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April, 2007:

“Relusional” Christian Reads Atheist’s Book

Apr 28th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
5 comments

I began reading The God Delusion today. According to Richard Dawkins I am relusional. “Relusion” is a word suggested to Dawkins to replace the word “delusion” in the title of his book. Dawkins hopes the word relusion will catch on and be used to describe delusion when it is caused by religion.

Religious delusion = relusion. Got it? Henceforth I and my Christian readers shall refer to ourselves as such.

Welcome all readers, Christians and atheists and all points between and around.

Go to the next part of this series – Part 1 “Is This the Dawning of the Age of Atheism?”

Theology in Balance

Apr 28th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
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“The man who is proud of an abstruse and technical doctrine, difficult to acquire and acquired by few, may be proud in the same way as another man who is pleased with a sweet religious ignorance that makes him feel complacently superior to all learning.”

Thomas Merton
The Ascent to Truth

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Smashing Brickworld: Rob Bell’s "Velvet Elvis" – Part 5

Apr 22nd, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
5 comments

Binding and Loosing

Jesus gave his disciples power: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom…” (Matt 16 and 18). Bell sees this as a gift that keeps on giving, reaching into our time and into our lives. “If we take Jesus seriously,” he says, “and actually see it as our responsibility to bind and to loose, the implications are endless, serious, and exhilarating.” The limits of binding and loosing are unclear. For example, can we bind what the apostles loosed, or loose what they bound?

Binding and loosing seems a very malleable concept in Bell’s theology. For several pages he goes on about it, painting it as something essentially (and ironically) non-binding. Some have bound this, others have loosed this other thing.

As Ben Witherington observes:

The mistake of using the later rabbinic grid to interpret Jesus leads to mistakes in interpreting Jesus’ words. For example when Jesus speaks about binding and loosing, he is not referring to forbidding and allowing certain ways of interpreting OT verses. To bind refers to making a ruling that is binding, not forbidding it. To loose means to free someone from obligation to keep a particular rule.

Bell’s take on the issue is this:

The Bible has to be interpreted. Decisions have to be made about what it means, today. The Bible is always coming through the interpretation of someone. And that’s because binding and loosing requires awareness. Awareness that everybody’s understanding of the Bible rests on somebody’s binding and loosing.

But again, Bell’s teaching is only as good as his sources. Ben Witherington again:

Rob, since he wants to stress the Jewishness of Jesus and his followers, needs to have a better understanding of early Judaism in a number of ways. In the first place, Jesus was no rabbi. So far as we can tell, there is no archaeological evidence at all for bet Talmud or bet Midrash in Jesus’ day in Galilee. There were some schools in Jerusalem but they were far from Galilee.

Bell says that Jesus is “giving his followers the authority to make new interpretations of the Bible. He is giving them permission to say ‘Hey, I think we missed it before on that verse, and we’ve recently come to the conclusion that this is what it actually means’.”

I have absolutely no argument with statements such as “Jesus expects his followers to be engaged in the endless process of deciding what it means to actually live the scriptures.” No argument. But that is application, not interpretation. Something must remain solid as a reference lest we jump from one teetering rock to the next until we finally reach the cliff and jump off.

Bell expands his ideas about interpretation:

For most of church history people heard the bible read aloud in a room full of people. You heard it, discussed it, studied it, argued about it, and then made decisions about it as a group, as a community.

But this does not match with the example of the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 where “The apostles and the elders came together to consider this matter.” It was not the community that decided what was going to be the governing principle, it was the apostles and elders. To cast the situation otherwise, for example as a purely democratic process among a population with no heads of authority, is to cast is falsely.

This idea is also problematic for someone transplanted into a community that believes differently than they do. Who is right? How will truth be determined? Or will there simply be an agreement to disagree?

Another Spring

If only Bell had used a different spring for his example.

There are not that many things that MUST be believed in order for a man to be saved, but to continue in this infant form of faith, or worse to praise it as the ideal is certainly unwise. 1 Peter says “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

Bell is making an erroneous leap from “there is little you MUST believe to be saved” to “so obviously those other things are not THAT important”.

Another observation from Pastor Coleman:

“The amount of content a person has to accept to be saved or to be called a Christian is a harder question. Jesus said that the faith of a child was sufficient. For me, when I gave my heart to Christ I didn’t know much, but I believed that Jesus did, in fact, die for me on the cross. Ultimately, salvation is based on opening one’s heart to Christ and the amount of content is quite small.

