So Who Exactly Is On Notice?

I've never met Bob Hyatt, but I enjoy his blog and, much of the time, the way his brain works. He's started a conversation/discussion about Mark Driscoll's latest lecture - one given at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. There Driscoll says that Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, and Rob Bell are heretics. (The names are separated from "heresy" by a few intervening sentences, but the title is applied.)
     Now, I also have never met Driscoll and I don't know exactly what he means by heretic or heresy (Does he think they're condemned?). But I have listened to the mp3 of the talk and I'd largely agree with most of what Mark says. And, frankly, how he says it. I cannot comment on McLaren and Pagitt, since I've heard very little or read very little of either men. But I too think that Bell went over the line in Velvet Elvis discussing whether Jesus' birth of a Virgin is an essential of the faith. The Virgin Birth is an essential.
     On Bell's side, he believes in the Virgin Birth - just that he doesn't think it crumbles the faith if it is dispensed with. We will have to disagree there. If I can dispense with the Virgin Birth, excuse my slippery slope, what else do I think I can dispense with? It seems the Scriptures are quite clear in speaking of Mary's virginity, and Mary's virginity allows and guards Christ's divinity. That being said, Bell does believe in the Virgin Birth - so I don't think one can call him a heretic for believing what all Christians believe.
     It's an interesting conversation taking place on the edges of the emerging conversation. I pray that it proceeds and ends in a greater love for one another rather than a diminishing of that love. And it raises some interesting questions: What is heresy? What is orthodoxy? Why does Driscoll believe that he has the authority to say that someone who believes differently is a heretic? Why do I?