Answering Life’s Toughest Questions

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:49 — 8.7MB)

Guest: Ray Comfort, author, Defender’s Guide for Life’s Toughest Questions

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” Isaiah 55:9.

Have you ever been asked or thought about one of those really tough questions in life?  Like, why would God, when He could have stopped it, allow the systematic torture and murder of six million Jews and other “undesirables” by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany?

Or here’s another one: since God is in control of His creation, did He purposely cause the deaths of tens of thousands of people in “natural disasters” through the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the recent tornadoes in America, and if so, why?

Even with the most informed biblical worldview and grounded faith, some things in life are truly hard to understand or explain.

But Ray Comfort, evangelist, apologist, and author of a new book entitled, Defender’s Guide for Life’s Toughest Questions, is one of the best at examining Scripture to answer the really tough ones.

Do you have a perplexing question that you’ve been thinking about?  Well, here’s your chance to email us before the show or call in during the show (1-877-655-6755) and Ray will look to the Word to give you an answer.

Nero in Beijing — The Communist Party Declares War on Christians

published with permission from Dr. Albert Mohler

The news out of China grows worse as reports of the arrest, detention, harassment, and beatings of Christians come from across China. The most publicized case thus far is the repeated oppression against a Beijing congregation which has led to numerous arrests and a crackdown within China’s capital.

In a very important editorial statement, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board set the record straight. “Religious persecution is always abhorrent, but in this case it’s also a political blunder,” the paper stated.

Further:

The incident is a microcosm of the wider problems caused by China’s crackdown. Beijing insists it wants to promote a harmonious and stable society. Yet by arresting prominent activists for no apparent reason, the security forces are doing the opposite: Those who were once content to live quietly with the Party’s restrictions on free expression are now compelled to speak out.

Observers warn that China is sending the signal that it will not allow the eruption of protests like those that have spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

There is more to it of course. Central to this crackdown is the paranoia of the Community Party. One of the hallmarks of democratic societies is the existence of thriving “mediating institutions” between the individual and the brute power of the state. In the United States these mediating institutions include everything from the PTA to your local church and the neighborhood reading club.

One dimension of the Communist Party’s idolatry is that is allows no mediating institutions between its power and the individual. It greatly fears these organizations, and especially the church.

One reason — Christians in China now outnumber members of the Community Party.

China’s strategy was detailed by the paper’s editorial:

This may come as a surprise to some in the West. Until recently, Beijing had played a skillful game of applying the screws just enough to keep everybody in line while easing state control over most aspects of people’s lives, including employment, choice of a spouse, housing, religion and even the ability to criticize the government in limited terms. International human rights advocates had to admit that most Chinese enjoyed greater freedom than ever before, and many foreigners downplayed arrests of dissidents as aberrations against a general trend of liberalization.

In other words, “those who doubted the Communist Party’s sincerity were right all along.”

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“Caesar in Beijing,” The Wall Street Journal,” Saturday, April 23, 2011.

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The Fact of the Resurrection

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:42 — 8.7MB)

“Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” I Corinthians 15:12-17

How important is the resurrection of Jesus Christ?  What makes this truth meaningful or significant to you personally?  These are the questions we will ask our guests, Minnesota Vikings head coach (and Christian!) Leslie Frazier, comedian Bill Arnold, former linebacker for the MN Vikings Jeff Siemon, and Pastor Dave Gibson, during this weekend’s LIVE broadcast from “Arise with the Guys“.

The Christian Worldview will broadcast LIVE from 8-9 am CT in the auditorium of Grace Church Eden Prairie followed by the “Arise with the Guys” men’s event on Saturday, April 23rd from 9-11 am CT at Grace Church in Eden Prairie, MN.  Bring your dad, bring your son, bring an unbelieving friend.  Just come!  Buy tickets here for $10.

Lest We Drift Away: A Sermon for Good Friday

Almost everyone has flown on a plane before. So you’ve all sat through those opening instructions from the flight attendants about what to do in the event of an emergency. They say the same thing on every flight, every day, on every airline. And every day, on every flight, on every airline, almost no one pays attention to the message. I’ve flown several times in the past couple months and I can’t recall seeing anyone looking at the flight attendants or giving one second of thought to what they were talking about. No one pays attention to these instructions.