However, Paul said that if Christ was not raised from the dead, we are still in our sins. So, obviously, from the biblical perspective, there is an irreducible minimum of what happened historically before the Christian faith falls apart. If Christ did not die for us on the cross or be raised from the dead, then, there is no Christian faith other than following a spiritual leader and his morality or values.”

And to sum it up with a bit of humour (which I always seem to forget to include in these discussions) Pastor Coleman says, “Of course the ultimate proof is: Larry is the name of a famous cucumber – not Jesus’ father.”

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This is Part 5 of 5 in the series Smashing Brickworld.

Go to the series index page. This page contains other links and the option to download the series in one Word of PDF file.

Smashing Brickworld: Rob Bell’s "Velvet Elvis" – Part 4

Apr 18th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
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Trampoline vs. Brickworld

The opposite of Bell’s trampoline metaphor of faith is what he calls “brickworld”. In brickworld, “you spend a lot of time talking about how right you are. Which of course leads to how wrong everybody else is. Which then leads to defending the wall.” In describing the structure of Brickworld Bell says,

“… a brick is fixed in size. It can’t flex or change, because if it does, then it can’t fit into the wall. What happens then is that the wall becomes the sum total of the beliefs, and God becomes as big as the wall. But God is bigger than any wall. God is bigger than any religion. God is bigger than any worldview. God is bigger than the Christian faith.”

The trouble with these metaphors is that they too narrowly imagine the spectrum of belief. They unfairly characterize them as polar opposites, and as such there is an impression that these are the only two options. You either have a flexible faith where everything can be – or should be – constantly questioned or you are an arrogant theological blowhard with set beliefs and positions that you are not willing to change – ever!

That segment of Christianity does exist, but it certainly is not the only alternative to the trampoline metaphor of faith. Bell’s dissatisfaction with some modern theological systems is understandable and something I share, but substituting a postmodern thought system for one of many faulty modern ones is only replacing bricks with water – one can’t changed, the other can never be pinned down.

In effect, Bell exchanges the hope of authoritative interpretation for the liberty of extreme personal interpretation. Forget the centuries of belief and wrestling with the Holy Spirit that brought about many of our doctrines. Not, as he clarifies, that he doesn’t believe in them but are they really THAT important? This hedging of the bet is not effective in this situation. If certain doctrines turn out not to be true after all, a great many things will change.

Bell affirms his belief in the virgin birth and the trinity, but of what possible value can this affirmation be? If he doesn’t consider it essential to our faith, why should we care that he says he believes? What are the criteria for setting the things that ARE essential? Is there ANYTHING that IS essential?

Postmodern Ministry

There is a way to minister to postmoderns but it is not by adopting the philosophy of relative truth and individual interpretation and offering them a theology that values pragmatism (what works) over clarity (what’s true). As much as anyone, I am overjoyed when “what works” and “what’s true” are the same thing, but that isn’t always the case. A great weakness of liberalism is that it imposes 21st century political correctness on the gospels and by doing so robs the gospel of much of its power. It avoids the reality that the content of the Gospels offends the rich and the poor alike, and does so on the grounds that we are all sinners.

We cannot offer people a “what works for them at the moment” in place of a “God has said” and expect them to see God. Christianity might work for them for a time but if it’s working primarily on their terms it will fall away as soon as those terms are offended.

Eric Wyatt is a smart guy I know. He said:

Christ wasn’t a self-help guru for the Jews. Even less so is Christ the self-help answer for the post-modern era. Following Christ will change your outlook, not your luck. Yes, the Father wants to give His children what is good for them, but what He considers truly “good” often has nothing to do with what we think is good.

Words, words, words

In today’s religious and political climate, the word “Christian” deservedly carries a lot of baggage. But let’s not kill the carrier at the expense having him drop that baggage. The way to rid the word of baggage is to do simply that – go after the baggage. We need to contextualize in a way that gets into people’s cultural baggage and shows them that the gospel is versatile enough to lighten their load, not in a way that attempts to adapt the gospel to their baggage.

Half of my generation, anyone who grew up in the church anyway, is so totally burnt out on information (theological and otherwise) that many of us have this sinking feeling that if so many people passionately believe so many opposing positions that there must not be objective truth. In short – we don’t know whom to trust. The other half of my generation is so theologically illiterate they can’t tell the difference between clear truth and obvious error and are thus easily led away from the truth.

