The RobCast Rob Bell

I lost track of Rob Bell several years ago when I couldn’t handle my unfulfilling church scene anymore. A couple of days ago, while seeking a new audiobook, Love Wins magically appeared in my library so I listened. Devoured it really. Now I’m here and I started back at Episode 1 and I just can’t stop listening. Dripping richly with divinity and direction. So many ideas and recommended authors to continue the adventure.

I can’t begin to tell you the excitement I have when a new RobCast shows up on my feed. So many times, I have been eased back into my humanity, laughed at my own assumptions and just felt more “normal” after listening. While driving, I’ve been known to say loudly “YES Rob Bell!” and thanking God for him and his insight. This is an excellent podcast and my very first choice listen as soon as it comes out. Rob is an authentic, kind person having a spiritual experience and helping us do the same. THANK YOU ROB BELL!!

This used to be an amazing podcast, full of honesty, humility, generosity of spirit and fresh ideas/interpretations of Scripture. I especially loved Rob’s sermons, and conversations with thinkers like Alexander Shaia and Pete Rollins. Perhaps it was the pandemic that shrank Rob’s life and scope and thinking.
But his privileged life in California seems to have made him less charitable, and more likely to indulge his wife and son, who have no training or experience to make them valuable guest speakers. He seems to have lost the discipline of expository preaching, and now mostly rambles about his own experiences, with little value to other listeners. There have been no series in a long time, no deep dives into universally important questions.
The contribution Rob made in the past is not a small thing. I used to feel he was a pastor to me. I miss his good work, and I hope he can turn himself around.
I’d love to see him do a graduate degree in a new field or take a year and serve as a hospital or prison chaplain—do some real, new thinking and/or real, valuable service in the real world where he would encounter people in need, and have the accountability of operating under someone else’s supervision…