|
BOOKS
Rob Bell and Don Golden, authors of Jesus Wants to Save Christmas
Sex God
Exploring the endless connection between sexuality and
spirituality
Sex God
explores the connections between sexuality and spirituality
and was described by Publishers Weekly as a book that
"joyfully ties, and then tightens, the knot between God and
humankind."
Bell raises the bar with this evocative follow-up to last
year's bestseller Velvet Elvis. "Is sex a picture of
heaven?" he wonders. It's all about God and sex and heaven,
he says: "...they're connected. And they can't be separated.
Where the one is you will always find the other." Bell's
book isn't a sex manual, an exploration of the differences
between men and women or a marriage how-to, though all of
that is here. Instead, it's the story of God becoming human,
of humans mirroring God and love made manifest in the chaos
of our humanity. Sex God is about relationships revealed in
a way that elevates the human condition and offers hope to
those whose relationships are wounded. In Bell's spare,
somewhat oblique style, he addresses lust, respect, denial,
risk, acceptance and more. His love for God and the Bible is
clear, as is his ability to ask probing questions and offer
answers that make readers think deeply about their own
lives. He does a fine job using the Bible and real life to
show that our physical relationships are really about
spiritual relationships. This book joyfully ties, and then
tightens, the knot between God and humankind.
|
Jesus Wants To Save Christians: A Manifesto
For The Church In Exile
Bell teamed up
with fellow pastor Don Golden to write a manifesto that
packs as much sociopolitical zing as rhetorical punch. If
Americans today miss the central message of the Bible, say
the authors, the reason is that the United States is an
empire like those described in Scripture that build powerful
armies and seek to protect what they accumulate rather than
promote justice and mercy. Chapter titles such as
"Swollen-bellied black babies, soccer moms on Prozac, and
the mark of the beast" will provoke many readers. Likely to
get a bigger rise is the suggestion that when the Bible says
enemies will one day worship together, that includes today's
enemies, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The writing is frequently
paragraphed into very short chunks of prose. This dramatic
book is politically charged but not party-bent, bearing a
message evangelicals need: that Jesus didn't come just to
save people for heaven someday but to transform his
followers and the physical world now. |
 Velvet
Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
This introduction to the Christian faith
is definitely outside the usual evangelical box. Bell wants
to offer "a fresh take on Jesus"—a riff that begins with the
assertion that Jesus wanted to "call people to live in tune
with reality" and that he "had no use for religion." Bell
invites seekers into a Christianity that has room for doubts
(his church recently hosted an evening where doubters were
invited to ask their hardest, most challenging questions).
He mocks literalists whose faith seems to depend on a
six-day creation, and one of his favorite people is a woman
who turned up repeatedly at his church, only to tell him
that she totally disagreed with his teachings. He cites his
church as a place of forgiveness, mystery, community and
transformation. Bell is well-versed in Jewish teachings and
draws from rabbinic wisdom and stories freely. His casual,
hip tone can grate at times, and his footnotes, instructing
readers to drop everything and read the books that have
influenced him, grow old. Still, this is faithful, creative
Christianity, and Gen-Xers especially will find Bell a
welcome guide to the Christian faith.
|
|
|
QUOTES
His first book,
Velvet Elvis, became a best seller. It also
caused quite a stir when he seemed to question the virgin birth by
saying that in the Hebrew language, the phrase "born of a virgin" also
refers to "a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had
intercourse". (p.26)
But what if, as you study the origin of the
word “virgin” you discover that the word “virgin” in the gospel of
Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find
out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word “virgin”
could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the
first century being “born of a virgin” also referred to a child
whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?"
(Velvet Elvis, p. 26)
Often it appears as though you have to agree with all the bricks [the
Bible] exactly as they are or you can’t join” (p. 28).
"Heaven is full of forgiven people. Hell is full of forgiven
people. Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for.
Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for. The
difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live
in, which version of reality we trust. Ours or God's." - p. 146
"The goal of Jesus isn't to get into heaven. The goal is to get
heaven here." - p. 148
“to take statements made in a letter from one person living in a real
place at a moment in history to another person living in a real place
out of their context and apply them to today without first understanding
their original context sucks the life right out of them. They aren’t
isolated statements that float, unattached, out in space…So when we
treat the Bible as if it floats in space, unattached to when and where
it actually happened, we are basically saying that God gave us the wrong
kind of book. It is a book of ancient narratives. We cannot make it
something it is not” (p. 62, 63).
