I wrote earlier this week about Martin Bashir’s hard-hitting interview with Rob Bell. If you’ve been under a rock this week and haven’t seen it yet, be sure to take a few minutes and watch it now. Commenters under that earlier post have been asking about Bashir’s own faith commitments. They note that some reports paint him to be an atheist while other reports indicate that he is a Christian. What’s the truth? Bashir answered that question earlier today when he was interviewed on Paul Edwards’ “God and Culture” radio program. Bashir discloses that he is a committed Christian and that he attends Tim Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New…
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Mohler Leads Panel Discussion of “Love Wins”
Earlier today Albert Mohler moderated a discussion of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins. I was grateful to participate in the conversation along with Russell Moore and Justin Taylor. Watch above, listen below, or download audio here. [audio:http://www.sbts.edu/media/audio/Panels/20110317-bellpanel.mp3]
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Review of DeYoung Book
Tim Kimberley of Credo House Ministries has written a short, favorable review of Kevin DeYoung’s Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day (Crossway, 2011). I appreciated his advice about how to use this book. He writes: “If I were to start doing a study with someone. Maybe a mentor-type situation with a person in their teens, twenties or thirties this is one of possibly 3 books right now I’d consider reading with them.Â
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Martin Bashir Takes on Rob Bell
I don’t know what else to say. This interview is devastating. It exposes the inconsistency of Bell’s argument. Bell wants to be a universalist without taking the name, and Bashir won’t let him off by a facile appeal to “paradox.” Watch above or read the transcript below.
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Justin Taylor and Rob Bell on GMA
George Stephanopoulos interviewed Rob Bell today on “Good Morning America.” The segment was titled “Pastor Claims Hell Does Not Exist.” The lead-in report includes remarks from Justin Taylor, and I agree with him entirely. “Rob Bell… is obscuring God’s word. He’s teaching false doctrine. And he’s unorthodox in his beliefs.” A clip from Albert Mohler’s interview a couple of weeks ago also appears in the segment. Watch the rest of it above.
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Lisa Miller Interviews Rob Bell
Earlier this evening Lisa Miller of Newseek interviewed Rob Bell about his new book Love Wins. If you want to see where the rubber meets the road with the theology in Rob Bell’s book, then you’ll want to watch this. Miller actually does a good job of pressing Bell on some key points. I think she understands the affront of the cross, and even Rob Bell’s inclusivism is offensive to her because it still relies on Jesus as the savior of the world. Unfortunately, Bell fails to state a clear gospel message. Instead, he gives short pat answers and tells lots of stories. Interestingly, Miller calls him a universalist inspite…
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DeYoung’s Review is Must-Read
Kevin DeYoung’s review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins is a theological and pastoral tour de force. If you have limited time to read book reviews, skip mine. Kevin’s is much better.
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John Piper on the Tsunami
It will be a while before we know how many people lost their lives in yesterday’s disaster. The 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia killed over 230,000 people in 14 countries. Hopefully the death toll in Japan and elsewhere will not be as high. Nevertheless, the scope of the yesterday’s loss will no doubt be of disastrous proportions. The questions of theodicy that people had in 2004 will surface again as more news unfolds. In light of that, my mind has been on a discussion that John Piper had with an NPR reporter after the 2004 tsunami. This interview was tremendously helpful to me then. My hope and prayer is that…
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First Review Calls Bell a Universalist
Tim Challies has written the first major review of Rob Bell’s book Love Wins. Based on his reading of the entire book, he concludes that Bell is a kind of “Christian Universalist” and that he denies the doctrine of Hell as a place of eternal, conscious punishment. Something tells me this conversation is just getting started.
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Zondervan’s Break with Rob Bell
CNN reports on the reason that Zondervan broke with Rob Bell. According to the report, the President of Zondervan evaluated the book proposal for Love Wins and decided that it did not fit with their mission. From the report: “Love Wins” is Bell’s first book since his break from Zondervan, the Christian publisher based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that published Bell’s first four books and also publishes the New International Version of the Bible, one of the most popular translations of the Bible among evangelicals. Bell’s split from Zondervan came in part over this new book. “The break with Zondervan was amicable,” [Mark Tauber, senior vice president and publisher at…