If you're reading this, you've probably heard the news and read the blogs: Rob Bell is being accused of preaching Universalism in his new book, Love Wins. His name was blowing up the trending topics on Saturday and discussions about this topic was all over this here interwebs. I will first point out that I once heard a sermon of Bell's where he said he wasn't actually that into "Love Wins" (a campaign that came out of his community) anymore because it was too complicated, instead, he liked, "Love."
Forgetting all that though, if you haven't heard the story, a blogger wrote about Bell's new book here.
Then, John Piper (my favorite theologian and pastor of all time...) wrote this and linked the blog post in a tweet: "Farewell, Rob Bell."
Nice, Piper. Very pastoral of you.
You know, I've got to agree with all of the others...the most bothersome thing about this whole mess is that the Piperists (and yes, I do take him as their leader) seem to be sooooo convinced about the fact that they are right when it comes to salvation and they're basing their argument where they themselves admitted that Bell's language was ambiguous at best! Unbelievable. [Click on "salvation" to see my previous thoughts about how God goes about "saving people"]
And as far as "Farewell, Rob Bell" is concerned...I'm not even sure that I know what he was intending to mean (for those who have heard Piper speak before, this shouldn't be a new concept). I do know one thing about the comment though: it is not loving, it is not pastoral, and it seems to be downright rude.
So, perhaps here I will let Piper's words speak for themselves. Like Charlie Sheen, Piper's words define who he is: a butthead.
Guess who will be skipping Piper's session at Passion next year.
I love you Piper(Jesus commanded it), but you do not have the right to be so rude to others. This is obviously not the first time in history this has happened, church fathers argued in public over and over and called each other "heretics" and the like, but that doesn't mean this has got to go on.
Charlie Sheen demanded an apology from Chuck Lorre. Rob Bell doesn't have the heart, but I think he deserves an apology from Piper.
-B
PS - Allison just informed me that she preordered Bell's book.