Rob Bell, the heresy hunters, and the evangelical culture of fear

Posted on 03/06/11 5 Comments

Apparently there was quite a kerfuffle this week when word got around that Rob Bell’s new (and as yet still unreleased) book Love Wins is, or probably does, or might, support universalism in some way. Apparently it all started when influential blogger Justin Taylor concluded after viewing a two minute promotional video that Bell is a universalist. And so he typed through clenched teeth (if such a thing is possible): “It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine.” Next, John Piper joined the fray by twittering an icy “Farewell, Rob Bell.” But the best comment goes to Al Mohler who declared with a Southern Baptist moralistic bellow that the promotional video was tantamount to a “theological striptease.” Goodness gracious. Now we know where Mohler’s mind is at. For all the vitriol you’d think Bell was a Holocaust denier.

Well Steve over at Triablogue actually read an advance copy of Love Wins and he can report with some authority that Bell is not a universalist after all, at least not if that means “I believe all people will be saved.” So I guess this was all much ado about nothing. In retrospect Taylor et. al were in fact little more than pawns in a shrewdly designed Harper Collins book promotion. It reminds me of the good old days back in the eighties when Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center were Ozzy Ozbourne’s best marketing tool. Now thanks to Taylor’s gang everybody in North America is talking about Rob Bell’s new book, univeralistic or not.

This unfortunate little incident will soon be forgotten. Rob Bell will sell lots of books. And we’ll all move on. But there is a rather sobering lesson here. Evangelicalism continues to be infected by a “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality which immediately attempts to strangle, or stamp out, or raze any theological reflection which is deemed as beyond the bounds.

Presumably this culture of aggression and fear continues because the self-appointed heresy hunters believe they are protecting their evangelical flocks. Maybe. But maybe not. Imagine a newly converted Paul visiting a synagogue in Damascus and attempting to reason from the scriptures that Jesus is the messiah and that God’s plan was bigger and better than anyone could ever have thought. If that happened to be an evangelical synagogue, look out. Before Paul could spend five minutes laying out his case twitter would be crackling with charges of “idolatry” and ”polytheism” as well as the icy “Farewell, Paul.” Paul would be sent packing and order would soon be restored.

Farewell indeed.

beetle

I read about this last week. You may find the commentary from the other side of the fence interesting. Is Rob Bell a Real Christian?
http://jordansview.blogspot.com Alex Jordan

Randal,

In the Triablogue article you mention above, it was not in fact Steve Hays who read Bell’s book and concluded Bell is no universalist. Hays was quoting Greg Boyd’s comments on the book. And it seems Hays disagrees with Greg Boyd’s view that Bell is not a universalist. Rather he seems to put Bell in the same category of universalist he thinks you have described yourself to be (i.e., a “hopeful universalist”).

You put a really bad spin on what Justin Taylor and others were doing. You claim they act within of a “culture of aggression and fear” and are “self-appointed heresy hunters”.

But Scripture tells us that Christian leaders are responsible to preach sound doctrine while rebuking and correcting unsound doctrine. Which means presumably that these can and should be be distinguished. So no, they are not self-appointed– we are all appointed to this task.

And to imply that what motivates these men to protect the body from the consequences of false teaching is their own aggression and fear is very uncharitable, particularly when they are obeying God in issuing their warnings.

I’m pretty sure I recall that Paul and Jesus were both accused at times of false teaching. Just because someone can be falsely accused does not invalidate the biblical practice of calling to account false teachers and false teaching.
- randal
  
  Alex, thanks for the authorship correction. I’ll respond to the rest of your comments (for which I also thank you but which I disagree with) in a post.
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