# Rob Bell Gets Grilled on MSNBC



## ClayPot

The folllowing video has already been posted in another thread (http://www.puritanboard.com/f16/rob-bell-again-his-new-book-66328/index2.html) by Michael, but I didn't want it to get lost in a long thread. Rob Bell gets grilled by an MSNBC reporter about his new book about heaven and hell. You'd almost think the reporter was a Christian the way he took him to task! (Maybe he is, I don't know). I thought some of you might find it interesting.

[video=youtube;Vg-qgmJ7nzA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Vg-qgmJ7nzA[/video]


----------



## Michael

Good call on the new thread. This exchange is worth it.


----------



## fredtgreco

Bell is a perfect example of how you can _say_ "terribly important" and mean "not really important or essential at all."


----------



## Michael

To the Christian or non-Christian it is beyond me how Mr. Bell can come across as anything but silly here in defending his work. A total joke.


----------



## LeeJUk

The man is a British journalist called Martin Bashir and wikipedia states he had Christian parents and since they are from Pakistan I would suggest they are most likely evangelicals.
So he would be fairly familiar with the evangelical gospel etc... and perhaps he may even be saved himself


----------



## 21st Century Calvinist

Martin Bashir seems to have a greater knowledge of and grasp of biblical truth than the pastor. Kudos to the interviewer. May he own these truths for himself.


----------



## puritanpilgrim

The interviewer has a much firmer grasp on the gospel than Rob Bell.


----------



## Oecolampadius

This verbal exchange is EPIC.

Rob Bell: "And my experience has been that a lot of Christians have built whole dogmas about what happens when you die. And we have to be very careful that we don't build whole doctrines and dogmas on what is speculation. Jesus..."

Martin Bashir: "I'm not talking about what happens when you die. I'm asking how you respond here and now. And the question I'm asking you, what you seem to be saying in this book is that God will love, will melt everyone's heart eventually, some even postmortem, in death. So you're the one making the speculation about the afterlife."


----------



## jjraby

Rob bell....pwned


----------



## jayce475

So... I'm terribly confused. He's somewhat of a universalist but denies being one so that others cannot brand him a heretic? Slimy.


----------



## Notthemama1984

7 minutes of gobbledy gook.


----------



## Christopher88

First, Bell had nothing to say regarding scripture in his interview, it was his beliefs to match his gospel. 
Second, the interview was terrible. There was no objectivity on both sides. It was a silly debate between men that lead nowhere. 
Third, if you want to understand love, you need to understand sin, once you understand sin you need to understand justice, when you understand justice, you need to understand sacrifice, when you understand sacrifice, you need to understand the resurrection, when you understand the resurrection, you need to understand regeneration, than we can further talk about love. 

I find Bell, to be entertainment as a educated Christian who likes to debate. I find Bell dangerous knowing as a former un educated Christian, I would have liked this doctrine he has. That is the problem we in the Church are facing, is uneducated, Christless gospel preaching. When you have uneducated members of the body, Pastors who should not be Pastors, and a country that has created its own gospel using the name of Christ, you get junk like Bells preaching to hit the pulpits.


----------



## torstar

Chaplainintraining said:


> 7 minutes of gobbledy gook.


 

When are we going to dismiss this man from any ties to Evangelicalism (good or bad) and put him into the "ignore" pile as we do with most of his ilk.


----------



## Notthemama1984

It can't happen because of his following. Too many people buy into this large pile of cow dung.

As for him not using Scripture, I can't see why he would with regards to this topic. In the interview he states that it is all speculation. Apparently the Bible doesn't really speak about the afterlife.


----------



## DMcFadden

I know one former devotee who was sickened by the various media interviews. He had been defending Bell against the vitriol of the critics. Now, he sees that Bell is dabbling with some pretty dangerous things.

Again, I cannot help but see Bell in terms of his (and my) common alma mater. When your seminary does a better job at asking the edgy, awkward, quasi-heretical questions than answering them and rewards professors for trying out radically new ideas and locutions, you end up with your more brilliant students producing this kind of stuff. And, as Bell freely admits in the interview, much of his position is a reaction formation to the perceived constraints of his upbringing. 