“For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we
can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond
this one…” (Velvet Elvis, p. 147)
“Let’s say her professors aren’t Christians. It is not a ‘Christian’
university, and this young woman hasn’t been taught that all things are
hers. What if she has been taught that Christianity is the only thing
that’s true? What if she has been taught that there is no truth outside
the Bible? She’s now faced with this dilemma: believe the truth she’s
learning or the Christian faith she was brought up with. Or we could put
her dilemma this way: intellectual honesty or Jesus?” (p. 81).
“For Jesus, this new kind of life in him is not about escaping this
world but making it a better place, here and now. The goal for Jesus
isn’t getting into heaven. The goal is to get heaven here.” (p. 148)
“They [the New Testament epistles] aren’t first and foremost timeless
truths. ... The Bible is not pieces of information about God and Jesus
and whatever else we take and apply to situations as we would a cookbook
or an instruction manual. And while I’m at it, let’s make a group
decision to drop once and for all the Bible-as-owner’s-manual metaphor.
It’s terrible. It really is. ... We have to embrace the Bible as the
wild, uncensored, passionate account it is of people experiencing the
living God” (Velvet Elvis, pp. 62, 63).
Bell claims that the apostles, in their writings in the Bible, didn’t
“claim to have the absolute word from God” (p. 57).
“just take it for what it really says” is “warped and toxic” because
“the assumption is that there is a way to read the Bible that is agenda-
and perspective-free” (Velvet Elvis, p. 53).
“The Bible paints a much larger picture of salvation. It describes all
of creation being restored. ... Rocks and trees and birds and swamps and
ecosystems. God’s desire is to restore all of it. ... A Christian is not
someone who expects to spend forever in heaven there. A Christian is
someone who anticipates spending forever here, in a new heaven that
comes to earth. THE GOAL ISN’T ESCAPING THIS WORLD BUT MAKING THIS WORLD
THE KIND OF PLACE GOD CAN COME TO. ... To make the cross of Jesus just
about human salvation is to miss that God is interested in the saving of
everything. Every star and rock and bird. All things” (Velvet Elvis, pp.
109, 110, 150, 161).
Bell says Christ has given believers the authority to come up with new
interpretations of the Bible (p. 50),
“So as a Christian, I am free to claim the good, the true, the holy,
wherever and whenever I find it. I live with the understanding that
truth is bigger than any religion and the world is God’s and everything
in it” ( p. 80.) "I can't find one place in the
teachings of Jesus, or the Bible for that matter, where we are to
identify ourselves first and foremost as sinners. Now this doesn't
mean we don't sin; that's obvious. In the book of James it's written
like this: 'We all stumble in many ways.' Once again, the greatest
truth of the story of Adam and Eve isn't that it happened, but that
it happens."
(Velvet Elvis, p. 139)
"When people use the word hell, what do they
mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God
desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair,
death, slaughter--they are all hell on earth. Jesus' desire for his
followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to
earth. What's disturbing is when people talk more about hell after
this life than they do about Hell here and now. As a Christian, I
want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth."
(Velvet Elvis, p.148)
"If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then
it isn't good news for anybody. And this is because the most
powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to
convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church
gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion,
expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly
put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about
everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not,
believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are
offensive to those who are the "un" and "non", they work against
Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus
commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody.
We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred,
valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people
differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the
image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, "God shows no
favoritism." So we don't either."
— Rob Bell "[The Bible] has to be interpreted. And
if it isn’t interpreted, then it can’t be put into action. So if we
are serious about following God, then we have to interpret the
Bible. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says. We must
first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this
place, for these people."
— Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith) |
NOOMA
Rob Bell, has been gaining a lot of attention for
his hugely popular NOOMA video series. ("NOOMA" is a play off the
Greek word for spirit or breath, "pneuma.")
NOOMA is a new format for spiritual direction. It's short films
touching on issues we care about, that we want to talk about, and it
comes in a way that fits our world. It's a format that's there for
us when we need it, as we need it, how we need it.
Jesus lived with the awareness that God is doing something, right
here, right now, and anybody can be a part of it. He encouraged his
listeners to search, to question, to wrestle with the implications
of what he was saying and doing. He inspired, challenged, provoked,
comforted, and invited people to be open to God’s work in this
world. Wherever he went, whatever he did, Jesus started discussions
about what matters most, because for Jesus, God is always inviting
us to open our eyes and join in. NOOMA is a series of short films
that explore our world from a perspective of Jesus. NOOMA is an
invitation to search, question, and join the discussion.
|
back
to the emerging church Menu