The trampoline metaphor seems to place all doctrine on equal footing and therefore of equal “take it or leave it” value. Can each person’s Christianity be so radically different, like a choose-your-own-adventure story?

What it says, or what you think it says?

On page 54 Bell advises:

When you hear people say they are just going to tell you what the Bible means, it is not true. They are telling you what they think it means. They are giving their opinions of the Bible… The problem is, it is not true.

This is paradoxical to say the least as Bell then proceeds to tell us what the Bible actually does say about a great number of things. If he tells us unequivocally that something is “just not true”, is he claiming to know what IS true and what the Bible really IS saying… and if he is, isn’t it just his opinion? Isn’t it just what he THINKS it means?

The questions that follow are obvious:

Is his opinion truer than everyone else’s?

Should we approach his teachings with the same skepticism he’s just advised to approach everyone else’s teachings with?

On what authority does he claim that his “opinions” are any more valid than everyone else’s?

Is it all relative?

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This is part 4 of 5 in the series Smashing Brickworld. Go to Part 5.

Go to the series index page. This page contains other links and the option to download the series in one Word of PDF file.

Smashing Brickworld: Rob Bells Velvet Elvis – Part 3

Apr 16th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
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What is lost?

Ultimately the question raised by the quote is this: What do we lose if we lose the virgin birth?

I will attempt to answer it: We lose Jesus. We lose his divinity. We lose his claims about himself and the claims of the apostles about him, and that has infinite and eternal consequences. But if we only lose this one spring, is Bell saying it’s OK because there are plenty of others supporting us?

But let’s examine Bell’s metaphor as it stands:

Is the meaning of the quote that the virgin birth is simply one of many expendable, expandable, and ultimately disposable springs? But isn’t this doctrine woven into the very fabric of our faith? Remove this spring, then another like it, and another, and our jumping becomes more difficult and eventually impossible.

Bell comes short of actually removing the spring by asking if our faith would fall apart if we “reexamine and rethink one spring.” But what is this reexamining and rethinking? If the inspection turns up a faulty part, should it be left in place? Why retain a belief that turned out to be false?

How many springs can be removed before the jumping stops?
Which, if any, are off limits?
When do we cease to call the trampoline a Christian faith?

By implying that all doctrines are of equal weight, Bell paints over the difference between that which is settled and that which is still open for debate. Mark Driscoll describes this dichotomy as ideas that are either in the open hand or the closed hand.

There are not many Christians, Protestant or Catholic, who would argue that all doctrines are of equal weight. And of course there is room for debate, among Protestants anyway, about what is dogma (truth) and what is doctrine (teaching). I know Bell wants us to hold these beliefs as our own and not simply because they were given to us by our parents, and thus he asks us to examine them, to test them. But it is equally unwise to question excessively or reject those beliefs because our parents gave them to us.

Ben Witherington:

“On p.26 we hear about what “being born of a virgin” means. In the course of this discussion Rob claims that the word ‘virgin’ in Hebrew could mean several things. Well in the first place, we do not have the word ‘virgin’ in Isaiah 7.14 in the Hebrew text we have almah which means a nubile young woman of marriage age. In an honor and shame culture like that, this would certainly imply the virginity of the girl in question, but would not focus exclusively on that trait. There is a word for virgin in Hebrew, but this is not it. It is the Greek OT, not the Hebrew that has the term virgin (parthenos) which Matthew follows in Mt. 1 when he quotes the Isaiah text.”

Let’s take a look at the biblical text in Luke 1: 26-38 (ESV):

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy–the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

At the end of Bell’s scenario there is no learning other than he tells us he believes in the virgin birth (and for the record, I truly believe he does). But he just gave us a number of compelling arguments NOT to believe, so why in the face of these compelling arguments does he still believe? I wish he’d used something more debatable or, conversely, if this is only a lesson in constructive thinking, why not use something less debatable and more controversial? Why not
use the resurrection? That too has been debated and attempts at refuting it have been numerous.

A Place For Certainty

We must be wary of the despair found in chosen uncertainty. I have experienced that despair. We must not love mystery so much that we create it where there is none. I am not uncomfortable with Bell’s book because I am afraid to challenge my own beliefs. On the contrary, I am cautious about hyperextending my doubt at the expense of weakening my faith because I have been down that road a few times. It leaves scars. Balance is needed.

