Rob “Oprah” Bell
This video is a satire and spoof of Rob Bell’s Nooma videos, particularly “Bullhorn.” It essentially sums up Rob Bell’s theology and more so summarizes his message from his current “tour”- The Gods Are Not Angry. Listen as this guy {supposed to be Rob Bell} tries to get Bullwhip Guy {supposed to be Jesus} to stop condemning people and just love them.
I found this interesting because Bell mentioned the clearing of the temple by Jesus in his “Gods Are Not Angry…” message and this week {as I have been preaching through the gospel of Mark} I come to chapter 11 where this event occurs.
Rob Bell’s theology is this:
“God is love. He is not angry. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel shame. Just love {OPRAH}. God loves you just the way you are {MR. ROGERS}. Feel good about yourself. Love wins. All we need is love {JOHN LENNON}. Celebrate God’s love. Don’t turn from your sin. Everybody is already reconciled to God. Just breathe it in.”
Rob Bell is not preaching the gospel {1st Corinthians 15:1-2}. He is preaching his own whimsical, well-crafted “Oprah moment” that is drawing crowds, and coming judgement {Galatians 1:6-10; James 3:1}.
Beware if you like the sound of Rob Bell’s theology, he is a wolf {Matthew 7:15; Acts 20:28-30} and he specializes in tickling ears {2nd Timothy 4:3-4}…
The Buzzrd Blog offers another critique of “The Gods Are Not Angry”…
this is so scary!
i’ve heard similar words from other speakers
can’t call them pastors, they’re not… false prophets, maybe
Yes, indeed, Yes, indeed. Interestingly, Jesus never tried to “love”, coerce, and beg people to come into the Kingdom. He let His truthful penetrating words fall where they may, and left the individual with a choice.
Son of the right hand…Jesus never tried to “love” ? what Bible are you reading, not the one with Jesus in it.
Look at the metaphors Jesus uses for faith water (John 4) wind (John 3) telling your story (Mark
returning home (Luke 15)
the only people that used coercion and argument and conquest were the Pharisees and oh yeah, websites like this.
Matt,
I think you missed my point: Jesus never tried to “love” {in italics for a reason} people into the kingdom, meaning, He never pampered them or begged them to receive the kingdom, namely Himself. Of course, He loved, He showed that on the cross, but at the cross never secured anyone entrance in the Kingdom by itself. Faith/trust/repentance gets the Kingdom. My point is that just “loving” people will not lead them into the kingdom of God. The gopel must be preached with lives and lips…
“this is so scary!”
Let me first say that I do not totally understand Rob Bell or where he is going but he has certainly challenged my thinking in a positive and biblical way. I does take me a while to digest what Bell says sometimes because he does not use the traditional religious language and his storytelling approach is so different. I listen cautiously.
What is scary is the writer of Rob “Oprah” Bell. You have set up a straw man and then proceed to knock him down. Your assertations of Bell’s theology are not accurate. Bell would absolutely agree with I Cor 15. Have you listened to his sermons? Did you actually listen with open ears to what he said in “The Gods are not angry” or were you there just looking for sound bites that you could attack???
He did not say that God never gets angry. What he said was that in all other religion’s, their gods require us to reach up to them, demand appeasement and you can never know where you stand with them. Our God is different. He approaches us as a benefactor - He is looking out for our good (John 3:16 does say after all that God loves the world). He reached down to us and promised to bless us and use us as a blessing for others if we look to Him. Unlike the other gods, our God has told us exactly what we need to do to be at peace with Him - to have faith in Him and stop striving to earn His favor. He provides the sacrifice, it was his blood that flows - not ours. Jesus’ death and resurrection was the culmination of God’s interaction with us. Understanding His love for us and responding with faith and trust in Him and His ways will result in changed lives as we start living with a Kingdom of God mentality instead of our own selfish ideas.
heritagenj,
I think if you saw me, you might not think I was scary. I usually don’t startle little kids. Although, I’ll admit that sometimes I can look rather haggardly with seemingly unkempt hair, both head and facial. You might say that I resemble a straw man, which apparently I’m good at setting up and then knocking down.
But to answer some of your assumptions, yes, I have listened to Rob Bell, for some time now. My job as the pastor of my congregation is to first be the resident theologian, to stand up for Biblical truth and protect my flock from false teaching. I’m not a “sound bite attacker.” On the contrary, I’m a “false teaching attacker” and I heard exactly what Bell said. And red flags went off. I think he butchered the theology of the prophets in the Old Testament, even more so Genesis 22.
