The time I met Rob Bell

Our youth ministry used to camp at the Creation Festival each summer. Creation is the largest Christian music festival in the world, so they tend to draw Christian celebrities. You know, not really celebrities, except for in Christian circles. I guess you could call them “minor Christian celebrities.” They hit the Jackpot one year by getting the most major of the minor Christian celebrities, by coercing Rob Bell to speak there.

Behind the field of screaming teenagers is a vendor area. This is where they sell Christian paraphernalia. I dislike Christian paraphernalia more than I dislike minor Christian celebrities. They would sell t-shirts, for instance, with brand names that were changed just slightly to make them, well, Christian. Here is an example:

The most offensive one that I saw there was made to look like Mountain Dew. It was offensive because instead of saying “Do the Dew,” it said, “Do the Jew.” I’m not kidding. It really said that. (You can see other eye-rolling designs at this site.)

So I was leafing through piles of these kinds of T’s, and imagining which of them my students might be wearing later, when I looked up to see Rob Bell right in front of me. I must admit, I was a bit star-struck at first. I mean, it was Rob Bell, the most major of the minor Christian celebrities. He looked at me, and paused to let me say something first. All I could come up with was:

“Hey, you’re Rob Bell!”

He said yes, yes he was. Then I stumbled again, wondering how to engage him, and found myself saying:

“I really like your Noomas!”

I really like your Noomas? Really? That’s what I could come up with? (Nooma videos, of course, are Rob Bell’s bestselling videos, creatively done on a variety of issues, leading him to almost instantaneous major minor Christian celebrity.)

He said, “thanks” and then walked away.

I think if I were to bump into Rob Bell again, I would probably ask him about his new book “Love Wins.” I can’t imagine he wanted the kind of publicity, notoriety, and controversy that it brought him. Christian celebrity or not. I think I would ask him if he wanted a re-do.

(Wait, or is it, a re-dew?)

The Apples and Oranges of Rob Bell

Rob Bell is talking about heaven in hell in his new book “Love Wins,” and is revealing much of his beliefs from the book in various interviews online and on TV. In fact, I think he is approaching Charlie Sheen level of media blitzing. I have always admired Rob, but I have concerns about some of the views he has voiced in these interviews.

I would summarize my concerns this way: If I told you I had an apple, that I love eating apples, and you said “Oh yea? What’s that apple like?” And I say: “This apple is awesome. It’s orange, juicy, seedless, and this particular apple only grows in Florida.”

You would say, “Ummm, are you sure that’s not an orange?”
Rob Bell is saying that he believes in the same Evangelical “apple," but he consistently describes it as something else. Here are some specific beliefs I heard from Rob (the “apples”), but also how he described those beliefs (the “oranges”).

The Apple. Rob has been asked if he is a universalist. Does he believe that people will eventually end up in eternal life with God, even if they don’t believe in the name of Jesus. He repeatedly says no, he is definitely not a universalist.
The Orange. Rob goes on to describe salvation as a “wide stream,” that we will be surprised at how many people and what kind of people will be in heaven. He goes so far as to say that people who end up in hell will still have a chance at salvation long after they die.

The Apple. Rob has been asked if hell is a “literal” place. By this, Christians wonder if hell is a destination of judgment as described by the Scriptures—a place that God has designated for those who resist his offer of new life through Jesus. Rob says, yes, it is!
The Orange. When Rob goes on to describe hell, he consistently describes it as something humans create in the here and now. It is a “hell on earth.” It is the hell we create when we are prejudiced, or unjust, or abusive. We create our own hell, and it is our own judgment. We choose not to go to heaven, because after all, Rob says, a racist person would never want to be in heaven anyway with all those different races.

The Apple. Rob has been asked if Jesus is still the only way to God, and therefore to heaven. He has said yes, of course! Jesus is the only way.
The Orange. Rob then begins to describe Jesus as a “mechanism” that is used to get to God. It turns out this “mechanism” can come in various forms (his example for the Jews is Moses striking water from a rock). People of various religions and beliefs may be coming to God through Jesus’ mechanisms, but these may look very different from what many Evangelical Christians would call a “personal relationship with Jesus.”

The Apple. Rob Bell has said that he is “not a theologian” in fact he said that he is not even a “smart guy.”
The Orange. Rob Bell is on a campaign to change the way people think about one of the most critical elements of Christianity: the nature of salvation through the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross. In fact, Rob may very well be the most influential and dynamic theologian for younger Believers living today.

Thoughts?