What can be known for certain, if not empirically then because scripture says it is certain, should be stated as such.

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This is part 3 of 5 in the series Smashing Brickworld. Go to Part 4.

Go to the series index page. This page contains other links and the option to download the series in one Word of PDF file.

Connecting Over Coffee

Apr 14th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
2 comments

Words and coffee, the best things in life are free and $1.55 respectively. “Going for coffee” is a new thing for me; I’ve never been a ‘let’s go for a coffee’ guy but I’m trying to be one now, because I can see the positive effects.

We went on vacation a couple of weeks ago and because of that I missed church, small group, and my talks over coffee with a number of friends I go out with regularly. Then the following week small group was canceled due to certain group members having misplaced priorities such as playing hockey and being in France commemorating the 100th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge. In addition to that the Alpha course I had been going to had wrapped up and I was missing those Friday night small group discussions.

In a word, I was disconnected – and I could feel it. The importance of connection, of being in community, is something I have gleaned from my friend Aaron. My friendship with Aaron is a rewarding one because we agree on a lot of things but the things we disagree on we disagree on quite strongly.

I don’t think I have one close friend with whom I have not had a few very deep, very heated disagreements. It’s sort of a prerequisite for me.

I have had more than a few friendships wither for lack of conflict. There’s nobody I ended up hating, but if you can’t disagree with someone about something, there’s really no basis for a long-term friendship. I have plenty of acquaintances – you can’t be a performer, a musician, without having a lot of these – but an acquaintance becomes a friend when we get through our first conflict.

My Fault

I have to admit that I have wrecked a few friendships due to my own deficiencies of character. When I was younger I mocked a lot. OK – I still mock a lot but I like to think I choose my targets more wisely now. You know, like celebrities and people I don’t really know. I call it satire now – that’s the grown-up word for mocking.

Back then, when I was younger, I always thought I was funny, and judging by the laughter in the room I figured everyone else thought I was funny too. But later, after the laughs, they would discuss how much I had hurt so-and-so’s feeling and how I was a backstabber and sometimes worse. And they were right.

To this day, I’m still paying for things I said a decade ago and more. And in a decade from now there will probably a few more things on the list that I shouldn’t have said but I know the list doesn’t grow like it used to. “And that,” as Martha likes to say, “Is a good thing.”

Some of these offenses happened because I didn’t know when to wave the “agree to disagree” flag. I hate that flag but I’ve had to learn to use it. Not everyone wants to battle Braveheart-style until some form of common ground is claimed.

Small Group Battles

In our small group Bible study a few weeks ago we engaged in a heated discussion (Braveheart-style) about depression. This went on for some time and then someone called for a truce. “Hey, let’s make sure we all leave here friends.”

That’s the opposite of my thinking. My response was “But this is what makes us friends. We can scrap and still like each other after.”

We can’t have lasting friendships if we stop talking when we disagree. We become good friends because we can ‘have at it’ occasionally. This friendship couldn’t survive, of course, if discussions always turned to bickering and no congenial discussion ever followed, but perpetual platitudes are no recipe for success either.

Hard-won friendship

One of the guys in my small group is Owen. Owen’s friendship is something I value because it has been hard won. We even exchanged compliments at a wine and cheese party a few months back. Our guards were down I guess (in a good way) and Owen said something like “You know, I wasn’t sure about you when we first started meeting but I like you now.” That was something, a reward of sorts for me. And I felt the same way. Actually, if I had reciprocated honestly I would have had to substitute “I wasn’t sure about you” with “I really didn’t like you at all.”

But I can respect anyone who is strongly principled yet willing to talk, who doesn’t end good discussions with talk-to-the-hand arrogance or skips to “let’s just agree to disagree” too soon. And that’s Owen.

This is not the friendship formula for everyone, but I challenge you to try it. If you have a reasonable disagreement with someone, the next time you see him or her embrace them instead of avoiding them. This is where the rewards come. There are endless possibilities for acquaintances, but few opportunities for lasting friendship.

Healthy Conflict

Most of the healthy conflict in my friendship with Aaron is the result of the worldviews of a postmodern/modern (90%/10% split) and a modern/postmodern (60%/40% split) rubbing against each other. (feel free to correct those percentages Aaron, yours might be 90%/40%) But we agree on technology – we are both in favour of it. We are geek buddies.

