Rob Bell Addresses His Congregation and Bloggers
Rob Bell is the pastor of Mars Hill Church. In this brief message, Rob Bell addresses his congregation regarding criticisms against his
theology, criticisms that have circulated in the form of blogs, talk, and rumors. In a brief message, he makes plain where he theologically stands on Jesus, the Bible, and salvation.
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The following excerpts taken from the three part youtube messages below. All quotes are from Rob Bell.
“Be careful of people who grab a line from an interview with me and wave that one line around… Understand that an interview is hours of talking and that the media can write anything they want. Please understand that you can take any line, isolate it from its context and make the person say all kinds of things that they never intended to say. Please understand that there are rumors and rumors of blogs, and people on blogs can write anything they want. And they can be unbelievably hurtful because the internet is a safe, anonymous place for cowards. And so please be careful of taking things that are said as if they’re etched in stone. They’re not; It’s a websites. It’s an amazon.com review. That’s all it is.”
[To his critics, Rob Bell says,] “When I speak against a community [of believers] there is a chance that I’m speaking against that community. And when I don’t have anything to do with that church, there is a chance at that moment, I would be speaking against something that somewhere in its midst the spirit of God is at work. When somebody speaks against the work of the spirit of God, the word for it is blasphemy. Be very careful about the kinds of discussion you engage in. The church of Jesus Christ is a mysterious, beautiful bride. Don’t mess with it. So we need to be careful that we don’t get dragged into things.”
[To his members who are thinking about responding to those attacks, Rob Bell says,] “Ask yourself, ‘could I redirect the energy that I’m about to spend towards somebody who has never ever heard that God loves them. Let us be the kind of community that engages in the right kids of discussions and be too busy loving people with the transforming love of Christ to engage in the mudslinging that goes on.”
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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