A pastor friend sent me the following links: The first is Rob Bell’s Nooma video of “Bullhorn Guy” and a the second is a video parody called “Bullwhip Guy”. http://www.paulkaiser.net/thewayofthemaster/videoclips/Bullhorn_Guy.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9XorvaC4qs
My thoughts on Bell’s “bullhorn guy” talk are as follows.
Bell, via this video, appears to argue against evangelistic messages that confront sin, demand repentance, warn of eternal punishment, and instill in people the fear of God. In doing so he sets up a straw man that is rather easy to knock down – The “bullhorn guy”. I refer to the bullhorn guy as a straw man, not because bullhorn guys don’t exist, but because they are so rare in contemporary Christian culture. I mean come on, how many Christians preach hell-fire and brimstone? Does Bell really believe there are many, if any, "bullhorn guys" in his audience? I haven't come across one book or seminar on evangelism in 20 years of ministry that advocates the "bullhorn" approach. What Bell's video does – whether or not he intends to do so or not – is equate Christians who lovingly yet firmly confront sinners with the severe consequences of sin and the need for God’s grace with the “bullhorn guys” who make us all cringe. No clear thinking Christian would ever want to be labeled a “bullhorn guy”.
Bell’s approach effectively shames into silence those who preach sin, repentance, and judgment. What is so ironic is that currently, the great strategy of the Devil in the Western world has been to intimidate via shame those who attempt to awaken people to the reality of sin and the need of justification and regeneration. This shaming strategy is often employed by immature children and young people in order to avoid correction and punishment. I am right now thinking of an incident when I disciplined a teenager for breaking the rules at a church retreat. When he was told he was going home he yelled, "You're the reason I am never going to church again." Although I didn't give in to this manipulative attempt to influence me to revoke the punishment, it did make me hesitate and second-guess my decision. "Was I too harsh?" "Should I change my mind?" Everyday immature young people use the "you're mean" strategy in an attempt to make adults feel bad about requiring them to work or punishing their bad behavior. The same strategy is employed by rebellious adults who don't want someone telling them they need to repent. They try to shame the messenger into silence by accusing him of being mean and unloving. Our contemporary, pluralistic culture disdains religious belief with a correcting or judging component. Consequently there is a strong aversion to attempts at religious conversion. The end result is that God is not allowed to speak; what D.A. Carson describes as “the gagging of God” and what David Wells calls the “caging of God” ( See Carson’s The Gagging of God and Well’s God in the Wasteland). The suggestion that people don’t have the right to tell others they are wrong inevitably leads to gagging and caging God since God’s chosen means of communicating is through His people. The following quote, addressing Brian McLaren’s aversion to preaching about hell, by D.A. Carson from Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church relates well to the issue at hand.
“Perhaps…McLaren had to deal with some Elmer Gantry’s who took a vicious delight in describing the torments of the damned. But in today’s Evangelicalism, we are, by and large, in far greater danger of saying much less than Jesus said on this subject than saying too much.” Pg. 169
