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 The Jesus Movement vs. The Emergent Church by Steve Gallagher

The other day I was contemplating some of the similarities of the Jesus Movement of the late Sixties and the more present day Emergent Church—perhaps in the same way a sports fan would compare a current baseball team with one from the past.

Both of these Christian movements had their respective leaders and proponents. Chuck Smith is considered the father of the Jesus Movement, although David Wilkerson, Leonard Ravenhill, Keith Green and others also played a large part in its development. The Emergent Church also has its proponents and organizers: men such as Donald Miller, Rob Bell, Tony Campolo, William Young and Brian McLaren.

Both movements have been enormously successful: spawning denominations, launching contemporary music styles and deeply affecting the corporate mindset of the Evangelical world of its day. The respective influence of the two groups of men mentioned above has been enormous. The Jesus Movement was even featured on the cover of Time magazine!

However, the main resemblance between these movements is that both grew out of the youthful skepticism and disenchantment of their day. While the Jesus Movement reached out to the confused young people caught up in the drug subculture, sexual revolution and anti-war movement of the Sixties, Emergent leaders have attempted to connect with church kids that have become disillusioned with the hypocrisy and lifelessness they have sensed in much of today’s Evangelical world.

Here is where the similarities end, however.

While the leaders of the Jesus Movement attempted to make Christianity relevant to the young people of their day, they never did it at the expense of its foundational truths. In fact, I don’t know of any two ministers of the past century who preached the message of the Cross with such fearlessness and piercing conviction as did David Wilkerson and Leonard Ravenhill. Moreover, I can’t think of any minister of the Twentieth Century who has exhibited such love as Chuck Smith and yet did it without deviating from sound doctrine.

By contrast, Rob Bell and his Post-Modern friends have made careers—wildly successful careers at that—out of challenging orthodoxy. They have correctly pointed out the lack of life and power in much of the modern church but, rather than calling Christians back to the ancient paths where true revival is always birthed, they have appealed to the disenchantment of today’s young people by casting doubt on the very foundational truths of Scripture.

Take the hot topic of homosexuality, for instance. In straightforward fashion, Chuck Smith calls it “a perverted lifestyle.” Although he is the ever gracious “Papa Chuck” who exudes the love of Christ for sinners of any kind, the message he communicates to his audience is that Christianity demands, at the least, a sincere striving toward righteous living.

However, because Western culture has taken up gay rights as its cause, Emergent Church leaders—ever sensitive to the world’s frown—cannot get themselves to denounce it. “If we think that there may actually be a legitimate context for some homosexual relationships,” says Brian McLaren, “we know that the biblical arguments are nuanced and multilayered, and the pastoral ramifications are staggeringly complex. We aren’t sure if or where lines are to be drawn, nor do we know how to enforce with fairness whatever lines are drawn.”

Huh? Why do I feel like I’m listening to a politician when I read this kind of gobbledygook? It very much reminds me of my days working with inmates in the Los Angeles County Jail. There were times that I knew I was being conned—even if I couldn’t necessarily pinpoint any particular lie. I get that exact feeling when reading many of the writings of these Post-Modern preachers.

The common denominator among false teachers of all ages is the desire for acceptance from the world. “Woe to you when all men speak well of you,” Jesus exclaimed; “for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.” (Luke 6:26)

Outright falsehoods are bad enough, but even worse (and more dangerous) are teachings that subtly nudge people toward errant belief systems. The sense I get with these teachers is that they don’t have the courage to face the criticism of godly believers so they camouflage what they really believe behind a lot of doubletalk.

How far different was the sense one got when listening to men like Chuck Smith, David Wilkerson and Leonard Ravenhill. I have read their books and have listened to hundreds of hours of their preaching and I can honestly say that I have never had the feeling that they were being anything other than completely forthright in their beliefs.

I recently gave a message entitled, “The Three Great Woes of Hell.” I opened it by mentioning Rob Bell’s book “Love Wins,” in which he brings into question the clear cut statements of Christ regarding hell. I said something to this effect:

“It is interesting that no one argues the existence of heaven. It is only the existence of hell which is questioned…

My guess is that this man has a long history of deceiving himself.
My guess is that he has never been to Calvary with his own sins; never really faced the blackness of his own heart; never really humbled himself before God.
My guess is that it is his own hardened, unbroken heart that has established the basis of all of his teachings.
My guess is that he has a long history in the ministry of telling people what they want to hear.
My guess is that he has never taught people the whole truth; that his notion that there is no hell is just one more in a long line of deceptions.”
So, what is the real difference between the Jesus Movement and the Emergent Church? From my perspective it is Calvary. The message I heard when I came to the Lord through the Jesus Movement in 1970 was that I was a sinner who must repent of his sins. The message I seem to hear from the Emergent Church is that everything I’ve been taught through Scripture over the years is questionable and must be viewed in light of today’s culture.

I think I can understand why Rob Bell claims that truth is “springy.” Because the truth he adheres to in life is wishy-washy and based in the fluctuating opinions and viewpoints of the current (but passing) culture he wishes to appease. What he doesn’t seem to grasp is that biblical truth is as solid as the Rock on which it stands. “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations…” (Psalm 119:89-90)

read more: http://www.eternalweight.com/the-jesus-movement-vs-the-emergent-church/


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 2014/8/30 18:39Profile
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 Re: The Jesus Movement vs. The Emergent Church by Steve Gallagher

Just to be completely fair, Rob Bell does not teach that there is not a hell, at least to my knowledge. I don't think it is fair of the author to state this just to make a point.


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Todd

 2014/8/30 18:48Profile
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 Re:

Did i miss something tmk did the article say that bell said there is no hell..

the emergent apostasy is a better title for that movement ,thats being fair

 2014/8/30 18:58Profile
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 Re:

Brother Gary,

Just wanted to highly recommend to you a spell checking tool to
install on your computer there are many free ones for every platform.
It is hard sometimes to understand what is being written because of
many simple spelling errors.

http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/services/spellcheck/
http://www.iespell.com
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/spell-checker/

https://support.google.com/toolbar/answer/32703?hl=en

Trust that helps.


---

Towards the article it is clearly proven from Rob Bell's writings that he teaches and believes there is no eternal hell. A simple search on the internet will show that to be true.


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 2014/8/30 19:08Profile
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 Re:

Hi Gary...

From the article: "My guess is that he has never taught people the whole truth; that his notion that there is no hell is just one more in a long line of deceptions.”

I don't disagree with the gist of the article but I do think he misrepresented what Bell teaches. I have read Bells book and he does not say there is not a hell. He does however definitely call into question the traditional view of hell.


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 Re:

I thought i might have missed something

 2014/8/30 19:27Profile
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 Re:

Greg, I've been using one that you gave me a while ago, can't remember what its called. I think i forgot to use it on that last post.

 2014/8/30 19:30Profile
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Rob Bell’s denial of eternal punishment goes hand in hand with a warped view of the gospel. No wonder. Each error fuels and exacerbates the other. Eliminate every hint of punishment for sin; ignore the wrath of an offended deity; dismiss the demands of divine justice, and you abolish any need for the gospel.

The only hell that exists in Bell’s theology is a state of mind or an earthly experience of suffering that Bell says God wants eliminated. But it’s up to us to live rightly in order to end whatever hell on earth we might suffer. By living the right way we can exchange our earthly hell for a strikingly earthbound sort of heaven.


Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 148: "When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter--they are all hell on earth. Jesus' desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth.

In that same paragraph, Bell ridicules the notion that the anguish of eternal hell is a greater and ultimately more serious problem than the afflictions of this present life.

What's disturbing is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about Hell here and now. As a Christian, I want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth."

In Bell’s view, the reason eternal hell is nothing to be concerned about is because full reconciliation is already accomplished for everyone. Again, all people have to do is live accordingly:

Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 83: This reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody. Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross he was reconciling ‘all things, in heaven and on earth, to God. This reality then isn’t something we make true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality or cling to a reality of our own making.”

In other words, the only remedy for Bell’s hell is something like the power of positive thinking. First of all, we must stop thinking of ourselves as sinners:

Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 130: “I can’t find one place in the teachings of Jesus, or the Bible for that matter, where we are to identify ourselves first and foremost as sinners.”


Furthermore, Bell suggests this notion that universal reconciliation is “already true” means Christians should not make any differentiation between believers and unbelievers:

Velvet Elvis, 167: If the gospel isn’t good news for everybody, then it isn’t good news for anybody.

And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display.

To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the “un” and “non”, they work against Jesus’ teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody. We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, “God shows no favoritism.” So we don’t either.”

Bell therefore attempts to shift the emphasis from personal salvation for sinners, to an ambiguous emphasis on this vague hope of universal restoration:

Rob Bell and Don Golden, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, 179: “Jesus wants to save us from making the good news about another world and not this one. Jesus wants to save us from preaching a gospel that is only about individuals and not about the systems that enslave them. Jesus wants to save us from shrinking the gospel down to a transaction about the removal of sin and not about every single particle of creation being reconciled to its maker.”

He turns faith on its head:

Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 124–25: “Who does Peter lose faith in? Not Jesus; he is doing fine. Peter loses faith in himself. Peter loses faith that he can do what his rabbi is doing. If the rabbi calls you to be his disciple, then he believes that you can actually be like him. As we read the stories of Jesus’ life with his talmidim, his disciples, what do we find frustrates him to no end? When his disciples lose faith in themselves…. God has an amazingly high view of people. God believes that people are capable of amazing things. I’ve been told I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I’m learning is that Jesus believes in me. I have been told that I need to have faith in God. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that God has faith in me.”

All those quotations are from sources that have been in print for years. These are not new opinions being floated by Bell for the first time. So when Love Wins denies the heart of the gospel message, as Kevin DeYoung points out below, why should we be surprised?

Kevin DeYoung, “God Is Still Holy and What You Learned in Sunday School Is Still True: A Review of Love Wins”: Bell categorically rejects any notion of penal substitution. It simply does not work in his system or with his view of God. “Let’s be very clear, then,” Bell states, “we do not need to be rescued from God. God is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. God is the rescuer” (182). I see no place in Bell’s theology for Christ the curse-bearer (Gal. 3:13), or Christ wounded for our transgressions and crushed by God for our iniquities (Isa. 53:5, 10), no place for the Son of Man who gave his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45), no place for the Savior who was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), no place for the sorrowful suffering Servant who drank the bitter cup of God’s wrath for our sake (Mark 14:36).

Ultimately, all of this goes back to Bell’s view of the Bible. Having rejected biblical authority, Bell has set himself up as his own authority.

Bell has never affirmed the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura.

Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 67–68: “It wasn’t until the 300s that what we know as the sixty-six books of the Bible were actually agreed upon as the ‘Bible’. This is part of the problem with continually insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that “Scripture alone” is our guide. It sounds nice, but it is not true. In reaction to abuses by the church, a group of believers during a time called the Reformation claimed that we only need the authority of the Bible. But the problem is that we got the Bible from the church voting on what the Bible even is. So when I affirm the Bible as God’s Word, in the same breath I have to affirm that when those people voted, God was somehow present, guiding them to do what they did. When people say that all we need is the Bible, it is simply not true. In affirming the Bible as inspired, I also have to affirm the Spirit who I believe was inspiring those people to choose those books.”

Thus, he sees the Bible as merely a human book.

Andy Crouch, “Emergent Mystique,” Christianity Today (Nov. 2004): The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself–“discovering the Bible as a human product,” as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. “The Bible is still in the center for us,” Rob says, “but it’s a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.”

“I grew up thinking that we’ve figured out the Bible,” Kristen says, “that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again–like life used to be black and white, and now it’s in color…”

Consequently, he has no problem ignoring certain parts of Scripture and reimagining others.

Charles Honey, “‘Velvet Elvis’ Author Encourages Exploration of Doubts,” Religion News Service (Aug. 2005): The Bible itself, he writes, is a book that constantly must be wrestled with and re-interpreted. He dismisses claims that "Scripture alone" will answer all questions. Bible interpretation is colored by historical context, the reader's bias and current realities, he says. The more you study the Bible, the more questions it raises. "It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says," Bell writes. "We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people."

As a result, Bell is comfortable distorting clear gospel passages, so as to escape the unmistakable meaning of the passage. For example, when asked about the narrow gate in Matthew 7:13–14, Bell responded with this novel interpretation:

Rob Bell, Interview with Lisa Miller (March 2011): “I think it’s a great passage because the things in life that matter take incredible intention. And I think it’s a passage ultimately about intention and the power of devoting yourself to something and to somebody. . . . Jesus—I think—is speaking of all the different ways that we lose the plot of what it means to be human. So there was a very real, political climate that He lived in and a number of people said, ‘The thing we are to do as faithful people of God, we are to pick up swords and we are to fight the Romans.’ And He’s like, ‘Okay, the sword thing? We’ve tried that. Let’s reclaim what it means to be a light to the world.’ And He takes them all the way back into their history, which was a narrow way, so I think it works.”

Excerpts like those and many others only reiterate the point that Rob Bell’s gospel is completely antithetical to the true gospel of historic Christianity.


from: http://www.gtycanada.org/Blog/B110418/rob-bells-unbelief-in-his-own-words


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 Re:

"Bell said he was surprised by the controversy around his book. Critics said he was preaching universalism, a theology that suggests everyone goes to heaven and hell is empty.

“I’m not a universalist. So that’s just not true.” He reiterated that again in the event that evening where he expounded on that idea and said that he didn’t believe God reaches down and sweeps everyone to heaven."

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/19/rob-bell-punches-back-against-claims-of-heresy/


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 Re:

bell also said in the above artical ................

What stirred many critics was a promotional video in which Bell asks whether Mohandas Gandhi, India’s non-violent leader, was in heaven. Bell’s answer offers a good insight into his view of salvation.

Bell would not be surprised if he saw Gandhi in heaven. “Jesus was very clear. Heaven is full of surprises. That’s central to Jesus teaching
,,,

More like that was central to satans teachings, worship idols and god will still except you

 2014/8/31 7:44Profile





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