The problem is that Rob Bell assumed everyone there was a Christian. Do Christains have peace with God? Yes. Do unbelievers? No. Not until they trust in the bloody, brutal death of Jesus on the cross for their sins which satisfies God’s righteous anger against them. Then you have peace, Until then, no peace. Sorry. Bell said, “God is not angry. God is love.”
Sorry, Rob. God is angry. Read Romans 1:18. He’s not angry at Christians, but He is angry at unregenerate sinners. Rob should have concluded this way {amongst the myriad of other ways he should have}:
“God is not angry with you if you are a believer. But if you’re not, you better repent and turn to Christ and trust in His sacrifice and flee the wrath to come. THEN, you can have peace. But not until.”
Rob left people with the feeling that they already have peace with God, which may or may not be true.
Thanks for commenting!
Speaking of absolute truth….doesn’t the Bible say something about satire being from the devil? Huh.
And I believe it says quite a bit about taking care of the orphan and widow….if Christians would spend as much time and energy doing that as they do ripping their brothers and sisters to shreds then I think we’d see a little more kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Keep up the good work, if it wasn’t for watchers and rebukers of past centuries who testify of the true faith and gospel of Jesus Christ, us Christians would be some half-breed of ‘pagan worship with a little ritualistic catholic n’hinduism’ all rolled into one egg roll, instead of the true gospel we still have.
Paul was very stern with his teachings, leaving nothing out for the church to take and learn from so that there was no confusion for the church of the future, but he also assured us that when he died, the apostate wolves would start to emerge from the shadows.
Thank God there is always a remnant, a faithful people who study the bible and let NOTHING mislead the gospel of Jesus, the true teachings of HIS church.
REBUKE the wolves in sheep’s clothing. Their day will come soon enough when they have to stand before the LORD and their knees will quake when they have to answer for 1/2 truths, blasphemy and leading others to a false sense of salvation when these people have been mislead into a false sense of security and salvation but instead they are damned because they never REPENTED and died to their self, and were reborn in the HOLY SPIRIT taking JESUS CHRIST onto themselves and confessing of sins and living in FAITH.
OUR GOD IS LOVE, but HE is a JEALOUS GOD, and his WRATH will be fearful indeed, do not leave this life without your salvation assured and intact through the grace and saving knowledge of Jesus Christ my friend. Even though there are false teachers abound in Christian churches, your salvation is YOURS to HAVE and YOUR responsibility, you can must do your own due diligence (so to speak), your OWN study within the Bible. USE your brain, your logic and TEST the spirits, for they can be evil, YOU can be fooled.
“THE sweetest graces by a slight perversion may bear the bitterest fruit. The sun gives life, but sunstrokes are death. Preaching is to give life; it may kill. The preacher holds the keys; he may lock as well as unlock. Preaching is God’s great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold; when wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results.
“The preaching that kills is non-spiritual preaching. The ability of the preaching is not from God. Lower sources than God have given to it energy and stimulant.
“Truth unquickened by God’s Spirit deadens as much as, or more than, error. It may be the truth without admixture; but without the Spirit its shade and touch are deadly, its truth error, its light darkness.
“Feelings and earnestness there may be, but it is the emotion of the actor and the earnestness of the attorney. The preacher may feel from the kindling of his own sparks, be eloquent over his own exegesis, earnest in delivering the product of his own brain; the professor may usurp the place and imitate the fire of the apostle; brains and nerves may serve the place and feign the work of God’s Spirit, and by these forces the letter may glow and sparkle like an illumined text, but the glow and sparkle will be as barren of life as the field sown with pearls.”
Edward M. Bounds - “Power Through Prayer”
Jesus said that there will be many who come in his name saying Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name, perform miracles and other things. Jesus said depart from me you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. I believe that these people are preaching a “different jesus’ than the Jesus of God’s word. I believe that if they were truly saved, repented of their sins and confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord, the false teachings would not be occurring. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. Man is separated from God because of sin. Only through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the only perfect sacrifice, can man be truly reconciled to God. Any other teaching is false as God’s word says, if any man preach any other gospel than Christ and Him crucified let him be accursed. At one point in my life I worried about the false preaching and other evil things that been going on. I now look upon these things as God’s words being fulfilled and that the day of our Lord Jesus is coming. Each day that passes is another day closer to His return. True Believers should rejoice. But, we are all obligated to warn others of any dangerous teachings that are coming from “preachers”, which ultimately condemns the listeners to eternal damnation, because they have followed false teachings.