Donald Miller asks an interesting question at his website: “Should the Church be Led by Teachers and Scholars?” His contention is that unlike the original disciples who were fisherman and tradesman, the Christian church today has ceded its leadership to the academics. Churches today are basically schools that are run by teachers. As a result, we have a lot of arguing about doctrine in our churches and not enough doing Jesus’ commands. Miller writes: “Church divisions are almost exclusively academic divisions. The reason I don’t understand my Lutheran neighbor is because a couple academics got into a fight hundreds of years ago. And the rest of the church followed them…

In a recent article for First Things, Gerald McDermott writes about the reluctance of some evangelical scholars to identify with their own tradition: “Evangelical theologians, like other orthodox thinkers, are susceptible to the peculiarly academic sort of ambition that seeks acceptance and recognition by their liberal colleagues. We want the academy’s approval, and so we are tempted to write and teach a theology that will be consistent with its moral and theological sensibilities.”

I just read another blog post by someone who is grieved by the response to Rob Bell’s book Love Wins. The complaint is that people aren’t giving Bell a fair hearing and that we all need to be a little bit more humble about our theological commitments. The post is one among many sounding a similar theme. There just seems to be the idea abroad that all doctrinal controversy is unchristlike and unhelpful to the kingdom. With respect to the Bell controversy in particular, folks are saying that the tone has been too shrill and divisive before a watching world.

Sally Quinn of The Washington Post asks Rob Bell what’s at stake if he’s wrong about hell. She also asks, “If there’s no hell, then why did Jesus die for our sins?”

Albert Mohler has responded to the McLaren article that I noted yesterday. In his conclusion, Mohler says this: “This is…why a response to Brian McLaren is now in order. He is to be credited with taking theology seriously, with making clear arguments, and with a willingness to engage the conversation. I return his candor with my own, and I am ever more convinced of why this controversy is both inevitable and clarifying. “We are talking about two rival understandings of the Gospel here — two very different understandings of theology, Gospel, Bible, doctrine, and the totality of the Christian faith. Both sides in this controversy understand what is at stake.…

In a recent blog post, Brian McLaren takes issue with Albert Mohler’s review of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins. Using a baseball metaphor, McLaren argues that Mohler has made four errors in his analysis of Bell’s book. Here is my summary of McLaren’s concerns. 1st base – Mohler claims to “know” the gospel story. McLaren says that Mohler only knows his interpretation of the gospel, which shouldn’t be confused with the gospel itself.