John MacArthur: "Bell’s teaching gives no evidence of any real evangelical conviction"

Rob Bell makes http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2065080,00.html the cover of TIME magazine.

This article from Mac essentially serves as an update of his warnings years ago in “Truth War”—I read it then and thought, well, welcome to the fight, I guess. I mean no disrespect in his direction, he is an intelligent man. But as to this somehow being the quell for concerns about describing him (or some other) as a militant separatist, well, it’s not necessarily a meaningful part of the metric. I know of some men, (whether we were in the body or out of the body we do not know) who have been hammering his false teaching and trying to warn people away from it since before Velvet Elvis came out. I know of some men (whether we were in the body or out of the body we do not know) who sat over coffee with OPC pastors, IFB pastors, and even RCA pastors and pondered how to articulate the problems with Bell’s goofy teachings. Even after VE came out, many evangelicals and even some CEs didn’t want to question Bell’s teaching too much.

My point: It doesn’t take a “militant separatist” to “lead the way” to figure Bell out. Nor would it make one “militant” necessarily by figuring it out. Even left-leaning “broadly evangelical” types in the GR area have had concerns about Bell’s teaching for years now. I am grateful Mac has written on the topic in such a manner that slow-minded fundies like me can understand—we like dem books with pitchers in em…Mebbe next time we’ll be ahead of da curve…dunno…But I gotta go shorten my sideburns, practice “Honey in the Rock” with our IFB jugband (for Sunday) and then I have Koolot patrol at our church gatherin’ tonight…heh…

I know of some men, (whether we were in the body or out of the body we do not know) who have been hammering his false teaching and trying to warn people away from it since before Velvet Elvis came out. I know of some men (whether we were in the body or out of the body we do not know) who sat over coffee with OPC pastors, IFB pastors, and even RCA pastors and pondered how to articulate the problems with Bell’s goofy teachings. Even after VE came out, many evangelicals and even some CEs didn’t want to question Bell’s teaching too much.

Sam, you are right about Grand Rapids pastors and leaders being acutely aware of Rob’s teaching for many years even a few years before Velvet Elvis. Whether Rob was adopting William Webb’s trajectory as a justification for women elders (Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals) or being enamored with Holland Christian high school teacher and author of the video series, “That the World May Know” Randy Vanderlaan’s amateurish historical/cultural studies of Judaism that seems not to be able to tell the difference between medieval Jewish rabbis and the context of teachers of early Judaism in Jesus day, Rob was showing signs of doctrinal error.

Although most CE’s that I know after Velvet Elvis came out, discerned where Bell was going on his journey and parted ways with him.

I found the Time Magazine article in some ways quite amusing, especially his memories of his Christian Rock days with a band named Big Fil. He really thought that they would really make it as a band if only the bass guitar player hadn’t gone to seminary or he hadn’t come down with viral meningitis. I distinctly remember their band and they were awful. But he had the full backing of Ed Dobson from Calvary Church, which allowed him to get gigs at Cedarville, for example (Ed brought Big Fil and Rob with him when he spoke at Cedarville…) I also find it amusing that one of his songs from their first album is called, “Swing me Over Hell, on a Cornstalk.” Maybe it is corn that becomes the bridge out of hell for people that have rejected Jesus :bigsmile: