Ringing Rob's bell...

(Tim, w/thanks to Brandon) Yes, we're already sick of Rob Bell's perversions but here's a post that does the job well. In fact, it's what Justin Taylor should have written in the first place.

No mincing and prancing and "I wonder" and "don't you think?" and "Maybe it's just me, but..." here. Just straightforward exposure of Rob Bells' betrayal of the Gospel and it's been done surgically. Read it.

One of its merits is that the author, Pastor Kevin DeYoung, did us all the service of transcribing Bell's blather, and here's the centerpiece...

Will only a few select people make it to heaven? And will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell? And if that’s the case, how do you become one of the few? Is it what you believe or what you say or what you do or who you know or something that happens in your heart? Or do you need to be initiated or take a class or converted or being born again? How does one become one of these few?

Then there is the question behind the questions. The real question [is], “What is God like?”, because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center of the gospel of Jesus, is that God is going to send you to hell unless you believe in Jesus. And so what gets subtly sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But would kind of God is that, that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good? How could that God ever be trusted? And how could that ever be good news?

This is why lots of people want nothing to do with the Christian faith. They see it as an endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies and they say, why would I ever want to be a part of that? See what we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes what we believe about who God is and what God is like. What you discover in the Bible is so surprising, unexpected, beautiful, that whatever we have been told and been taught, the good news is actually better than that, better than we could ever imagine.

The good news is that love wins.

What Rob Bell calls "love" is actually hatred--of men and their souls and God.

Pastor DeYoung then adds:

This is not back cover copy from the publisher. This is not a promo blurb written by an intern at HarperCollins. This not what Brian McLaren gave for an endorsement. This is what Rob Bell said.

And this is what Jesus said:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves" (Matthew 23:15).