The first time Aaron and his wife came to small group I knew I was going to like him because I mentioned phrases like “podcast” and “XML feed” and “RSS” and he knew he they meant. I mentioned Leo Laporte and he knew who that was too. Then the next week in an IM he mentioned Ron Sexsmith. Honestly, I didn’t even care if he was a fan. He knew enough to compare another artist to him That was enough. SOLD!

We also both like Dilbert. But as usual, I digress…

Before coffee time there is often a nagging desire to bail, something that tells me I don’t need to go, that it is a selfish waste of time when I should be sleeping. When coffee time wraps up I never want it to, even when its 11:00pm on a work night sometimes. And last night’s coffee with Aaron was no different. I was tired when I left at 9:00pm and all abuzz when I got back at 11:00pm.

I’ve noticed that as much as I sometimes dread getting together with people, or a group of people, I find benefit (and hopefully provide some benefit to them) in the interaction.

The lie of made-up minds

A lie you hear often is that all this talking doesn’t really change anyone’s mind. That everyone has decided what they believe and nothing you say will have any effect. Well, I’ve had my mind changed on plenty of things by talking to someone who knows more about something that I do. Everyone – EVERYONE – is an expert about something. I like to find out what that is and find out what they know.

More often than not I find out that I don’t know as much as I think I do, and that certainly helps my humility – and I need a lot of help with humility.

Book: Mind Set! – by John Naisbitt

Apr 9th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
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Noted futurist John Naisbitt is ready to give up the secrets of his trade. The author of Megatrends and Megatrends 2000 has proved himself one of the most far-sighted and accurate prognosticators of our hi-tech world. In this book he reveals the 11 “mindsets”- or processes of thinking – that enabled him to make such accurate predictions about the direction of our culture and society.

This is not a book review per se. Here are the notes I made while reading and some short reflections.

Mindset # 1 – While many things change, most things remain constant

Mindset # 2 – The future is embedded in the present

The “News Hole” (P 18)

“Newspapers are forced choice in a closed system… [they] are great monitors of social change because, simply stated, the news hole – the space available for news stories in a newspaper – is a closed system. For economic reasons, the amount of space devoted to news in a newspaper does not change significantly over time, so when something new is introduced, something must be omitted or reduced. You cannot add unless you subtract.”

Naisbitt then suggest this as a template for personal observation. When you begin to monitor something new, drop something else. I immediately went to my bloglines account and deleted a few of the blogs I read and took out a few podcast feeds from my podcast aggregator as well.

I knew this needed to be done. I am an information junkie but a man can only take in so much. I need to have a “space budget”, but I also want to push as much into my brain as it can handle. And I’ve tried to practice this as I find new blogs to read and new podcasts to subscribe to. If I find a new one I try to take and old one off the list… a zero sum game.

“In the stream of time, the future is always with us” Naisbitt says in summary. We need to keep a distance and a clear eye to see things in the present rather than in retrospect. Newspapers are the first draft of history but since what is happening now will determine the future, they are also a glimpse into the future.

Mindset # 3 – Focus on the score of the game

In this chapter Naisbitt encourages us to keep sports as the model, since results do not change because of excuses, praise or explanations from the losing or winning team.

He also explores the dilemma of the non-expert, which applies to all of us in one way or another. He uses the issue of climate change as an example, noting that to be completely knowledgeable about the subject you could read the 963 books on global warming listed on Amazon.com and then in the interest of balance, you could read the 1,054 books on global cooling and the coming ice age. It is difficult to tell the score of the game since the “game” manifests itself as competing rhetoric. “Global warming has become a religion,” he says “and those who don’t buy into its gloom and doom scenarios are infidels who must be banished from any public forum.”

He follows this up with an affirmation of the necessity of regulation and protection of the environment, but only as much as is necessary as indicated by the real score of the game. “Exaggerating problems without any real idea of the score of the game,” he says “distorts society’s priorities and makes it hard for citizens and leaders to make the best decisions.”

There is plenty more here on the environmental war of rhetoric that is worth reading. The book is a worthy purchase or a good selection from the library.

“It is in the nature of human beings to bend information in the direction of desired conclusions.”

Mindset # 4 – Understanding how powerful it is to not have to be right

Mindset # 5 – See the future as a picture puzzle

Mindset # 6 – Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that people don’t know you’re in it

Mindset # 7 – Resistance to change fails if benefits are real

Mindset # 8 – Things that we expect to happen always happen more slowly

“Almost all change is evolutionary, not revolutionary… expectations always travel at higher speeds.”