Why? For a few reasons I think. For starters, the flight attendants look bored out of their skulls. There is nothing in their demeanor to suggest they are very interested in what is coming over the loud speakers. The way they drop the little seat belt down and pull on the strings for the oxygen mask don’t exactly scream passion and interest.

Second, almost everyone on the plane has been on a place before. They’ve heard about the seat cushion as a floatation device and putting on your mask before assisting others. They know they should follow posted placards and that the nearest exit may behind you. Nothing new is ever said. The flight attendants never say, “Your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device, an oxygen mask will drop in front of you, and on this flight only your headrest turns into a parachute and the back of your seat becomes a rocket!” There’s nothing new, nothing exciting, so we don’t pay attention.

Mostly, we don’t pay attention because we don’t think it matters. We don’t really anticipate the plane crashing. And in the unlikely event that the plane does go down, we figure someone will tell us what to do. If not, we reckon we’ll be able to figure it out on our own.

It seems to me this whole experience of listening to flight attendants is eerily similar to church for many of us.

1. We have someone preaching to us who is pretty bored with the whole thing.

2. We’ve been to church and figure we’ve heard all the same stuff before. So why listen?

3. We don’t think we’ll really need to use anything we hear in church. And if we do, we’ll figure it out before the end comes.

So we don’t pay attention. We hear the gospel a hundred times and we don’t think anything of it. We celebrate dozens of Good Fridays and it never makes a difference. Jesus, cross, death, resurrection–it’s all just noise in the background of our lives as we try to get our seats to recline and open the tiny bag of peanuts. No one is listening.

But listen to Hebrews 2:1-4.

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

This is one of five warning passages in Hebrews. These five passages are not teaching that genuine Christians can lose their salvation. What they are teaching is that some people with an external connection to Christianity will not in the end by saved. And further, these passages suggest that those who are saved at the end, will be saved by means of these warning. These passages are danger signs that keep the elect persevering to the end.

“We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard”–that’s the warning. Sit up straight. Put your feet on the floor. Shut your yap. And listen up. “Pay attention church people! You are in danger of drifting away.” Hebrews 6:19 says the promise of God is “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” So we’ve got warnings to the drifters and promises to those who are anchored.

Floating Away

There are a lot of ways to lose your spot on the river of faith. One way is to let yourself move away to another location. The waters get choppy and rough, so you take your boat somewhere else. That happens with the gospel. We ditch Christianity because life gets hard. We drift away because of suffering. Hebrews 10 says “But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometime being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes partners with those so treated.” And then verse 35 says, “Do not throw away your confidence.” In other words, “You used to be so firm in your faith. But then you got cancer, or someone didn’t like you because you believed the Bible, or you started having troubles with your kids. Something hard came into your life and it made you question your faith. You started to wonder if there was any point in being a Christian. Was it worth the cost?” you thought to yourself. So you compromised. You gave in. You pulled up anchor and let your boat float away.”

Or sometimes we look for another spot on the river because it seems it more enjoyable. When you first got interested in Christianity it was new and exciting. It gave purpose and order to your life. You liked the fellowship and the people. But then you found out how you were supposed to change. You learned that God, because he loves you, didn’t want you to have be a sexaholic, a workaholic, an alcoholic. You realized that following Jesus meant you couldn’t live any which you pleased. You belonged to God, and the God of the Bible is not an anything goes kind of God. So, unlike Moses, you decided to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin (Heb. 11:25). You decided to drop your anchor in a sexier port. As a result, even though you call yourself a Christian and you may go to a church once in awhile, you are not in the place you once were. Not by a long shot. You’ve drifted away.

But there’s an even easier way to leave the faith. You don’t have to pick up and move somewhere else because of suffering or the allure of sin. You can just drift. If you row your little boat out in the Mississippi River and take a nap for two hours, when you wake up you will not be in the same place. Without an anchor, you will have floated away with the current. That’s what happens in life. Hebrews 6:11 says “We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish…”

Most church people drift away from God not because they meant to, but because they got busy, they got lazy, they got distracted, they had kids, they got a mortgage, a few illnesses came, then some bills, then the in-laws visited for a week, then the mini-van broke down, and before you knew what was happening the seed of the word of God had been choked out by the worries of life.

That’s the way it happens for many people. They never dropped anchor, and so they simply floated away when the currents got strong. They used to pray. They used to be interested in the Bible. They used to talk to God. They used go to church. They never woke up and decided “Today I’m going to stop being a Christian. They just drifted. That’s why Hebrews 10:24 says “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.” Some of the Hebrews had checked out, stopped going to church, just floated away from the whole thing.

