Unapologetic Christianity

This year saw the controversial publication of Rob Bell’s Love Wins.

It received plenty of media attention, including an insightful review by Nick Pollard in EN. Bell’s NOOMA series of videos and lavishly illustrated books have created an enthusiastic following. Even before its release, the book was generating controversy. Was Rob Bell about to endorse the doctrine of universalism: that all people will one day be saved? In the US, the publishers were aware of the sales potential.

They had Bell appearing on various mainstream secular TV and radio shows to promote his ideas. No, he was not a universalist. Yes, he thought God might one day save all people. No, he was not a heretic. Yes, he wanted to emphasise love, hope, inclusiveness and an optimistic Christianity. Was this a great media opportunity for the gospel? Is this the kind of apologetics that our world needs? A Christianity without the hard edges, a gospel for the breakfast TV sofa?

Hard questioning

There was one TV interview that probably did not go the way Rob Bell expected. Martin Bashir gave him a rather harder time. Bashir is familiar to UK viewers for his work with ITV and Panorama. His interviews with Princess Diana and Michael Jackson gave him global prominence and, since then, he hosts various American news programmes. So Rob Bell’s controversial book launch landed him a spot on primetime American television to make a pitch for the gospel.

Given the secular setting, and Martin Bashir himself a Christian believer, he may have expected an easy time, but the questioning was tough. Bashir asked: ‘One critic of your book says this: “There are dozens of problems with Love Wins. The history is inaccurate, the use of Scripture indefensible.” That’s true isn’t it?’ Rob Bell was hardly likely to assent and stumbled to find an answer!

But why was Bashir so aggressive? In a later interview on American radio (The Paul Edwards Show, March 2011), Bashir gave a very candid account of why he had been so hard on Rob Bell. His comments are striking: ‘I was born into a Muslim family. I come with all the kinds of concerns that Rob Bell has about not offending people from other faiths. He makes great play in his book about Mahatma Gandhi and how Gandhi’s work has to be recognised as very good, positive, and tries desperately to put him into the tent of those who are subjects of salvation … here is someone chipping away, shaping and reshaping theology. I can understand why he is doing that. Who wants to hear things that are hard to take? But, if you go to any culture, Christianity will offend it’.

gospel = 0 gospel

Bashir had identified something which many Christians ignore at their peril. Good communication is not the attempt to make the message palatable. Bashir went on to point out: ‘If you are going to try and spend your time trying to reshape the gospel and the Christian faith for the purpose of the place where you are trying to deliver it, then you are going to end up with something that is half what it was intended to be’. That’s perceptive; half a gospel is no gospel at all. Christian apologetics means defending the truth once for all delivered to the saints, not creating a truth more amenable to our culture. Does Rob Bell’s book paint an appealing picture of the world to come? I suppose it does. But the question the world really needs answering is whether that picture is true. To answer that question, the Scriptures are far clearer than some of our most able contemporary communicators!

Chris is minister of Alderholt Chapel and lectures on apologetics and biblical studies at Moorlands College. He has a book with IVP, Confident Christianity, due for release in January 2012.

Soft-edge apologetics

Hard questioning

gospel = 0 gospel

Chris Sinkinson

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