Some time ago I read an interview with Rob Bell in Relevant magazine and, when asked about his thoughts on his critics, he replied essentially that he doesn't have much time to fret about them and, moreover, believes that they waste their time fretting about him and his ministry.
I think there's an important point here: we can get quite caught up in analysing the thinking and the decision-making of others so that we forget that we are ourselves responsible before God to act, to do something in service to the gospel of Christ. That thought can be a good kick in the rear for those who tend toward just esoteric intellectual pursuits!
However, Bell's comments didn't come to grips with a pressing issue for Christian pastors today: the restless machine of Christian media and its influence upon the congregation. Pastors always have been, always will be, and always should be concerned for the formation of Christian minds. And, since publishers, radio stations, conferences, and blogs incessantly churn out thoughts on the Christian faith and life, pastors are obliged critically to appraise works like Bell's Velvet Elvis or Sex God in order to shepherd the people into the truth and wisdom of God in an information-saturated, or at least opinion-saturated, milieu.
I wonder what life in the church would be like if pastoral leaders were more blunt toward their congregations about their (hopefully theologically rigorous) estimations of, say, the Left Behind series or a new song on Christian radio or Bell's usage of rabbinic materials or Mark Driscoll's view of gender roles in the home and the church. My sense is that we need open and critical discussion on such things that does not distract from active service but does instruct the average Christian so that he or she can navigate shrewdly that mixed bag of popular Christian resources on offer today.
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