Check out this website...
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/08/rob_bell_a_very.html
This makes me physically ill. Here is my written response to them...
Dear Apprising Staff/ Writers
As a fellow follower of Christ, I am deeply saddened by the content of your web page!! I am a 26 year old, Christ Follower who loves God with all that I am. I feel personally attacked by your articles on Rob Bell and on the Emerging Church. I listen to Rob's messages, I have taken a class from him on preaching and teaching, and I have also attended the Emergent Convention. I am not a neo-liberal cultist! I am a person who desperately wants to see my generation come to know Christ, and live their lives for His Renown! Rob Bell has taught me so much about the Bible. My deepest prayer is that the church would stop attacking one another. Rob Bell believes and teaches the absolutes of the Christian Faith! Although he may differ from you on interpretations or deductions from the Bible, does not mean he is wrong and you are right. Nor does it mean that he is right and you are wrong! Who are we to proclaim that we perfectly understand God and His Word? How does what you are doing edify the body of Christ? Do you really believe that people who listen to Rob Bell are going to hell? And that people who associate themselves with the emergent movement are all heretics? I am pleading with you to search your heart and search God's Word, and be thankful that people like Rob Bell have the ability to reach an audience that others don't, and that people who are attracted to the Emergent movement feel like they can be a part of the church. Don't forget your primary purpose! And, please don't judge me based on your personal stereotypes! And, I will try not to be angry with and judge you!
Kristi Carleton
I hope and pray that I do not treat people like this! Oh, I am SO sad!
1 comment:
I've been trying recently to read about the Emerging/Emergent church movement, and I keep bumping into one question I just can't seem to answer: What questions is the movement trying to answer that have not been addressed by the Catholic Church for hundreds of years? Things like being "missional" and raising up in followers a lived, "monastic" type faith are par for the course in Catholicism, fully expected and fully effective. The key difference seems to me similar to the key break between Catholicism and Protestantism: How do we interpret the Bible? Should interpretation be left to men who have had years of graduate training in theological study and traditional interpretation, or should untrained individuals with access to nothing but translations of the text be allowed to read any portion out of context and declare it authoritative?
I don't mean to sound aggressive. I really don't. I just don't understand why Protestantism has felt as though it has to come up with a new style of church for every new generation. There have been liturgical Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, and Emergent Protestants, just to name a few, but all the while, somehow, the Catholic Church has still managed to attract members from all walks of life to unity through the Eucharist with a bond of theology that is understood to be True. It still has, by far, more members than all Protestant denominations combined, and I can't help but feel like the different types of Protestant churches only increase the division and hostility among the Body of Christ.
I'm not really comfortable posting my email address on here or anything, but I'd really love to get a response from you somehow, so if you could maybe post a response reply or a response entry, that'd be really cool.
Thanks for responding if you do, and thanks for reading this even if you don't.
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