe that there is truth in it. They see themselves as the Luthers. In that situation, the Catholic church were the fundamentalists, they said how things should be. Of course, their doctrine had warped far from Jesus teachings and the church of Acts, and Luther was correcting them based on his interpretation of the Word. This is exactly what groups such as the Emerging Church see themselves as. They are redefining Christianity because they believe it needs to be done. Remember, Luther was called a heretic too, just as you call Bell one.
(PS, I remember watching nooma videos frequently in Graystone)
-In Christ,
Tyler Chick
Tyler,
Thanks for your comments and for thinking through what you are saying. My responses are just dry and to the point. Do not read any emotion into them.
For one, you would have to ask the person who wrote the article what they mean by liberal and conservative as it pertains to Christianity, but my reading would be the generally accepted definition used in America today. And there really is no difference in the definitions as it pertains to western theology.
Asking me about my worldview is a strange question only because you assume I wrote the article, but I did not as stated at the above, but if it is from my comments then I will answer. My view is this: I am a premillenial, disspensational, moderate calvinist, who believes the Bible is inerrant in its' original writings, and is today 99.9% accurate in what it says. The .1% is only spelling mistakes and word placement changes that has nothing to do with context. This so happens to be the majority views of what people label "conservative." I am happy with the label for the time being.
Unfortunately, you are trying to make the "liberal" definition what it is not by their own writers and thinkers.
Emergents do not see themselves as Luthers and if they did they are kidding themselves. Luther did not try to change the what the Bible says or claim it could be added to, or written by just men that may contain errors. He did not challenge the virgin birth, the resurrection, the existence of hell, or what it means to be saved. If you are under that impression go back and read the 99 thesis or some writings of Luther. He believed the Bible to be inerrant, infallible and complete and unchangeable. He was challenging Papal rule, and other issues that have nothing to do with what you are comparing to emergent church.
Redefining Christianity can only be done in the confines of what the Bible allows and that is very minimal. You cannot take away the inerrancy, infallibility, closed Word of God. You also cannot take away the tenets of our faith, virgin birth, resurrection, salvation, and the existence of hell. To do so is heresy as the emergent church has done.
To answer your question, I am not sure how you liberal theologians get to where they are, accept to try and rationalize their beliefs over what Scripture teaches.
How do you answer all the points I just made about the emergent church? Do you believe in Inerrancy of Scripture? Do you believe in the Physical Resurrection? Do you believe in the virgin birth? Is the Bible a closed cannon?
If anyone answers they do not believe in any of the above then tehy are not believing in the Christ of the Bible, and that is heresy.
I would also be curious to your responses about the quotes that Rob Bell made from the article.
Before you try to say I am "modern" by emergent standards, let me tell you now I am not. I am a Christian. It is funny how emergents like to label others, but do not like to be labelled themselves.
I am also wondering how Emergents have conversations when they do not believe in absolute truth. How do they even come to a conclusion? How do they even understand each other, because they can also interpret how they want? Deconstruction does just that, it deconstructs even the ability for true communication.
Oh Yeah, if it would have been up to me Nooma would not have been shown in Graystone. Just because it happens does not mean I agree with it. It was not shown in Campus as acceptable.
Alan,
I do not label myself as Emergent. I think this was a misunderstanding. By that end, I don't think the other doctrines you named describe me, and unless I described them specifically I wasn't attacking or defending them.
I suppose I applaud your ability to academically label your theological stances. I myself can't get so specific at this time. For example, I couldn't say if I was a Calvinist or not, partly because I am sure there are parts of Calvin's writings that I would agree with and parts I would not, and partly because I am not even sure what I believe in the realm of free will.
My goodness, so much to reply to in your comment... I may not have time at the moment, especially with the articles I will have to look at from your recent email.
The comparison with Luther was merely metaphor, and admittedly an imperfect one. It was referring more to intention than content. I don't see much resemblance between Emergents and Luther, trust me.
Again, as I am not Emergent, I do not reject absolute truth. I will take your word on the fact that this is part of their doctrine.
Did I ever call you a "modern?" I'm not sure I ever used that terminology.
I'm going to need to copy your original questions in order to think them through individually.
"Do you believe in Inerrancy of Scripture? "
If by innerant you mean historically accurate and literal throughout, then no, certainly not. One basic example would be creation. I don't believe in literal 6 days, personally, and other interpretations such as each day representing an age are simply not necessary to my faith enough to work through. It is enough for me to know that God created the universe, the order and timetable are irrelevant. (I do happen to believe in evolution, by the way). The first creation story especially, is also clearly in poetic form.
"Do you believe in the Physical Resurrection? "
Yes.
"Do you believe in the virgin birth? "
Yes, I don't see a reason not to at this time.
"Is the Bible a closed cannon?"
I don't think any further writings are necessary to be added to scripture. I think this is what you meant, but that doesn't meant I think correct hermeneutics of everything have been set in stone. That is, i might not agree with the accuracy of a conservative, or even liberal interpretation of a passage, and could then read other authors and do my own research to come to a conclusion of what was originally intended by the passage. In this way, the Word doesn't change but how I understand it might.
"If anyone answers they do not believe in any of the above then tehy are not believing in the Christ of the Bible, and that is heresy."
It seems I am at least partially a heretic. I'll have to think about what this means for my life.
I apologize for answering things out of order.
In reference to the "African question," it was brought up to make a certain point, but it seems you have taken it in another direction.
I applaud your efforts in India. I was interested to view Jeremie's pictures and hear his stories when I was home recently. I felt attacked in a way, however, that you called me out on what world missions I have accomplished in my short life. I don't think I need to list a mission resume, though I give glory to God for the opportunities He's given you, and Jeremie. If I had been invited on such a trip, I might have been very interested.
I can tell you that I have decided to remain in a typical college lifestyle as far as finances go, for the time being. In our country, it's necessary to save large sums of money to attend school, and I've come to the conclusion that my theology and training would be lacking if I were to learn as I went along on my own. After earning my degree, however, I have recently felt called to change my lifestyle in significant ways. I would love to spend time in Africa helping my brothers and sisters there, and perhaps I will. Maybe someday I will see the smiling Indian faces you met and worked with. At this time, it doesn't seem feasible without dropping out of school. I have recently felt called to turn my attention to urban settings of our own country, so it will be up to God where I am sent. I suppose I want to be able to say "Here I am, send me," wherever that may be.
I don't have the time at the moment to address the "food" question, but it will continue to be on my mind.
Happy last days of summer,
Tyler Chick
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