After interviewing several HUNDRED grads of this seminary during denominational ordination exams over the past 30 years, I can tell you that there is a sadly observable line from the theology common to the generation of Pipers to that of Bell's "more questions than answers" shtick today. No school graduates mere clones. But, whereas Piper is more characteristic of the theology and piety of his c 1970 Pasadena classmates (Grudem was in Piper's class for one year before he transferred out to Westminster), Bell is sadly all too typical of more recent grads. They are generally sincere, even passionate, and attempt to reconcile personal piety with their new trendy intellectual ideas. The sponsorship of edgy emergent stuff today is seen in the steady drumbeat of alum events and campus lectures promoting Bell, Jones, McLaren and gang. 

However, many people go to seminary in order to prepare for pastoral ministry, not in order to become professional scholars. The habit of asking more questions than answering them in my opinion results in confused and ineffective parish pastors. In my day, we saw ourselves as intentionally opposite to places like Talbot where we were told they merely indoctrinate, not educate. But surely seminary is supposed to "train" as well as "educate." In my limited experience with ordinands, the emphasis upon exhaustive study of every side of every issue (with a hint of a somewhat snarky bias against the "traditional" or mainstream evangelical answer), has resulted in a shockingly ignorant and uncertain group of ministers. I cannot speak to the adequacy of this type of training for professional scholars since several of the grads have gone on to distinguish themselves in LOTS of schools. However, it does not provide the kind of training I deem neccessary for effective clergy outside the mainlines.

As one of my college and seminary profs used to say (actually he said a lot, including teaching that we should admit non-Christians to communion since it would be wrong to let a merely "intellectual" problem like disbelief in God trump existential involvement in the "body of Christ") . . .

"Choose your ruts carefully. As the old farmers in South Dakota would say, you will be in them for a very long time."

The seminary you select WILL leave an indelible imprint on you. Whether you buy the teaching wholesale (and end up like Bell), or whether you react to it and reject much of it (e.g., me!), the mark will stay for a very long time. My rejection of so much of my seminary experience is no more healthy than Bell's practical extrapolations of it into pastoral ministry. 

Choose wisely, gentlemen. Choose wisely.


----------



## torstar

Chaplainintraining said:


> It can't happen because of his following. Too many people buy into this large pile of cow dung.
> 
> As for him not using Scripture, I can't see why he would with regards to this topic. In the interview he states that it is all speculation. Apparently the Bible doesn't really speak about the afterlife.


 


So he's grabbed a decent portion of the space cadet youth population of which (ahem...) many of us were members of back in the day, and grew out of.

Brian McLaren is also releasing a book but I guess he's not the heresy flavour of the week any more.


----------



## Notthemama1984

Kent,

You and I may have grown out of it, but I am not so sure mainstream grew out of it.


----------



## MLCOPE2

I love that the interviewer keeps accusing him of falsities! Quoting a critic the interviewer says: "There are dozens of problems with "Love Wins", the history is inaccurate, the use of scripture indefensible" then he asks, "That's true isn't it?". And he does it several times! 

---------- Post added at 11:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:14 AM ----------

I especially like when he is accused of making the gospel more palatable. Nail on the head!


----------



## torstar

Chaplainintraining said:


> Kent,
> 
> You and I may have grown out of it, but I am not so sure mainstream grew out of it.


 


I hear you Boliver.

I'm torn between concern for this flock and also seeing Bell and friends as God's judgment on people who like being tickled.

The pendulum swings.


----------



## ryanhamre

Awesome interview.

It led me to find Bashir interviewing Timothy Keller on Veritas Forums... pretty good as well.


----------



## Notthemama1984

Ryan, 

Good for Keller or good against Keller?


----------



## ryanhamre

Chaplainintraining said:


> Ryan,
> 
> Good for Keller or good against Keller?


 
Good for Keller, he does a very good job answering Bashir's questions. I love Bashir's interviewing, he's quick and doesn't let the interviewee mince words. So he even takes the words and bites into Keller, and Keller systematically dismembers each and every question.

Another interesting aspect of the interview was that it took place at Columbia University...


