But before God Alimighty, I cannot see how anyone can listen to Tickle, Hipps, Paggit, and Rollins and endorse them while still being moderately “orthodx” in you soteriology.

Well, the one of those who I’ve had a lot of exposure to is Pagitt, and as I stated earlier, I didn’t find anything explicitly unorthodox in any of hid books. He is a bit too, shall I say, “hippy” sounding to me, but I can’t find any Scripture against that.

I think what it gets down to is this. Much of post-enlightenment evangelicalism is obsessed with answering the “how” of salvation. How do I get saved and how do I distill the message in a way that it is most efficient in getting others saved.

I simply think that this question is not the thing that is in the foreground now. These pastors have grown up hearing plenty about how to get saved, but there is a deficiency in the area of how to simply live the Christian life. So that is what their books and sermons are talking about.

It’s not saying that the first question isn’t valid at all. It’s just operating from the assumption that in many ways it’s been answered. People know how to get to saved, but do they know how to live like a Christian, or what that means in simplest of terms? Sadly that answer seems to be no.

it could be that he is evolving away from the uniqueness of Jesus and is afraid to divulge that for fear of losing his position and audience

or

it could be any number of other reasons…”

Or perhaps he is not being ambiguous.

But before God Alimighty, I cannot see how anyone can listen to Tickle, Hipps, Paggit, and Rollins and endorse them while still being moderately “orthodx” in you soteriology.

That Bell is purposefully ambiguous is undeniable. He is also purposefully provocative…

Ambiguous and provocative are two different things. Overall, I don’t see him as that ambiguous, honestly. I’ve read some statements that I could say are ambiguous, but if you’re taking statements in interviews with magazines and newspapers, well practically anyone can be made to sound ambiguous.

I’ve done interviews with the campus paper here, and when I read them, they sounded nothing like what I intended to say. You really have no control over what a reporter does with your words.

When I listen to Bell’s sermons, I generally do not hear ambiguity. In fact I hear quite the opposite. I think he does of explaining the context and history behind Scripture.

Perhaps there is a generational and even just stylistic element at play, but I simply have never gotten the idea that Bell is some mushy relativist.

…the Four Spiritual Laws.

Speaking of, this has to be considered one of the most modernist methods of all.

The question is – why?

it could be that he is evolving away from the uniqueness of Jesus and is afraid to divulge that for fear of losing his position and audience

or

it could be any number of other reasons…

I am convinced that some preachers are purposely ambiguous in order to conceal their evolving theologies.

That may be true, unfortunately. But I probably see it as sad for a different reason than you. I see as sad that pastors usually feel they aren’t free to share their true feeling simply so they don’t offend the heretic hunters sitting in their congregations.

In Bell’s case, though, I actually don’t think he’s that hard to understand. He’s never going to be a Reformed pastor or a traditional Evangelical, so he’s never going to talk like one. He’s never going to present the “Gospel” in terms of the Romans Road to salvation or the Four Spiritual Laws. So people waiting for him to do something like that will be waiting for a long time.

I am convinced that some preachers are purposely ambiguous in order to conceal their evolving theologies.

When someone says “It’s Jesus that saves us” it doesn’t necessarily mean “You must believe in Jesus to be saved”.

When a dog greets another dog without smelling its butt, does that mean that it does not trust the other dog?

Use of “Christianese” seems to me, more and more, to really be all about saying to other Christians “I am one of you” than actually conveying any sense of truth to a listener – be they Christian or not.

There are important nuances in language. When someone says “It’s Jesus that saves us” it doesn’t necessarily mean “You must believe in Jesus to be saved”.