Rob Bell & the Irrelevant Church

Rob Bell, former pastor and now host of the “Rob Bell Show” on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network, is now maintaining that a church that doesn’t support same-sex marriage is irrelevant.  Bell had earlier questioned the existence of hell in his 2011 book, “Love Wins.”

He called the church’s acceptance of gay marriage “inevitable,” and that it should be accepted because loneliness “is not good for the world.”

Bell continued, “I think culture is already here, and the church will continue to be even more irrelevant when it quotes letters from 2,000 years ago as their best defense.”

So let me get this straight…

For a church to be relevant, it must not only embrace homo-erotic behavior, but must also jettison the Scriptures as any kind of authoritative guide to this or any other cultural issue.  The new apologetic today is personal fulfillment.  In this case, no one should be lonely, so whatever fills the loneliness gap should be affirmed.

I don’t know where to begin.

But I’ll give it a try….

First, if the Bible is to be abandoned as mere “letters from 2000 years ago,” then Jesus has to be abandoned too.  Here’s why:  if you relegate the Bible to less than a revelation of God, then you are relegating Jesus to be less than He is, for He embraced the teachings of Holy Scripture.

Second, to adopt self-fulfillment and self-satisfaction as the ultimate apologetic of Christianity, is to make “self” central to all things.  This was, of course, the temptation put before Adam and Eve that led to the fall of humanity.  Pursuing whatever I desire is not always good for me. 

What is "good for me".... is best determined by God.

Third, the “relevance” of a church is not found in its identification (capitulation) to culture, but in its faithfulness to Scripture.  Here’s why:  God’s Word is always relevant… just as it is… in any culture or generation... because its truths are timeless.

We do not gain the world’s attention through a compromised voice, but through a prophetic one.

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For the record, I think the church should be relevant in today’s society.  But if we follow Bell’s strategy, the church will continue to be even more irrelevant than it already is… because it will cease to be the church.