----------



## Jack K

Excellent interview. We need more good journalists who do their research, know history, and actually understand the Christian faith.


----------



## AThornquist

There is word that Bashir is a devout Christian and attends Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NY (Keller's church).


----------



## Notthemama1984

So I just heard a response to the video from someone on facebook. It goes like this....



> Rob Bell has it wrong. Love isn't going to win. Love won 2000 years ago!


----------



## yeutter

I knew Rob Bell's father when he was a District Court judge and later a Circuit Court judge here in Ingham County. He was a good judge and a solid Evangelical. I wonder what he thinks about his son.
Martin Bashir's father must be proud of his son.


----------



## jogri17

Sonny said:


> There was no objectivity on both sides.



Journalists are required to present the truth, not allow nonsense just to allow anyone say what they want with out challenge. Rob Bell is the one refusing to answer real questions same as some politician.


----------



## cupotea

I couldn't watch any youtube video since it's blocked here in China.

Does someone know if there's any other place I could watch this interview?


----------



## PuritanCovenanter

I can't find one Duncan.


----------



## Michael

AThornquist said:


> There is word that Bashir is a devout Christian and attends Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NY (Keller's church).


 
Hey Andrew, do you mind if I ask where you've heard this?


----------



## py3ak

I'll be the contrarian on this thread (please, restrain your amazement). While I am glad to see an interviewer who really seems to care about the truth, and who is careful to frame theological questions with an unusual degree of accuracy, I think by being so aggressive, by making assertions in the form of questions, he actually gave Bell an opportunity to practice being slippery while looking decisive. Thus Bell is able to say very firmly, "No, that's not right" or "No, that's not true". I think it might have been more effective to stay more narrowly focused and let Bell trap himself with his own words.
But of course I doubt I would have done as well.


----------



## discipulo

Oecolampadius said:


> This verbal exchange is EPIC.
> Rob Bell: "And my experience has been that a lot of Christians have built whole dogmas about what happens when you die. And we have to be very careful that we don't build whole doctrines and dogmas on what is speculation. Jesus..."
> Martin Bashir: "I'm not talking about what happens when you die. I'm asking how you respond here and now. And the question I'm asking you, what you seem to be saying in this book is that God will love, will melt everyone's heart eventually, some even postmortem, in death. So you're the one making the speculation about the afterlife."




That is a great punch, he really nails him on the whole subject right there!




py3ak said:


> I'll be the contrarian on this thread (please, restrain your amazement). While I am glad to see an interviewer who really seems to care about the truth, and who is careful to frame theological questions with an unusual degree of accuracy, I think by being so aggressive, by making assertions in the form of questions, he actually gave Bell an opportunity to practice being slippery while looking decisive. Thus Bell is able to say very firmly, "No, that's not right" or "No, that's not true". I think it might have been more effective to stay more narrowly focused and let Bell trap himself with his own words.
> But of course I doubt I would have done as well.



Ruben, I guess I understand your point, Bashir should have given Bell more rope instead of keeping it so tight. While making the right questions so it would be Bell tying the knots on himself. Could have worked too!

I don’t know much of Journalism but in Europe journalists mention often the art of making the contradictory (I’m translating word by word here). Of course that means making their homework right. 

But in the field of Religion there, in most of the cases, interviews are so poorly informed that everything goes and the most politically correct the better.

So I was quite pleasantly amazed by Bashir’s skills, he punched Bell to the ropes and kept him there.

I think he did a pretty good job and made a clear case to warn the viewers that Bell’s position has a lot of holes in it.


----------



## torstar

I was looking forward to his answer on Japan, only the most potentially devastating human disaster since WW II. And very relevant right now. 

[And since Rob is all concerned about LOVE then he would have said something encouraging to the people, especially as they would be most likely taking the non-Jesus route to Rob's idea of heaven...]

He could not have cared less.


----------



## Semper Fidelis

James White played an interview with Rob Bell by some sort of forum where he was being publicly interviewed about his book. At one point, the "interviewer" (a young Jewish woman), asked: "Aren't you just a mainline Protestant posing as an Evangelical?"

