The Emergent Gospel In 140 Characters or Less

I don't use Twitter. I'm not against it, I'm just practical. Since moving, we no longer have broadband Internet. We are currently stuck with dial-up . . . very slow (to say the least!). I barely have enough time to check my email and blog once in a while, let alone Tweet every time I have a thought or move a muscle.

But something is happening in the culture. Increasingly, we are becoming more interactive and questions like "how would you Tweet the gospel" make sense to more and more people. Just a few years ago (if that) such a question would have never made sense. But today, as the culture becomes more interactive and technological, Christians are called to "keep up." Therefore, it makes sense to ask what many consider to be the "coolest" pastor, and extremely influential, Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill in Michigan, how he would Tweet the gospel. His response, quick frankly, is alarming:

I would say that history is headed somewhere. The thousands of little ways in which you are tempted to believe that hope might actually be a legitimate response to the insanity of the world actually can be trusted. And the Christian story is that a tomb is empty, and a movement has actually begun that has been present in a sense all along in creation. And all those times when your cynicism was at odds with an impulse within you that said that this little thing might be about something bigger—those tiny little slivers may in fact be connected to something really, really big.

That's it? That's how you would Tweet the gospel? Where is the gospel?

To Bell's credit, he admits "Well, you can't really tweet the gospel. I'm convinced that I am not doing anything new. I am hoping that I'm in a long tradition." But the truth remains, what he presents is not the gospel. It's not even close.

The problem with this "gospel" is that Bell says nothing about right belief (that Jesus died and was raised from the dead) or fruit-bearing repentance. After reading Bell's response, I am left asking, "so what am I supposed to do?" He mentions the empty tomb in this answer, but leaves the significance untouched. Why is an empty tomb important? Who was put there? For what reason?

Prior to this answer, Bell described the empty tomb like this:

And there is this group of people who say that whoever that being is came up among us and took on flesh and blood—Andrew Sullivan talks about this immense occasion the world could not bear. So a church would be this odd blend of swagger—an open tomb, come on—and humility and mystery. The Resurrection accounts are jumbled and don't really line up with each other—I really relate to that. Yet something momentous has burst forth in the middle of history. You just have to have faith, and you get caught up in something.

For one, he can relate to contradictions in the Bible. However, he acknowledges that each of the Gospel writers are clearly telling us that something happened one day: a tomb was left opened. But he tells us nothing of who was in that tomb. Sure that being . . . took on flesh and blood but why is that significant. Why did the Creator have to take on flesh and blood? Did the flesh and blood Creator die? Who killed Him? Why does it matter?

Rob Bell offers only questions and no answers.

And that's the point.

What Bell offers is not the gospel, but a pseudo-gospel that tickles the felt needs of postmodernists. The Emerging Church, wrapped in postmodernity, does not seek to offer answers. Only questions. Bell is not the only Emergent guilty of this. An entire movement are spreading this Tweet Gospel that does not answer the longings of the heart, but offers satisfaction to those who seek to, not assurance, but mystery.

As long as the gospel is about mystery, then the gospel is never about my standing before God. In other words, as long as we are only asking questions, we will never come face-to-face with the reality that we have rebelled against God and thus stand subject to Divine Judgment.

What Bell manages here, and in his entire ministry, is to amass a movement where persons find peace, and seemingly God, by unknowing. Life, they argue, really begins whenever we embrace mystery, ambiguity, and narrative.

Bell is right on one thing: he is in a long tradition. The Emergent gospel is nothing new. Like all heresies of old, the Emerging Church essentially, when it comes down too it, deny a Biblical concept of sin, a Biblical concept of Christ, a Biblical concept of God, a Biblical concept of the cross, a Biblical concept of the resurrection, and therefore, a Biblical concept the gospel. Scripture repeatedly calls us to know the gospel, not just ask questions about it. The gospel, as laid out in Scripture, is something can be known without hesitation or uncertainty.

So how should we Tweet the gospel (assuming it would actually save souls)?

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. -Acts 17:30-31

Or perhaps maybe:

the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. -Romans 3:22-26

Or simply: Believe in the gospel and Repent of your sins.