Rob Bell — nothing to uphold and nowhere to go
I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it's a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.Rob Bell
Rob Bell chose San Francisco’s Episcopal Cathedral to announce his support of same-sex marriage.
In an interview with the Very Rev. Jane Shaw Bell described conservative evangelicalism as a dying subculture that does not work.
I think there is a very narrow, politically intertwined, culturally ghettoised, Evangelical subculture that was told "we're gonna change the thing" and they haven't. And they actually have turned away lots of people. And i think that when you're in a part of a subculture that is dying, you make a lot more noise because it's very painful. You sort of die or you adapt.
Bell chose not to affirm whether Christians "know" the truth in some ultimate sense
I would say that the powerful, revolutionary thing about Jesus' message is that he says, 'What do you do with the people that aren't like you? What do you do with the Other? What do you do with the person that's hardest to love?' . . . That's the measure of a good religion. . .
In an interview for Odyssey Networks Bell said that, God is leading us into acceptance of same-sex marriage.
Probably every generation had this sense of, “Man we’re living in the midst of history.” What’s interesting about this – and if you look through history, generally great new technological breakthroughs caused a ripple effect across culture. So technology seems to spur all sorts of social, economic, cultural and religious effects. And I think what has happened with the Internet – and lots of people are saying this – is simply you cannot live in your own tribal bubble anymore. You cannot stay cocooned off from how the world actually is.
And what happens when you are all suddenly exposed to thousands of different viewpoints is it can call your own into question and it can have this refining fire sort of dimension to it when you realize, “Wow, I’ve been living with a bunch of views and perspectives that don’t actually work and don’t actually bring life. So I need to be honest about that.”
There you have it. Evangelicals, are a dying subculture and should abandon faithfulness to the Bible's teaching on sex and marriage because the internet is opening us up to thousands of different viewpoints. Really?
And just who is this "god" leading us into acceptance of same-sex marriage?
Rob Bell has lost the plot and has been joined by Brian McLaren, and Steve Chalke, and a host of former evangelicals who cannot stand the heat of society's pressure to conform.
It's not accident that Bell chose San Francisco’s Episcopal Cathedral to announce his position. These "progressive evangelicals" are no more than a return to the theological liberalism of a generations.
TS Eliot's critique applies equally to this new generation of progressives.
In religion, Liberalism may be characterized by a progressive discarding of elements in historical Christianity which appear superfluous or obsolete, confounded with practices and abuses which are legitimate objects of attack. But as its movement is controlled rather by its origin than by any goal, it loses force after a series of rejections, and with nothing to destroy is left with nothing to uphold and nowhere to go.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever (Is 40:8).