This stuff is so old. I find it kind of boring after a while with people finally catching up to the 19th Century and writing books about it. It seems that American Fundamentalism and Revivalism is waking up to the one-inch depth of their theology and see in Protestant Liberalism a way to rescue them from their shallowness.


----------



## ryanhamre

duncan001 said:


> I couldn't watch any youtube video since it's blocked here in China.
> 
> Does someone know if there's any other place I could watch this interview?



Hope this works for you-

msnbc.com Video Player

If not let me know, I'll download it and host it for you.


----------



## torstar

We can have a field day on those sideways glances he makes at 4:13 to drum up a story to make Christianity seem harsh.

I really hope that was a true counseling session... Pastor...


----------



## mcheyne

Bashir himself confirms his membership at the end of this interview: MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on The Paul Edwards Program


----------



## Michael

mcheyne said:


> Bashir himself confirms his membership at the end of this interview: MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on The Paul Edwards Program


Incredible interview. Very encouraging to have a prominent member of the media such as Bashir stand up in defense of biblical Christianity.


----------



## Bern

I just had a listen to that. I remember him from the Princess Diana interviews and the Michael Jackson interviews. I never knew he was a Christian though, but I guess that makes sense in hindsight. Really good to have such a well respected journalist who is a Christian


----------



## py3ak

torstar said:


> We can have a field day on those sideways glances he makes at 4:13 to drum up a story to make Christianity seem harsh.
> 
> I really hope that was a true counseling session... Pastor...


 
Perhaps we could; but we probably shouldn't. Joe Navarro writes:


> When interpreting eye behavior, many misconceptions exist. Little or no eye contact is erroneously perceived by some as a classic sign of deception, especially during questioning, while the truthful should "lock eyes." This is not supported by research or experience and is completely false. In fact, Alder Vrij and others have found that liars tend to engage in greater eye contact because they know we are looking there for signs of deception.



And we don't need to look for sources of hypothetical condemnation: his teaching has been publicly expressed, and can be publicly critiqued.


----------



## torstar

py3ak said:


> torstar said:
> 
> 
> 
> We can have a field day on those sideways glances he makes at 4:13 to drum up a story to make Christianity seem harsh.
> 
> I really hope that was a true counseling session... Pastor...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps we could; but we probably shouldn't. Joe Navarro writes:
> 
> 
> 
> When interpreting eye behavior, many misconceptions exist. Little or no eye contact is erroneously perceived by some as a classic sign of deception, especially during questioning, while the truthful should "lock eyes." This is not supported by research or experience and is completely false. In fact, Alder Vrij and others have found that liars tend to engage in greater eye contact because they know we are looking there for signs of deception.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> And we don't need to look for sources of hypothetical condemnation: his teaching has been publicly expressed, and can be publicly critiqued.
Click to expand...

 

Thank you for what someone posits in Psych Today. I'll go with the training of the police and customs and cross-examinations of proven liars.

Eye positioning isn't evidence but it helps weed out the suspects very quickly under intense questioning.

Appears that Rob thought he could flounce in and have softballs lobbed to him like everybody else did for him.


----------



## Michael

mcheyne said:


> Bashir himself confirms his membership at the end of this interview: MSNBC’s Martin Bashir on The Paul Edwards Program


 
This interview deserves its own thread BTW. It's that good.


----------



## py3ak

torstar said:


> Thank you for what someone posits in Psych Today. I'll go with the training of the police and customs and cross-examinations of proven liars.



You're very welcome. You might want to consider some statistics on people's ability to discover deception.

In any case, however, the more crucial point is not what we can do, but what we should. I have no sympathy for Rob Bell's teaching, but it is on the basis of that teaching, not speculation, that he should be critiqued.


----------



## kodos

That's a fantastic interview - was worth every second watching Bell squirm. And for someone who has such a "pastoral concern" about people - he really didn't seem to care much at all about the people in Japan. More interested in skipping that question so that he could continue hawking his wares.

As for people excited by this guys' stuff, they would do well to remember that there's nothing new under the sun!


