Apprising Ministries began our coverage in Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell and the Seeds of Compassion Event (SoC) which is supposedly, “Anchored by the deep wisdom of His Holiness the Dalai Lama” and designed to promote his Buddhist teachings as allegedly the enlightened reincarnation of “of Compassion”:

The Dalai Lamas are believed to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and patron saint of Tibet. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who have postponed their own nirvana and chosen to take rebirth in order to serve humanity. (Online source)

And then in Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell, Dalai Lama and the Interspiritual Seeds of Compassion Event we looked at how these Christian pastors are in violation of Scripture (see—2 Corinthians 6:14-15) to have yoked themselves with apostates and pagan unbelievers in this interspiritual SoC event, which has just begun as this is written. (Online source)

The fact that SoC is religious in nature is obvious to the secular media as we see when Michael Rollins, a reporter for The Oregonian, informs us:

Amidst swirling controversy on several continents, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has started a five-day conference in Seattle that focuses on children learning about compassion… China occupied Tibet in 1959 and have persecuted monks who lead efforts to have the region returned to Tibetan rule… The Seattle appearance by the Dalai Lama is focused on his teaching,… (Online source, emphasis mine)

It is also interesting to note that Rob Bell, a friend of Doug Pagitt, is billed at SoC as an “emergent Christian leader”. The following from Rob Bell and the Dalai Lama appears to shed some light as to how Emergent Church leader Rob Bell became involved in SoC:

Wait a minute. The Dalai Lama and Rob Bell on the same panel? How did that happen, you might ask. Well, the story goes something like this…
I read Rob’s first book, Velvet Elvis, about two years ago and loved it…

Back in November, I flew out to Seattle for a week to visit my aunt and uncle, and I scheduled my trip to coincide with Rob’s stop in Seattle on his The God’s Aren’t Angry speaking tour. My uncle, who hadn’t heard of Rob before that, went with me, along with my brother. After Rob’s talk, which was great, I recommended my uncle read Velvet Elvis, which he did shortly thereafter. And loved it.

Fast forward to a couple months ago. My uncle, Andrew Himes, was on the organizing panel for Seeds of Compassion and encouraged the rest of the panel that they should invite some Christians to be a part of the event. Long story short, when my uncle contacted him, Brian McLaren recommended Rob Bell and Doug Paggit after he couldn’t make it (he’ll already be in Seattle, but on his Everything Must Change book tour). My uncle told Rob he wanted to have some Christians, some evangelicals on the panels, and Rob agreed on the condition that he not be labeled an evangelical… (Online source)

Well, I certainly can’t blame Bell for not wanting to be called an evangelical. However, it would seem that Rob while didn’t want to be called an evangelical, he apparently didn’t protest about his being billed as an “emergent Christian leader” along with his “evangelical author” friend Doug Pagitt. So I guess we can now finally hush all the talk that somehow Rob Bell is not Emergent.

See also:

DALAI LAMA