Listen Up

So what can we do to stop from drifting? Verse one tells us. “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard.” We must keep a close eye on the gospel.

First, we must notice that it is a reliable message. Both of those words are important, reliable and message. The gospel is not the same as asking Jesus into your heart. The gospel is not a program for becoming a better you. The gospel is not a series of ethical commands. The gospel is not an experience of generic spirituality. The gospel is the good news that God so loved the world that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, to fulfill the law, to suffer as a man, and to die on the cross, bearing the penalty for sin the we deserved, and being raised on the third day that we might be declared innocent and righteous before God. The gospel is a message.

And it is reliable. Eyewitnesses saw it and passed it on to others who in turn told others. The story of the gospel took place out in the open for all to see. This was no secret, mystery religion. These things did not happen in a cave somewhere. The miracles of Christ and the gifts of the Holy Spirit testified publicly that Jesus was not just another Rabbi or another prophet or another teacher, but he was, in fact, the Christ, the Son of the living God.

We must pay attention to this reliable message, lest we mistake false gospels for the real gospel, and end up believing in the Jesus of good causes, or the Jesus of good coffee, or the Jesus of good examples, or life coach Jesus, or greeting card Jesus, or prosperity Jesus, or positive thinking Jesus, instead of Jesus Christ crucified, dead, and buried for the sin of the world.

The other think we should notice is that this reliable message is the message about a great salvation. I think many church people drift from God because he seems so ordinary. They float away from the gospel because it strikes them as dreadfully boring. They give up on the Christian faith because, like the flight attendant instructions, it seems lifeless, passionless, inconsequential. But Hebrews tells us we have a great salvation.

It’s a great salvation because it saves us from a great wrath. The argument in verse 2 is from the lesser to the greater. If the message declared by angels, if the law of Moses given by angelic intermediaries proved to be reliable and disobedience to that law meant punishment, how much more will we face God’s wrath if we reject a greater message about someone greater than Moses declared to us by one greater than angels? Parents don’t let their kids get away with disobedience, your employer doesn’t turn a blind eye when you break company policy, the government will not let you go free when you break their laws, so why should we expect God to let us escape untouched if we neglect such a great salvation.

Jesus is Greater

We must pay closer attention to this message. The Devil doesn’t want you to see the details. He wants you to believe that God is the one Being in the universe who doesn’t care about justice. But it is not so. We will not escape if we neglect this message. But praise God there is deliverance from great wrath in this gospel message. And just as importantly, there is in this message of great salvation a great Savior.

The whole book of Hebrews is an extended argument for the superiority of Jesus Christ.

The prophets revealed God to the people, but Jesus Christ was the revelation of God himself.

The angels were sent from God to be his ministering servants, but Jesus Christ was loved by God as his only begotten Son.

The old covenant taught Israel the way to God, the truth of the law, and the life of holiness, but Jesus Christ instituted a new covenant in his blood that he himself might be the way, the truth, and the life for us.

The tabernacle made with human hands symbolized God’s presence among his people, but Jesus Christ, uncreated, made without human hands, was God among his people.

The kingdom in ages past shook the mountain at Sinai, but Jesus Christ promises a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

The High Priest from Aaron’s line offered sacrifices for himself year and year, day after day, but Jesus Christ, our sinless High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, has made a sacrifice once for all, never to be repeated.

The blood of bulls and goats was shed morning and evening, century after century, for the remission of sins, but Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, shed his own blood for the sins of the world, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, but Jesus Christ has been faithful over God’s house as a son.

Joshua led the people into the promised land, but Jesus Christ alone can give you Sabbath rest.

Abraham was a great man of faith, but Jesus Christ is the guarantor of all that Abraham had faith in.

All these saints and all these things were pointing the way to Jesus Christ, our great Prophet, Priest, and King, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:2).

We must pay much closer attention to the gospel, to Jesus, and to the cross, lest by an imperceptible current we drift away. Heaven never tires of the cross, and neither should we. The saints in glory never grow weary of the singing the old, old story: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Do not let Good Friday pass you by like a set of airline instructions. Fix your eyes on the cross. Not as the place to show us our worth, but to show us the weight of our sin. Not as the pace where Jesus simply felt our pain, but where he bore our penalty. Not as the place where God overturned divine justice, but where God in mercy fulfilled his justice. Not as the place where love died, but where love reigned supreme. Pay careful attention to the cross. Here we see a great salvation, delivering us from a great wrath, revealing to us a great Savior who was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, that by his stripes we might be healed.

