You will say, “How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction! I would not obey my teachers or listen to my instructors.” (Proverbs 5:12-13)

Rob’s New Religion Of Trampolinianity

Jennifer Gold and Eric Young filed a report for the Christian Post on Rob Bell called Megachurch Pastor Looks Forward to Release of “Sex God” where they point out:

Evangelist Rob Bell recently talked about his new book on faith and sexuality,... Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality [which] is Bell’s second book and will be released in March 2007...by Zondervan...

The founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Mich., one of the fastest growing megachurches in the nation, took part in an interview with Premier.tv, in which he also spoke of the risks of megachurches and evangelism in America...

The megachurch pastor drew fire from some evangelicals and fundamentalists last year for his first book with Zondervan, titled Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, particularly for comments regarding the virgin birth of Jesus and the concept of the Trinity.

The context of what Rob Bell was discussing in his first book Velvet Elvis: Repainting The Christian Faith (VE) was his supposedly superior Emergent understanding of Christianity as opposed the proper historic orthodox Christian faith. In his excellent review of VE for 9marks.org Greg Gilbert gives us an example of Bell’s skewed view:

take Bell’s reconception of the idea of doctrine. Bell argues that the doctrines of Christianity should be thought of as the “springs” that hold up the trampoline on which we jump and live in Christ. The springs are not the main point; they merely facilitate the greater goal of “us finding our lives in God” (25).

Now that analogy has some truth to it. But it’s also more dangerous than it might first appear. Conceiving of Christian doctrines as springs allows Bell to say that getting the doctrines right is not really that important. If you don’t like one or two of the springs, you can just take them out of the trampoline and keep on jumping.

So in Bell’s pedantic postmodern repaint of the Christian faith he says the springs of a trampoline which bend and stretch are much to be preferred over that stinky and stodgy Biblical Reformed faith which is as rigid and unbending as bricks. You see in his refined, quiet, and quite polished arrogance Rob Bell mockingly refers to this type of Christianity as “brickianity.” And then as an example of how his new and not so improved “trampolinianity” would work he uses the Virgin Birth of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Here is what the Emergent Church megapastor specifically says concerning this non-negotiable cardinal doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ:

What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births?

But what if, as you study the origin of the word “virgin” you discover that the word “virgin” in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word “virgin” could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being “born of a virgin” also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?

What if that spring were seriously questioned? Could a person keep on jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart? (026,027)

The Virgin Birth Is Critical To The Christian Faith

Then Bell provides a glaring example of his shallow and superficial understanding of the deep truths of the faith (1 Timothy 3:9) when he goes on to say, “But if the whole faith fails apart when we reexamine it and rethink one spring, then it wasn’t that strong in the first place, was it? (ibid) But as Dick Van Dale of Reformation 21 said in his own review of VE:

In other words, Bell advocates a faith that can embrace heterodoxy. This faith can “go on jumping” even if it were shown that Jesus was born of Larry and the gospel writers knowingly “threw in” myth...

The issue of orthodoxy, however, is not simply what one personally chooses to believe concerning Christ, but what he considers is necessary to believe concerning Christ. The church has historically understood the creeds to be a summary of what is necessary to believe in order to be an orthodox Christian.

The Apostles and Nicene creeds both clearly profess that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit as a necessary component of true faith. A literal, virgin birth, as a necessary doctrine, is not simply a hang-up of modernistic evangelicalism. It has been a part of the universal church’s profession throughout the ages. By failing to insist on a literal virgin birth as part of what it is necessary to believe, Bell has taken the well-traveled road of liberalism.

Let me show you what is at stake in this issue of the Virgin Birth of Christ. First, our Creator God had to come into this cursed creation because of our blatant sin and rebellion in order to provide the way of salvation for His Own. So yeah Rob, the true Christian will exhibit righteous indignation at you suggesting that Christ Jesus of Nazareth – the only Son from the Father (monogenes para Patros [John 1:14]) and God; the only God (Theon monogenes theos [John 1:18])–try a little Greek for a change Rob–is simply dismissed in your feeble attempt to illustrate your heavily anthropocentric leanings.

You see, the absolute truth is that the text of the Bible is fully inspired in all its parts e.g. right down to the very tenses of the Greek verbs God the Holy Spirit moved His chosen vessels to use. The New Testament wasn’t written in Hebrew, so while “Rabbi” Rob wows those who don’t know any better, the Virgin Birth is critical to the Christian faith. If Jesus of Nazareth is not fully God and fully Man by means of Mary being found to be with child from the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18, Greek) then we simply have a human man with a sinful human nature the same as anyone else.

Not only that, but Jesus would not have been able to die for anyone else’s sins because this Jesus would have been a sinner himself. And on top of that a human man could not die for the sins for another because sin is committed against God, so only God Himself could die for the forgiveness of sins committed against Him. Take away the Virgin Birth and we only have a mortal man with a sin nature who could never have saved anybody. So how could a real pastor-teacher sent by our Lord demean Christ in such a way...answer: He couldn’t.

Emerging False Prophets In Postmodern Playpens

But this is the whole problem with worldly men like Rob Bell trying to teach spiritual truths in this neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church. Here in their postmodern playpens these deceivers only fulfill the words of the Apostle Peter:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Peter 2:1-3, NASB)

You want to know what the true picture of Christian spirituality is like in this world so hostile to God? Take a long walk on an overcast and frosty December morning when it’s twenty degrees with a thirty mile an hour wind blowing straight into your face. This will give you a very good indication of just how much Satan hates the Spirit of Christ within you and what it will be like for you the rest of your days in your “journey” through this cursed creation here in this life.

Of course if you were instead to take the broad road of religious deception with Rob Bell and Brian McLaren and Rick Warren and Joel Osteen –whichever doctrines of demons they might be teaching–why the Devil will simply put his hand on your shoulder and whisper in your ear, “Nice job.” But know this, just like any true child of God, for as long as my Lord and Master chooses to sustain me I will always hate with a pure hatred (see–Psalm 139:21) that which hates my Lord and Savior. And what is more we will fight it tooth and nail until we can fight no more–to the end.

The fact is Rob Bell is apostate at best and this candy-coated Christian comedian wannabe is little more than the Joel Osteen of the pouty postmodern set. The real Jesus says leave Emerging Hollow Men like these because:

“Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:13-14)

ROB BELL: TRAMPOLINIANITY HITS A BRICK WALL

NOTE:

Also, I am looking into an area concerning Rob Bell and I would like to ask readers to help me locate an interview which was done with Bell at the time of the International Christian Retail Show in Denver back in July of 2005 when he was promoting Velvet Elvis. From what I am told it was a woman reporter from a Midwestern publication. It was posted online and if anyone might have that interview or could send me the link I would greatly appreciate it. apprising@hughes.net