Category Archives: Rob Bell

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“Jesus Wants to Save Christians”

This new book from Rob Bell very helpfully unfolds the pervasiveness of empire throughout the history of the Bible. And the way in which America (and Canada, though in smaller ways) exists as an empire today. It’s a different area from his first two books, but still in his easy-reading, conversational style. Here’s a couple teasers:

The former things didn’t work. But the new thing? The new thing will be different. Bigger, wider, ultimate.

God is going to lead all of creation out of the Egypts of death and decay and violence?

Everything?

For the prophets in exile, no vision was too large, no dream too big, no hope too beyond what would happen in the new exodus. (67)

Here’s another on America as empire:

America is an empire.

And the Bible has a lot to say about empires.

Most of the Bible is a history told by people living in lands occupied by conquering superpowers. It’s a book written from the underside of power. It’s an oppression narrative. (121)

The book is worth the $12 for the analysis of America alone or his description of the Eucharist. Very hopeful and imaginative—I’ll be lending it around pretty freely.

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Karl Barth and Rob Bell on Adam

Unlikely bedfellows, but they interestingly coincide on their view of the first man, Adam:

Is the greatest truth about Adam and Eve and the fruit that it happened, or that it happens? This story, one of the first in the Bible, is true for us because it is our story. We have all taken the fruit. We have all crossed boundaries. We have all made decisions to do things our way and then looked back and said to ourselves, What was I thinking? The fruit looked so great to Adam and Eve for those brief moments, but the consequences were with them for the rest of their lives. Their story is our story. We see ourselves in them. The story is true for us because it happened and because it happens. It is an accurate description of how life is. The reason the stories in the Bible have resonated with so many people over the years is that they have seen themselves in these stories. (Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, 58-9.)

And in a slightly different context, with fancier theological language, Karl Barth says the same thing:

[World history] is Adamic history, the history of Adam. It began in and with this history, and—this is the Word and judgment of God on it, this is the explanation of its staggering monotony, this is the reason why there can never be any progress—it continually corresponds to this history. It is continually like it. With innumerable variations it constantly repeats it. It constantly re-enacts the little scene in the garden of Eden. (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, 508.)

This sort of position opens up possibilities for reexamining our view of the origin of humanity and our sinfulness. One doesn’t necessarily have to hold the complete historical accuracy of the Genesis account in order to take seriously both the goodness of our created self and the fallenness in which we constantly live.

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Sex God

Scandalous title, isn’t it? It’s Rob Bell’s new book about “exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality.” Bell defines sexuality more broadly, in a really helpful move, calling it, first, “our awareness of how profoundly we’re severed and cut off and disconnected” and second, “all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect” (40). Sexuality is about connection. So all the ways we are sexual beings points backward to the Fall, the place where we became so disjointed and severed. Yet it also points forward to the new earth, the place where we become one and whole and at peace with ourselves, others and God again.

Sex God, then, which is a book about sexuality and spirituality, really is a book all about relationships. And Rob Bell unfolds this connection—how this (sexuality) is really about that (spirituality)—in insightful, refreshing ways. Like this, for example:

Think of the poems, songs, plays, movies, novels across the ages that have dealt with this pain. Everybody understands it.

Think about some of the great country songs, the classics. There’s “She Ripped My Heart Out and Stomped That Sucker Flat,” and there’s “I Sure Do Miss Him, but My Aim Is Improving,” and then there’s my personal favorite, “Here’s a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares.”

What do they have in common?

Heartbreak.

Someone got their heart broken by someone else. And now they are singing about it. And we can all relate. Even if the music gives us a rash.

Why is this? And why is it that it’s not just about lovers, it’s about parents and their children, friends who have been hurt by friends, business partners who part ways. Why is heartbreak so universal?

It’s universal because we’re feeling something as old as the world. Something God feels. (95-96)

Hopefully that whet your appetite. Now go buy it.

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Rob Bell is Brilliant


Ever since reading Velvet Elvis, I’ve been in love with the teaching of this man. He has a phenomenal series going called “Calling All Peacemakers,” which you can find here. The first message is on ‘the myth of redemptive violence,’ the idea that taking revenge will ultimately make the world a better place. The second has to do with justice for the poor and the war in Iraq—very controversial, but I think it’s warranted. The third message, he speaks on creative nonviolence and the ‘third way’ between pacifism and violence.

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Words, Words, Words


Oh, how I love Hamlet. (I just used a Shakespearian allusion. I’m so proud of myself.)

I just finished The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren. Wow. Ever since I discovered Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell of Mars Hill fame, and the whole emerging church along with it, I’ve been caught up into this theological renewal that’s going on in areas from ecclesiology to missiology to ecumenism to biblical studies to… It’s been a beautiful thing that perfectly epitomizes the type of “theological journeying” that my blog is (mostly) centred around.

And in wonderful postmodern fashion, for McLaren, Bell and other EC crew, “Das Gespräch ist der Geburtsort aller Theologie.” I myself learned painfully and reasonably quickly that my personal interpretations of Scripture are not necessarily the most correct interpretations. For postmoderns, truth-acquisition occurs through intersubjectivity, which means truth appears neither in an objective, abstract vacuum nor in the inner recesses of the individual. We are all twisted by our own Weltanschauung, and therefore, the best interpretations are derived communally.

(Yeah, that last paragraph was a tangent. Sorry guys.)

What I really loved about this book was the way in which it delved into and incorporated so much of Jesus’ teaching into the conversation. I’ve recently become uncomfortable with understanding “the kingdom of God” as synonymous with “heaven after you die”, sensing somehow that it had some deeper, broader meaning, and it’s precisely this concept that McLaren deals with in his work. He holds that “the kingdom of God” is the reign of God coming to earth in all its beauty and majesty–and its power to heal the nations–embodied in the person of Jesus, and the Church, the “body of Christ”. “Eternal life” is not simply “heaven after you die”, but is a way of life that we begin here and now–the way of living that God originally intended for us–”life to the full”–that will continue into eternity. (This line of thought is explored in Velvet Elvis as well.)

There are certain passages where it does make sense to conceive of the “kingdom of God” and “eternal life” in traditional terms, but there are plenty of instances in which understanding these phrases simply as “heaven after you die” does not add up. Here are a few: Luke 18:18-27, John 5:39-40, and John 17:3.

P.S. I think I’m going to embark on a reading of the four Gospels in light of this understanding of these two key phrases. Maybe I’ll blog my way through it :) .