“If This is What God Intended, So Be It” — The Presecuted Church in China

Published with permission from Dr. Albert Mohler

The church is known as Shouwang, or the Lighthouse. It is located in Beijing, but it does not have a building. What is does have is enemies — and chief among them the Chinese government.

As The New York Times reports, the Shouwang Church is a so-called house church, even though its membership and attendance would outstrip any residence. The key issue is that Shouwang is one of China’s thousands of unregistered churches. This is true, even though Shouwang has applied for registration.

In recent months, the church even raised $4 million to purchase a building. Instead, the church was forced into the streets, where its members were arrested for the crime of public prayer.

As Andrew Jacobs reported:

Evicted yet again from its meeting place by the authorities, Shouwang announced this month that its congregants would worship outside rather than disband or go back underground. Its demands were straightforward but bold: allow the church to take possession of the space it had legally purchased. Officials responded with a clenched fist. On Sunday, for the second week in a row, the police rounded up scores of parishioners who tried to pray outdoors at a public plaza. Most of the church’s leadership is now in custody or under house arrest. Its Web site has been blocked.

This is a truly alarming development, but it is actually in keeping with the periodic repression of Christians that has been demanded by the Chinese Communist Party. The church has maintained a steadfastly nonpolitical stance, but the Chinese government clearly sees this church — and the thousands like it — as a threat.

As the paper reports, Chine has been cracking down on dissent in recent months. Churches in Guangzhou have had their facilities taken away. The advocacy group China Aid claims that at least 3,343 Chinese house church members were detained or beaten in 2010. Some experts estimate that two-thirds of China’s Christians worship in house churches.

This current outbreak of persecution may have been sparked by the Chinese government’s outrage over plans by some house church leaders to attend the recent Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in South Africa. Most of the leaders were detained and prevented from attending the meeting.

To understand how the Chinese government exerts its oppressive power, just consider this paragraph:

Shouwang’s latest troubles began again three years ago, shortly after its application for official recognition was denied. Officers from the Beijing Public Security Bureau burst into Sunday services, pronounced the gathering illegal and wrote down the personal details of everyone in the room, one by one. In the days that followed, calls were made to congregants’ employers or college administrators. Many congregants say they were threatened with dismissal from jobs or school if they did not switch to an official church. Some left, but Shouwang’s ranks continued to grow.

How many of our American church members would disappear if officials went about threatening jobs and college placements?

Ominously, the Chinese government has spoken its mind through official state-owned newspapers. On of these papers, the Global Times, ran n editorial last week that stated: “All Christians, as well as those of other faiths, are Chinese citizens first and foremost. It is their obligation to observe discipline and abide by the law.”

“But our citizenship is in heaven,” Paul reminds us, “and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” [Phil. 3:20]

While the New Testament commands Christians to obey the righteous laws of a nation, believers cannot bend the knee to the regime as their primary allegiance. No Christian is “first and foremost” a citizen of any earthy kingdom or nation. This is a despotic demand for the idolatrous worship of the state.

One Shouwang member spoke with Christian courage. He told The New York Times, even as his doorway was blocked by police: “I am fully prepared to go to jail for my church. I belong to the Lord, and if this is what God intended, so be it.”

We must pray for persecuted Christians around the world, including these brave believers in China. Let’s keep this verse in mind, even as we pray for them:

“The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” [1 Timothy 4:18]

After all, it was written by a man who had direct experience with being persecuted for the sake of the Gospel, and was about to be martyred for his devotion to Christ.

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I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

Andrew Jacobs, “Illicit Church, Evicted, Tries to Buck Beijing,” The New York Times, Wednesday, April 18, 2011.

2011 Summit Ministries Contest Winner – Olivia Van Winkle!

CONGRATULATIONS 2011 Summit Essay and Video Contest Winner – Olivia Van Winkle!

