The “Gospel-Less Gospel” of Rob Bell

(Originally posted  Jul 27, 2010)

The original recording of this I did disappeared into the wasteland of the Internet. So I re-downloaded it into a new file. Rob Bell has his presentation of the “Gospel” put to the test of the Word of God as well as Christian historical points examined. This topic is long, but important (2hrs). Pirate Christian radio can be found here as well as a couple other sites by Chris Rosebrough:

Description below audio:

The description of the audio above:

My Vimeo account was terminated many years ago; this is a recovered audio/video from it. (Some will be many years old, as is the case with this audio.)

(The below description is from APPRISING MINISTRIES)

In this version of his Fighting for the Faith podcast from his Pirate Christian Radio apologist Chris Rosebrough does a serious and thorough deconstruction of the gospel-less gospel of Rob Bell, a popular icon in the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—morphing into Emergence Christianity (EC).

How refreshing to hear Rosebrough bring our attention to the critical importance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as he reminds the Body of Christ that “the Gospel is not a side issue. The Gospel is at the very heart and center of Christianity; you get the Gospel wrong, you are sending yoursefl—and other people to Hell.”

With this as the necessary backdrop Rosebrough begins his program examining the “good news” of Rob Bell in the light of Holy Scripture with the following, which is actually no surprise at all to readers of Apprising Ministries:

Something seriously wrong with this guy’s teaching. I’ve been smelling smoke for years from this guy; and now well, it’s erupted into fullblown fire… I’m going to play for you the audio from this video. I’m not going to interrrupt it; I’m going to let you hear the whole thing in context, and then we’re gonna circle back and we’re gonna pull this thing apart piece by piece.

Not only are there doctrinal errors in here; there are historical errors in here, and he’s engaging in something here called deconstructionism. This is a very, very dangerous “gospel” that he’s preaching. And I am not going to back off from my assessment; I’ll tell you ahead of time, this is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is not the Gospel that the Apostles preached. This is something completely different…

I am willing, at this point, to stand by my assessment; unless I hear otherwise from Rob Bell, which I seriously doubt, I’m going to basically make the charge this is not Christianity. This is a rehashed liberalism, if you would; kind of an interesting spin on liberalism, the liberal social gospel, if you would. This is seriously, seriously, dangerous and heretical stuff

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This show was done well after my paper was first published on Scribd and emailed to Chris. The similarities can be attributed to coincidence or me focusing Chris in on the issues at hand. My paper can be found here:

In both my paper and the audio portion of Lee Strobel added in the Pirate Christian Radio broadcast, Rob Bell’s history is shown to be way off and in line more with Gnostic scholars like Pagels and the Jesus Seminar. My paper also included Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, probably the premier historian on pre-Christ history.

Some posit that Jewish thinking on Satan is borrowed from Zoroasterian thought, however, Satan makes an appearance in the book Job. Job is a very early book… pre-dating Zoroaster’s life easily. Satan, as described there, is nothing like the evil god Ahriman, who is a dualistic equal to Ohrmazd the good god, rather than a subordinate.

There is a waay more in-depth dealing with this topic of a supposed Zoroastrian influence in Dr. Corduan’s PDF here:

Another excellent resource that responds to specific scholars on the issue is professor Edwin M. Yamauchi’s, PERSIA AND THE BIBLE, esp. chapter twelve. Here is an excerpt from Dr. Corduan’s excellent book:

Zoroastrian Influences

Scholars commonly observe that the real significance of Zoroastrianism lies in the influence it has exerted on the development of other world religions, specifically Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For example, it has been suggested that Jews picked up the concepts of Satan, angels, demons and the apocalypse (resurrection and judgment at the end of the world) during their exile in Babylonia and immediately thereafter. Notions of Zoroastrian influence were particularly popular during the early twentieth century. Even though scholarly support for them has eroded, they continue to be propagated on the popular level and in introductory textbooks.