----------



## DMcFadden

Rich,

You nailed it!!!! This is analogous to the 19th century liberal reaction to dead orthodoxy and pietism redux.

Al Mohler quoted H. Richard Niebuhr who famously once distilled liberal theology into this sentence: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

Sadly, the emergent movement has rediscovered the theological cul de sac that failed so miserably in the 20th century, thinking that if you add a little more art, a dash more mystery, and hide behind the shield of paradox, people might like it more in the 21st century. Remember that it was evangelicalism that replaced liberalism for the simple reason that liberalism was so open minded that its corporate brain leaked out.

From what I can discern, the cool guys with the funny glasses and haircuts (do we really need one more faux mo?) have come to a fork in the road. Yogi Berra once observed that when you come to a fork in the road . . . take it. Rob Bell and his congregation have done just that. Dan Kimball and Mark Driscoll (both with really funny haircuts) have gone in the other direction.

Bell cherry picks his history, arguing that any fool idea associated with anyone claiming to be Christian in the last two millennia, represents a legitimate path for the Christian pilgrim. But, if 2,000 years of church history has taught us anything, it is that the church has turned its back on any number of damnable lies, ruling them illegitimate and dangerous departures from the "narrow way" of the Gospel.

For guys so interested in paradox, antinomy, and tension . . . I'm shocked. Didn't anyone ever tell them that the love of God, a love that DOES win, shines brightest when held in tension with the correlative truth of eternally rejected love?

The only thing "new" about Bell is that he has a newly "ready made" audience to appeal to with this stuff. Last night I decided to watch an evening of network television. Watching the comedies on NBC (most of them for the first time; hey, I'm a 24-7 news junkie and almost never watch "entertainment" tv). It was shocking to see how mainstream homosexuality has become. No wonder a generation of young people taught that it is "bigoted" to oppose gayness ("not that there is anything wrong with that" Seinfeld used to say!) rejects traditional evangelical teaching. And, with the indoctrination into multi-culturalism, there goes the pluralism card too. Our mass media is reinforcing messages sent by our public schools making John 14:6, Romans 1, and 1 Tim 2 look about as attractive as a KKK hood and a "good" lynching. No wonder Bell can build a mega church by saying what this generation is programmed to want to hear.


----------



## Michael




----------



## torstar

Poor Rob.

Imagine having your "Daddy issues" exposed on TV in that manner.

The Paul Edwards/Bashir interview yesterday was one of the best I have ever heard.


----------



## Jar1979

Over on Gospel Coalition Martin Bashir says that he and his wife are committed Christians who attend Keller's Church


----------



## LeeJUk

MSNBC&rsquo;s Martin Bashir on The Paul Edwards Program

Martin Bashir was interviewed by Paul Edwards. 

He & his wife are committed Christians who attend Redeemer Presbyterian. Very cool.


----------



## cupotea

Thank you Ryan,

I could access the video now.


----------



## Philip

LeeJUk said:


> MSNBC&rsquo;s Martin Bashir on The Paul Edwards Program
> 
> Martin Bashir was interviewed by Paul Edwards.
> 
> He & his wife are committed Christians who attend Redeemer Presbyterian. Very cool.


 
I thought that his response to the question Edwards asked was very telling: it wasn't about faith, but about good journalism. To me, that's a great witness---the fact that a Christian would ask these questions not out of bias, but out of journalistic integrity. I can't think of a better expression of Christianity in journalism than that kind of integrity.


----------



## torstar

P. F. Pugh said:


> LeeJUk said:
> 
> 
> 
> MSNBC&rsquo;s Martin Bashir on The Paul Edwards Program
> 
> Martin Bashir was interviewed by Paul Edwards.
> 
> He & his wife are committed Christians who attend Redeemer Presbyterian. Very cool.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I thought that his response to the question Edwards asked was very telling: it wasn't about faith, but about good journalism. To me, that's a great witness---the fact that a Christian would ask these questions not out of bias, but out of journalistic integrity. I can't think of a better expression of Christianity in journalism than that kind of integrity.
Click to expand...

 

Excellent responses by an individual who clearly makes painstaking efforts to be correct, researched, and applicable to his audience.


----------