The winner will be receiving a full-tuition scholarship to a two-week Summit Student Conference this summer.  All students who submitted a valid essay or video will receive an additional $50 off registration for a 2011 Summit Student Conference.  This is over and above the $50 discount that is available for any student who asks for “The Christian Worldview Listener Discount” upon registration..  A hearty “Well done!” to all the entrants for the thought and time you put into your essays. You can register for Summit by going to Summit.org or calling 1-866-786-6483.

Here was the topic for this year’s contest:  Identify key passages related to economics in the Bible’s Book of Proverbs and explain whether those passages advocate for a capitalistic or socialistic economic system.  Each student should define capitalism and socialism.  Biblical passages outside Proverbs and other non-biblical sources can be referenced to make your case.  Potential sources: Money, Greed, and God by Jay Richards, Making Modern Economics by Mark Skousen, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism by Kevin Williamson.

This year, we had a panel grading the essays based on a 25-point scale, with a possible 5 points in each of the following categories:

1. Definition of terms
2. Appropriate and adequate use of sources
3. Clarity of thought and flow
4. Strength of argument
5. Originality

We would like to congratulate 18-year-old Olivia Van Winkle of Mount Vernon, OH on her winning essay entitled, “Inherently Capitalist.”  Olivia will be receiving a full tuition scholarship to a Summit Ministries Student Conference this summer.  You can read her essay here.

We’d also like to congratulate the First Runner-Up, Naomi Baskin of Dayton, TN for her essay, “Proverbial Capitalism”.  Naomi will be receiving a half tuition scholarship to a Summit conference this summer.  You can read her essay here.

Congratulations are also in order for the rest of the Top 5:

• Kimmy Miller, Peachtree City, GA
• Rebekah Busch, Lower Lake, CA
• Connor Headrick, Monroe, LA

————————————————

GRAND PRIZE: One full-tuition scholarship ($895 value) to a two-week Summit Ministries Student Conference at the location of your choice (Colorado, Tennessee, Wisconsin) in the summer of 2011.

RUNNER-UP PRIZE: One half-tuition scholarship to a two-week Summit Ministries Student Conference at the location of your choice in the summer of 2011.

ENTRY PRIZE: All students who submit a valid essay or video will receive an additional $50 off registration for a 2011 Summit Student Conference.  This is over and above the $50 discount that is available for any student who asks for “The Christian Worldview Listener Discount” upon registration.

ELIGIBILITY: Students aged 16 or older who could attend a Summit Student Conference in the summer of 2011.

TOPIC: Identify key passages related to economics in the Bible’s Book of Proverbs and explain whether those passages advocate for a capitalistic or socialistic economic system.  Each student should define capitalism and socialism.  Biblical passages outside Proverbs and other non-biblical sources can be referenced to make your case.  Potential sources: Money, Greed, and God by Jay Richards, Making Modern Economics by Mark Skousen, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism by Kevin Williamson.

ESSAY LENGTH: 500 to 750 words

VIDEO LENGTH: 4 to 5 minutes

DEADLINE:  Sunday, April 10, 2011

RESULTS: The contest winner’s essay or video will be posted no later than April 16, 2010 on TheChristianWorldview.org.  The top five entrants will also be posted.

SUBMIT ESSAY OR VIDEO BY EMAIL TO: David Wheaton, host of The Christian Worldview Radio Program

Email Address: feedback@TheChristianWorldview.org

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VIDEO entries: Upload your video to YouTube.com and then email the URL address to us.  Your video should begin with the following text or statement: “My name is (insert your name) and the following video is for the Summit Ministries Video Contest on The Christian Worldview Radio Program.”

Include the following information in your email:

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“A Massive Shift Coming in What it Means to Be a Christian?”

published with permission from Dr. Albert Mohler

The edition of TIME magazine timed for Easter Week features a cover story on the controversy over Rob Bell and his new book, Love Wins. Interestingly, the essay is written by none other than Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former editor of Newsweek –TIME’s historic competitor. Meacham, who studied theology as an undergraduate at the University of the South, helpfully places Rob Bell in the larger context of modern theology, even as he offers a basically sympathetic analysis.

Meacham explains:

The standard Christian view of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is summed up in the Gospel of John, which promises “eternal life” to “whosoever believeth in Him.” Traditionally, the key is the acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of God, who, in the words of the ancient creed, “for us and for our salvation came down from heaven … and was made man.” In the Evangelical ethos, one either accepts this and goes to heaven or refuses and goes to hell.

