Tales of the Talking Tiger

I don’t think he’s as influential as he was, but Rob Bell has been a big deal in US ‘emerging church’ circles. He’s the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church (not to be confused with Mars Hill Church), and has produced a number of thought provoking videos in the Nooma series, as well as his well-known book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith.

I haven’t known what to think about Rob Bell. No doubt he is a very gifted communicator. His Nooma videos stand in contrast to the daggy, cringe-worthy videos Christians are famous for producing. Yet I’ve never heard or read a clear presentation of the gospel from him. This is not to say he ’s never presented the gospel clearly (perhaps he has), I just haven’t seen or heard it. A couple of interesting resources on Rob Bell I’ve come across recently are:

• Over at 9Marks is the “Scoop’a on Nooma” by Greg Gilbert.
• Pat Avendroth has written a pastoral response – “Rob Bell makes me angry“.

Rob Bell worries me in part because of what he doesn’t say. How much of the gospel needs to be shared in order to be faithful to what God has done? I don’t think this has to be done in the same way, to the same extent every time, but there is a great responsibility as a communicator to be faithful to the entirety of the message, not just bits and pieces of it. This is a challenge to me too as I seek to share the gospel.

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