There is nothing intrinsically pernicious about the idea that one religion may have influenced another one. A case in point lies in the origin of Islam in the life of Muhammad. We know that Muhammad came into contact with established versions of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. We know what those adherents believed for the most part, and we can show exactly how some of those beliefs showed up (and how they were modified) in the Qur’an. Thus it makes sense to think in terms of the influence that these three religions exerted on Muhammad. I have argued that we must leave plenty of room both for Muhammad’s own creativity and for the vestige of original monotheism present in Arabian culture at his time. The idea does become objectionable when the identification of a supposed influence is used to eliminate all originality (or even truth—the “genetic fallacy”) from a religious belief simply by showing that it was derived from some other source.

We can use the example of influences on Muhammad to establish criteria by which we can judge whether Zoroastrianism could have influenced Judaism. In order to conclude reasonably that such an influence occurred, the following points have to be true:

  1. Zoroastrianism must have been established in the form in which it was supposed to have influenced Judaism.
  2. There must have been sufficient opportunity for the Jews to absorb the doctrines.
  3. There must be sufficient resemblance between the Zoroastrian version of the doctrines and the biblical version to make influence a reasonable conclusion.
  4. There must be a clear indication that the influence went from Zoroastrianism to Judaism and not the other way around. This criterion is particularly incisive if there is some evidence that the beliefs in question may have been present in Judaism before the period of supposed contact with Zoroastrianism.

As it turns out, not one of these criteria supports the notion of Zoroastrian influence.

1. Zoroastrianism had a particularly tough time getting established in Per­sia. Even the kings we know as Zoroastrians wor­shiped Ahura Mazda along with other gods. All these kings ruled at a time later than the period of the exile. Cyrus, who sent the Jews back to their own land, was not Zoroastrian. If Zoroas­trianism had influenced Is­rael at this time, then the Jews must have been more open to the message of Zoroaster than the Persians themselves were.

2. The kind of intimate contact necessary for assimilation of foreign beliefs cannot be demonstrated for the Jews in the mainstream of biblical Judaism. As stated above, Persia did not become Zoroastrian until after the exile. So the influences (if any) must have come much more indirectly. An interesting sidelight to this discussion is that the ten northern tribes were indeed transported by the Assyrians to the region roughly identical with Media, the sphere of Zoroaster’s activity. But the northern tribes had no concrete influence on the development of Judaism (in fact, they basically vanished). It would be far more likely that their presence in Media might have influenced subsequent thought there, but we have no evidence for that hypothesis either.

3. By and large, the supposed resemblances between Zoroastrianism and Judaism are superficial at best. Beyond the idea that Jewish biblical writings show evidence of Satan, angels and apocalypse, there is very little similarity in the details. It must be kept in mind here that (1) we know very little about the Zoroastrianism of the Achaemenid dynasty; (2) much of what we do know comes from sources considerably later than biblical writings; (3) what we do know reflects the garbled, magic-obsessed, syncretistic religion of the magi—hardly the Zoroastrianism necessary for the Jews to use as source for the biblical version. The Talmud (itself a very late source—A.D. 400) states that the Jews brought the names of angels back with them from Babylon; we can also allow for the idea that they may have been stimulated in their thinking about God, Satan, angels, demons and so on (in fact, common sense tells us that they must have done so). Nevertheless, such broad strokes are a far cry from proving that the Jews directly borrowed the actual concepts from Zoroastrianism. The Old Testament depicts Satan as a very inferior being, not as a dualistic opponent of God. We find only the sketchiest references to angels. They are definitely not objects of worship, and it is apparent that the apocalypses of the two cultures differ in all details other than that there is a resurrection and a judgment.

4. Finally, beyond resemblances, there are no particular data to support the assertion that Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism rather than the other way around. The very idea of foreign influences on Judaism has its basis in a dogmatic commitment by Western biblical scholars of the early twentieth century to explain Judaism in terms of the supposed evolution of religion (see chapter one). Thus all claims to an original revealed monotheism needed to be rethought in terms of either evolutionary develop­ment or foreign influences such as Zoroastrianism. Wherever such scholars find an apparent resemblance to another religion or culture, they immediately infer that the other religion was the source that influenced Judaism. This tendency also shows up in the ascription of Zoroastrian influence, though the data really do not support the arrows going in that direction (just as it would be difficult to make them point the other way). It becomes apparent that in tracing the supposed influence the question is frequently begged in favor of Zoroastrian influence on biblical writings. A quote by James H. Moulton is telling for this whole enterprise:

It is perhaps as well to remember that these theories do not come from Iranian experts, but from scholars whose fame was achieved in other fields. Were we to count only the Iranists, we should even doubt whether the Parsi did not borrow from the Jew, for that was the view of [the Iranian scholar] Darmesteter!

