Reformed or Rob Bell?

We welcomed a few new members to our group since our last meeting. Brandon Stern, a student at Boyce College in Kentucky, and Jordan Huff, a soon to be graduate from Baptist Bible College in Pennsylvania. Both have affirmed the doctrines necessary for membership and are adding to our discussions.

This week we continued in our discussion of how to encourage correct thinking within the Christian church. We discussed a few local churches in the Chicagoland area as well as part of Rob Bell's book called Velvet Elvis. We found that Rob may be a typical example of the wrong thinking that plagues so many of our churches. While many of the local churches in this area don't go as far down the road of doctrinal error as Rob, they are beginning down that road as they deny Sola Scriptura and place their own ideas in place of God's for His church. This is what Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill (not Mars Hill Church, just Mars Hill) had to say about scripture alone.

"This is part of the problem with continually insisting one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that scripture alone is our guide. It sounds nice, but it is not true. In reaction to abuses by the church, a group of believers during a time called the reformation claimed that we only need the authority of the bible, but the problem is that we got the Bible from a church voting on what the Bible even is. So when I affirm the Bible as God's Word, in the same breath I have to affirm that when the people voted, God was somehow present, guiding them to do what they did. When people say that all we need is the Bible, it is simply not true."

I would then ask, "Rob, what else added to scripture is our guide? Is it our perception of what scripture teaches? Is it things gleaned from our own depraved nature, intellect and reason? Is it culture pleasing practice?" Ultimately, when you run away from the authority of Scripture alone, you end up denying God's authority alone over His church; something which is ironically stated in an article Mars Hill uses to describe its view on the authority of scripture.

This may be an extreme example, but it is one that is taught by a leader in the emergent church movement. These Lite versions of church are trickling down into churches that once were solid, but now seem to be drifting away from plumb-line of scripture. We must continue to encourage the churches around us to approach God with the humility of a created being, with the deference of a redeemed individual, and with the passion of God's elect. There must come a time when we can no longer tolerate making God's Word subordinate to man's ideas. Perhaps that time is now. If so, what can we do to effect change in the church? Like other great earth shattering moments, this may happen with a simple hammer and a nail.

Next week we will be finishing our discussion on chapter V of the first book of the Institutes and continuing through chapter VI. If you don't have a copy, I've placed a link to the Institutes at the top of the Reformed Links to the right. Also, we need to think of ways to encourage the churches around us to continue in proper doctrine.

Keep your hammer's bright and your hands ready.