"hip theology" 2.0

Rob Bell is back on the theological circuit with a new book. Just as warm and compassionate as before in "love wins". He begins this new video saying,  "I think there are a lot of people in our culture who can't do the God sort of belief system or the idea, so there is a very very very popular movement that essentially says this is all there is." The problem with any type of theology that caters to a specific audience is, it ends up looking and sounding likes it audience. That kind of chameleon Christianity is exactly what Rob Bell is talking about in his new book. It is an attempt to get people back into the church with soft, comfortable, therapeutic language and tone. His idea of overly compassionate theology is explicit when he explains that Atheism is not good enough explanation for life's questions, because of experience. "These seemingly supernatural occurrences have no other explanation except there is a loving God who gave them to you" seems to be the main idea. True God does give us experiences in life in order to grow to know him and deepen our affection for him. Although that is true this is not the center for our understanding of God.

If the new book entitled "What we talk about, when we talk about God" is as creative and organic as it sounds the orthodox community ought to be concerned about this book. That being said I am no prophet so I won't make predictions on the book but I will say this promotional video raises similar concern that the love wins promo did. Talking about God in new and fresh ways are fine, but when they re-define your theology in a way that makes appeals to people who are not religious, it will probably have a tough time fitting into the orthodoxy. Rob Bell is not tackling doctrines like sex or hell anymore that evangelicals even range on this book is a spear head at our understanding of God, which means we have a lot to worry about.

What concerns me the most is how he defines God at the end of the video. He makes the claim that God is not pulling us back to primitive living but instead always pulling us forward. This is Niebuhr and Bultmann for public consumption. It is a progressive and modern theological thrust; this makes works like Christianity and Liberalism a key text for Christians today. J Gresham Machen, Cornelius Van Til and Carl Henry were all men who confronted the liberal movement of the 20th century head on, we need to pay attention to these men and respond to men like Rob Bell in a similar fashion. Pay attention to what will happen with this book which comes out on March 12th 2013.