Moving from Error to Apostasy? The Continuing Saga of Rob Bell

This may seem like simply repeating old criticisms, but new developments make me even more concerned about one man's downward journey. A while back,  I wrote about my serious concerns with Rob Bell's movements away from orthodox Christian belief as he left

Rob and Kristen Bell appeared with Oprah Winfrey on her
lastest "Super Soul Sunday" special. 

his pastoral ministry and entered into a working partnership with one of the world's most popular "spiritual" people--Oprah Winfrey. He has already taken many views with which I disagree, and which I believe are in conflict with what Christians have always believed based on the Scriptures. In this latest broadcast, Bell addresses the question of gay marriage and says that the church is moments away from embracing it (as he does). Again, this is no surprise.

But in what is the most troubling of statements in the interview, Bell says that the Church simply looks more and more irrelevant when its best defense against the arguments for gay marriage "is quoting letters written 2,000 years ago." Those "letters" are the books of the New Testament, and if his view is that they are simply outdated letters, then Bell has moved publicly away from submission to the authority of the Word. I can disagree with someone on interpretations but still admit that both of us seek to submit to Scriptural authority. But this is a dismissal of appealing to Scripture as authoritative.

I would hope that the church that ordained him would, upon hearing this, conclude that he is no longer orthodox in his view of Scripture and would revoke his ordination. I would hope that believers would realize that this makes Bell no longer a teacher of Christian faith, since that faith derives from the message of these letters (we would not know of Jesus without them).

Not only has Rob sacrificed his "evangelical credentials" (I don't think he cares about that); he has aligned himself with those who "went out from us" in 1 John 2:19 (one of those letters he now feels make the Church irrelevant when we quote them). My heart's prayer, right now, is that he will repent from the blindness that Oprah's aura seems to have stricken him with. I fear for his soul, especially as one who still has influence over other souls. He may not believe that the wrath of God is real and will still fall on those who reject God's truth, but I do.