Bell, Meacham writes, “begs to differ” with this “standard Christian view.”  He then relates that Rob Bell “suggests that the redemptive work of Jesus may be universal — meaning that, as his book’s subtitle puts it, ‘every person who ever lived’ could have a place in heaven, whatever that turns out to be. Such a simple premise, but with Easter at hand, this slim, lively book has ignited a new holy war in Christian circles and beyond.”

Well, “holy war” is an exaggeration loved by the media, but Bell has obviously ignited a raging controversy within evangelical circles.

Meacham then traced something of the reaction to Bell’s argument:

When word of Love Wins reached the Internet, one conservative Evangelical pastor, John Piper, tweeted, “Farewell Rob Bell,” unilaterally attempting to evict Bell from the Evangelical community. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says Bell’s book is “theologically disastrous. Any of us should be concerned when a matter of theological importance is played with in a subversive way.” In North Carolina, a young pastor was fired by his church for endorsing the book.

All that is a matter of public record now, but what makes Meacham’s analysis really interesting is what comes next:

The traditionalist reaction is understandable, for Bell’s arguments about heaven and hell raise doubts about the core of the Evangelical worldview, changing the common understanding of salvation so much that Christianity becomes more of an ethical habit of mind than a faith based on divine revelation. “When you adopt universalism and erase the distinction between the church and the world,” says Mohler, “then you don’t need the church, and you don’t need Christ, and you don’t need the cross. This is the tragedy of nonjudgmental mainline liberalism, and it’s Rob Bell’s tragedy in this book too.”

This may mark the first time any major media outlet has underlined the substantial theological issues at stake. Meacham understands what Bell’s proposal amounts to — “changing the common understanding of salvation so much that Christianity becomes more of an ethical habit of mind than a faith based on divine revelation.”

To his credit, Meacham also understands that Bell’s argument fits comfortably within the context of Protestant Liberalism. “Early in the 20th century, Harry Emerson Fosdick came to represent theological liberalism, arguing against the literal truth of the Bible and the existence of hell. It was time, progressives argued, for the faith to surrender its supernatural claims,” he explains.

Rob Bell, he suggests, “is more at home with this expansive liberal tradition than he is with the old-time believers of Inherit the Wind.”

Meacham is right about this, of course. Readers may differ with his analysis of other aspects of this controversy, and, in the end, Jon Meacham seems to admire Rob Bell, whom he describes as “an odd combination of Billy Graham and Conan O’Brien.” But he understands that the liberal tradition in theology is where Rob Bell now finds his home.

Finally, this may be the most telling portion of the article:

Is Bell’s Christianity — less judgmental, more fluid, open to questioning the most ancient of assumptions — on an inexorable rise? “I have long wondered if there is a massive shift coming in what it means to be a Christian,” Bell says. “Something new is in the air.”

Like Brian McLaren, who argues for “a new kind of Christianity,” Rob Bell now openly wonders “if there is a massive shift coming in what it means to be a Christian.”

“Something new is in the air,” he says. Actually, arguments for universalism and the denial of Hell are anything but new. The real question is now whether the Church has sufficient biblical conviction to resist this doctrinal seduction. Otherwise, it may well be that Rob Bell’s “massive shift” is the shape of things to come.

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Jon Meacham, “Is Hell Dead?,” TIME, Thursday, April 14, 2011. TIME’s cover reads: “What if There’s No Hell?”

How to Respond to a False Teacher (like Rob Bell)

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:50 — 8.7MB)

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1-3).

I went to hear pastor Rob Bell speak at a church in the Minneapolis area last Monday night.  It was an illuminating evening on many levels (which I’ll share with you this weekend on the radio program) but one thing was abundantly clear: Rob Bell is what the Bible calls a false teacher (2 Peter 2:1).

He’s not just a teacher with a few errant beliefs, he’s a false teacher preaching a false gospel that will lead people to hell.  Consider just one quote from “Love Wins”, his wildly popular book that rose to No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list:

“A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided, toxic, and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.” (p. viii)

The heresy of Rob Bell is not some insignificant, inside-the-church petty squabble.  This topic is the cover story of this week’s Time Magazine with the headline, “What If There Is No Hell? A popular pastor’s best-selling book has stirred fierce debate about sin, salvation and judgment.”

So what should the Christian response be to Rob Bell and false teachers like him?   Read more

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published with permission from Joel Rosenberg

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