The Theology of Rob Bell

I have good news and bad news for our Jewish friends.

The good news is....they are all going to heaven.

The bad news is.....so is Hitler, Hamas, All of Iran, Al Queda and everyone in history who ever persecuted them...........

M. Horton on the New Monasticism

Michael Horton has hit another home run in an article in the March/April 2011 issue of Modern Reformation magazine. He takes issue with the new monastatism among evangelicals, pointing out, and rightly so IMO, that it will accomplish exactly the same things as it did during the medieval period. The monastics then, and also today, can be catagorized into two types. One type are the sects that withdraw from the world in contemplation. To describe this he mentions and quotes from the two key leaders in this movement- -- Richard Foster and Dallas Willard. The other type are the more active sects - basically, helping the poor. The first type may change themselves (which I tend to question) but they do no good for anyone else if they don't go and tell them the good news of the substitutionary atonement. The second type lives the gospel and that's nice, but if people don't hear the gospel, what overall good does this eventually accomplish. We end up with poor people who probably will either remain poor or become poor again. We feed the homeless so they can be homeless another day, but don't they deserve better than that?

I could have become a Christian much earlier in my life if I had heard the gospel. But I guess some Christians were so busy "living the gospel" that they "forgot to tell me. My liberal Protestant church, the one in which I grew up, certainly didn't tell me. In fact, they hid it from me and everyone else in the church. Was that fair? No! Of course that wasn't fair. It's only fair when the gospel is preached and each person is dealt with separately by God -- just God and that person. Postmoderns complain about so much manipulation bringing people to Christ and I agree with them. However, they are just as manipulative whenn they hide the gospel of atonement. In doing this, they do not give their members enough information to make a free choice. And isn't that also a type of manipulation? I defintely think it is.

The New Legalism?

Here is a great passage from an article by David Zach in the March/April 2011 issue of Modern Reformation magazine:

When Christianity is linked as tightly to behavior as it has been in twentieth-century American evangelicalism, it should come as no surprise when it is widely perceived as bad news: a noose that breeds hypocrisy and neurosis in its followers.

Of course he means by the required behavior in "twentieth-century American evangelicalism," as the "don't-do this or that" approach that so many churches promoted. But today we have the New Legalism which I've written about before here. But to summarize: this is a "do this" approach which is just as deadly as the old-time "religion" of don't do's. I am going to be very interested down the road in about 5 or 10 years to see the burn out from this "new" system. The one that says in order to be a "Jesus Follower" you must do this or that (i.e. helping the poor, interpreting the Bible in a Marxist sense of social justice, etc.). One day, in the not too distant future, the young adults of today who are following this "new" Christian Left system will be just as burned out as the old time legalists and then after them, the Christian Rightists. This new legalism may not look legalistic, but believe me, it's just that "old time religion of legalism."

Christian Carnival

Welcome to this week's Christian Carnival. Here we gooooooo.........


*First up is Barry at who am i?. He writes about an American couple who decided to adopt a hearing-impaired Chinese girl in his post entitled, The Chinese Adoption Chronicles. The couple’s description includes how the little girl is feeling, rather scared, as she doesn’t know what is going on. The couple doesn’t speak Chinese and she doesn’t speak English.So how does this turn out? Barry includes links to the couples' journal for you to find out.


*Rodney of the blog, Beyond Belief, writes about recruitment for following Jesus and the true cost of that in his post, Now Recruiting. A short video of Mark Driscoll teaching is included as a bonus.


* Chris of Homeward Bound writes a very good post about the true way of living in the peace promised by God, in his post, How Do We Get Peace? .


*FMF of the Free Money Finance asks a very good question, “How much should we save and when is it actually hoarding?” Another question in this post entitled,
Four Keys to Helping You, is, how should we judge Christians who have expensive stuff? Or should we?


*The theme of the next post by Jennifer of the Diary of 1 is that although we are human, we do have the power of God operating in our lives. Read what she says about this in her post, The Human Condition.


*Scott of the Sacred Raisin Cakes blog asks the age old question,
Why Do People Suffer?. This isn’t a pat answer post, but a well-thought out theological (it isn’t dry though) treatise. A statement in the post that really jnumped out at me said, "Sin isn’t a part of the system -- it IS the system."


*Michelle is literally going into all the earth... .. Actually, that is also the name of her blog. Lately she’s been in Uganda among people called the Karimojong. In this post she shares the way of life of these people. I always find it fascinating to read how people live and think in other countries that are very different from ours, so Michelle’s post was quite interesting to me and I think it will be to you too.


*Kaleb of the W2W Soul blog turns poetic in his post, The Corner of Sin Lane and Grace Way. This is a neat allegory concerning: I have lost my way. What do I do now? Do read this as it's a very clever post.


*Brandon's story could be the story of so many Christians growing up in church, feeling that they don’t quite measure up. So, how did Brandon resolve this? Read his answer in his post entitled, Breaking Free from The Rules of Inadequacy in his blog, INSPIKS.


*Growing up in a Protestant church, which at that time never even talked about Lent because it was too “Roman Catholic, it’s been difficult for me to "get" the emphasis on Lent we’ve seen recently in our evangelical churches. I have to say though, Dave of Disciple's Journal, has presented one of the best posts on Lent I’ve read, in his post, Losing your life' without missing the point.


*Violet of Other Food: daily devos tells us that God actually does have contempt for some peoples. Who are they? Find out in her post entitled, God's contempt.


*Ridge of Ridge’s Blog discusses the issue of waiting on God, with examples from the Bible of those who did, in his post, Waiting.


*My contribution today: I believe the Word of Faith Movement (at least the first teachers) have gotten a bad rap overall. But today, with the clowns we see on Christian TV, is there anyone we can seriously listen to? Yes, and I name two I’ve found, in my post, Better WOF Teachers and Pastors?.

Thank you for visiting today and we shall see you next week for another exciting Christian Carnival.

Diane R

Better WOF Teachers and Pastors?

I've been praying for a long time for decent Word of Faith teachers. More balanced. More educated. Less controlling. Better self-esteem so their teachings won't be tainted with the need to be "a rich somebody." I have found two so far

On the teacher end is Peter Smythe, an attorney from the UK who now lives in Texas.
His blog is here.

On the pastor end is a guy I watch on TV every Sunday while I eat my breakfast and get ready for church. He is on a half hour and is named Mike Webb. He has a church in a fairly wealthy section of Orange County, CA, which sadly, is about 2 hours+ from me by freeway. His website is here.

I hope you check these two out and perhaps you will get a better bead on Faith teaching than we've seen in the past. And, I'm still on the prowl for more of what I have called, A New Kind of Faith Teacher.