Well personally, one of my close friends approached me once with Velvet Elvis asking me what I thought of it (he was in favor of it), and I showed him some of the troubling things in the introduction that undermined salvation by faith and he was shocked.

I gave him a link to fightingforthefaith.com where he listened to some of his sermon reviews on Rob Bell and other things, and he realized how he himself didn’t really understand the gospel, and now he really grasps law and gospel, and trusts Jesus for salvation.

I really think that it does matter that we refute those who are in error, especially someone with as much influence as Rob Bell. People really do get saved through it.

all things new,
tony

I understand your spirit here, but the position is both unbiblical and illogical.

It’s funny, I gave a Rob bell dvd to an agnostic and he told me that he thought that Bell was too fundamental. Why? Because Bell talked about trusting Jesus by faith. And on this site I read about christians attempting to correct bell for his mistake.

This is just my opinion and I have been wrong before. But this seems like a waste of time. Critics don’t change the world, people who take action with the gospel change the world. I guess the question we all need to wrestle with is – are we taking action?

I live in a city where the methodist accuse the pentecostals of being false teachers and the pentecostals accuse the baptist of being false teachers and Everyone accuses the non-denominational churches of being false teachers. And ALL of these churches claim that they believe the bible is God’s word.
I know, who else? Who else can we rip apart and point out their mistakes? Who else can we correct? What sermon can we pick apart while the little girl who lives next door to us is cutting her skin because her step dad molested her? Could we stop arguing long enough to notice the scars instead of the greek mistakes?

Critics don’t change the world, people who take action with the gospel do.

I meant “Sinners in the Hand’s’ of an Angry God. My apologies to all the grammar mavens out there and rest assured I do know the difference between singular and plural. Just want to save you all the trouble of correcting me.

In the past, or in other more sophisticated locations, what “got ‘em in the door” may have been pipe organs, brilliant parsing of Greek or Hebrew words, singing songs written in the 1700s (slowly), etc. Here, and at this time that doesn’t seem to work as well as it once did.

A video that is well crafted, with hopefully and almost inevitably, some mistakes we can then discuss, seems to have a better chance to interest people today. So, with God’s leading I pray none of us turn on the dvd player and walk away leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions! If we can get unsaved, unchurched, unconvinced, etc. in the door we have a chance. I doubt that preaching “Sinners in the hand of an angry God” would pack them in any church nowadays.

I guess that most of those posting responses on this blog wouldn’t agree with everything presented by someone else. I mean the Baptists won’t agree with the Lutherans, the Methodists won’t agree with the Pentecostal folks, etc.

So, maybe we could view the NOOMA videos more as a beginning point from which we could present the gospel clearly than as complete systematic theology courses in 10 minutes. If we can bring people to an understanding of God’s love for them, fill in any blanks left in the videos, start a discussion about what Christ did on the cross for them, discuss where we believe the video may have gone astray, etc then they may be a useful resource. If the videos aren’t fresh and edgy enough to attract the curious, then I guess it is on to loud music and theatrical smoke. I doubt if Greek lessons, Hebrew word studies, and arguments over how many times a person must be dunked, if at all, to be properly baptized will have them waiting for seats.

God bless you all.

Please demonstrate the effectiveness of anything you are involved in to me before you stand in a corner on a little soap box

You would be much more convincing if you weren’t standing on that soap-box of your own.

I would assume by “learned nothing of grace” you mean “told the truth.”

It does seem that those who are most critical have not yet produced anything nearly so stimulating, thought provoking or warming as Nooma, almost certainly do not have anything like the talent or understanding of the world in which we live.

Knowing what the words say is ~NOT~ the same thing as knowing what they mean.
Please demonstrate the effectiveness of anything you are involved in to me before you stand in a corner on a little soap box proving once more to me that the fundamentalist ‘look at me and how right I am’ brigade have learned nothing of grace in the 40 years I have had to suffer under their burden.

False truth may indeed be “thought-provoking,” but it’s still false.

“I find that arguments such as this one merely highlight the fact that we all think we know best, when really we don’t!”

Joe, might want to work on not begging the question if you want people to pay more attention to your arguments.

Rob seems to be a nice guy–but, niceness needs to be paired with an intentional orthodoxy. He has sway over many often because of the unbiblical things he says. This makes his ideas the problem–the danger.

Thanks Andy.

I would tend to disagree with this bold and demeaning statement. As a current, young (23) theological student, with some background in youth work, I have found Rob Bell’s musings to be of significant use as thought-provoking tools. Granted, they may not be totally sound in all that they say, but when have you ever heard a sermon with which you totally agree, or in which there is not some personal interpretation made by the preacher?
I think that they are only dangerous to evangelical youth who are not being taught “proper” theology in their own churches. I think we should all be more concerned (myself included) with how we ourselves interpret scripture and teach the young people within our churches (and outside our churches).
I find that arguments such as this one merely highlight the fact that we all think we know best, when really we don’t!

Blessings
Joe