In sum, the story of Zoroastrian influence on other religions has been greatly exagger­ated. The resemblances are more superficial than real, and even where they are close, there is no good reason to infer direct influencing or borrowing. The real significance of Zoroastrianism does not lie in its influence on other religions but on what we learn about this religion in its own domain, as well as what we learn about the experience of monotheistic religions by its example.

Winfried Corduan, Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions (Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity Press, 1998), 129-131.


The UCHI Himself


Robert Morris’ UnBiblical Teaching on Tongues

Pirate Christian Radio focuses on Robert Morris’ false teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Enjoy the correcting power of Scripture as Chris Rosebrough looks Biblically at the issue.

For more sound doctrinal discussions, see: http://www.piratechristian.com/

Jesse Duplantis Prosperity Gospel ~ 2015 Edition

Chris Rosebrough of Pirate Christian Radio ends his look at Jesse Duplantis’ cultic teachings of the Health and Wealth “Gospel” saying that Jesse is not on “team Jesus’ side.” Funny.

For more sound doctrinal discussions, see: http://www.piratechristian.com/

God Prioritizing Issues… Toe Nail Fungus Healed (Cults)

Cross-posted at: Word on the Word Faith

Warning, she heals bellybuttons with cysts! God uses her in a mighty way to rid people of toenail fungus. There is always more at The Museum of Idolatry.

Chris Rosebrough of Pirate Christian Radio (http://www.piratechristianradio.com/).

Marrs Hill Church Digging a Deeper Hole ~ Warren Smith

This update to an ongoing [apparently] issue[s] at Mars Hill comes way of Warren Smith at World Magazine:

Mars Hill Church, the Seattle megachurch pastored by Mark Driscoll, has moved to destroy all staff emails more than three months old. According to the church’s new email retention policy, announced this week, the email deletions would reduce technology costs. But a group of former staff, elders, and members say the new policy is a deliberate attempt to destroy documents that might be used in litigation against the church.

WORLD obtained an email from the church announcing the new policy, scheduled to go into effect by the close of business today. “We are now shifting to a new email retention policy, which will automatically retain emails only from the last 90 days on our machines, servers, and backups,” the email read.

Reaction to the new policy was immediate, with some former staff members and elders saying that even though Driscoll issued a lengthy statement confessing to and repenting of behavior that has led to recent controversies, this action is not consistent with that statement.

“Mars Hill leaders say they are ‘repenting,’ yet their actions scream cover up and damage control,” said former church staff member and elder Kyle Firstenberg “Sin that is repented of declares the glory of the gospel of Jesus. Sin that is covered up declares self-preservation and a lack of understanding of the gospel. Why don’t their words and actions agree?”

…read more…

To be honest, his infractions are not that great in my minds eye. A pastor shouldn’t participate in this “worldly ploy” maybe, but getting a christian based relational type book on the best seller list for people to see is a worthy goal. Plagiarism is a big deal… if not cited in his writings (as the audio at the top makes the point of)… there are dissenting opinions on this however.

But alas, there are better ways in which a pastor is suppose to act, as Sola Sisters make clear. Issues lightly touched upon in that post by SS that are more pertinent than buying books.

Chris Rosebrough Quickly Critiques Author Peter Enns’s Postmodern View of the Bible

Chris Rosebrough of Pirate Christian Radio (http://www.piratechristianradio.com/) discusses quickley a new book by author, Peter Enns, entitled, The Evolution of Adam. As is the problem with postmodernity and the liberal viewpoint of revelation and the Bible, eisegesis is practiced rather than exegesis.