Mindset # 9 – You don’t get results by solving problems but by exploiting opportunities

“When you’re looking for the shape of the future, look for and bet on the exploiters of opportunities, not the problem solvers.” Problem solvers, by their nature, mine the past for the answers to “what happened?” Exploiters of opportunities look at the present and see the potential for gain.

“Windows of opportunity are often blown open and closed again like windows in a storm. You have to be ready to grasp them… Big companies with little flexibility are on the side of the losers… The problem of a declining market for a product can’t be fixed by improvements to an already obsolete technology.”

“Change favours the prepared mind,” said Louis Pateur. “I was ready.”

The chapter ends with a wonderful quote from George Bernard Shaw:

“People are blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they don’t find them, they create them.”

This one hit me particularly close as I am huge on problem solving. I love evidence and piecing the scene together and this has served me very well in my day job as a quality assurance technician. But I need to make a transition and become much more of an opportunist. I need to make decision much more quickly and I need to learn to distill information more quickly.

Smashing Brickworld: Rob Bell’s "Velvet Elvis" – Part 2

Apr 9th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
5 comments

The Good

I commend Bell for encouraging an eschatological shift from a “when we get over yonder” to a “let’s bring heaven here” theology. He would do well, however, to remember that the previous generation was not wrong in longing for heaven, but rather in making this longing the dominant theological sentiment. Let’s not allow the pendulum to swing completely and lose our longing to be with Jesus in eternity.

Bell’s focus on the renewal God desires for us beyond his forgiveness of us as individuals is sharp and needed. “To make the cross of Jesus just about human salvation,” he says on page 161 “is to miss that God is interested in saving everything.” He’s correct in pointing out that this aspect of salvation is absent in many theological systems. God wants to renew us as individuals to be sure, but through us he wants to renew our relationships and our culture as well.

But it is also important to remember that the fullness of this renewal will happen only when Christ returns. What is so often spoken of as “bringing heaven down” must not be confused as an ability on our part to establish that which Christ alone will establish upon his return.

The nomenclature of evangelicalism is in dire need of refreshment, but just as the word “Christian” is saddled with much detrimental baggage, so are many other words and phrases that are nonetheless still accurate and useful. There is a tendency to set up a reality to fight against that doesn’t actually exist in a lot of places. The worst parts of evangelicalism are taken and a composite is made that looks really bad. For example, maybe somewhere it’s useful to NEVER use the word religion and to say “Christ-follower” instead of “Christian” – but its not that useful in the context I’ve been placed in and creating a giant false dichotomy between the two is more of a distraction than a help.

All that to say: what goes in Grand Rapids may not be what is needed everywhere.

I also like the Nooma videos that I’ve seen. There wasn’t anything about them that set me off. The production is excellent, the content is compelling, and the effect is positive overall.

The Issues

As G. K. Chesterton said “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” There seems to be a desire in much of the emerging church movement to favour personal experience at the expense of belief in anything labeled “orthodox”. This is not a search of a new orthodoxy; it is a way of wrapping orthodoxy around experience. When faith and belief are made subservient to experience, there is little hope for objective truth.

An open mind is a good thing, and admiring mystery is beneficial, but imbuing with mystery that which is no longer mysterious is simply a gateway to untethered mysticism. A preference for what is unclear can make mysterious that which need not be.

So why plant the idea that the gospels might be peppered with pagan mythology and that this was done by the writers of the gospels to gain some sort of cultural traction? According to Ben Witherington this line of reasoning is not even relevant:

The cult of Mithras does not seem to have existed properly speaking before the late first century A.D. It is of no relevance to discussion NT books, and in particular the Jesus tradition;

The cults of Mithras and Attis and Dionysius were not religious cults which centered on real historical persons, unlike Christianity. As such they did not talk about actual virgin births any more than they talked about bodily resurrections of a person like Jesus. It is simply not true as well that Julius Caesar or other Emperors were said to be born of virgins. Remarkable births or births signaled by comets are one thing, virgin births another.

Introducing these ideas seems to discredit the gospels and as a back door introduces the concept of molding truth to fit culture rather than shaping culture with truth.

There is much focus here and in the emerging movement in general on eliminative action. “If only we would do this, AIDS/poverty/loneliness would be wiped out.” These are noble goals to be sure. Christ said both that we should feed the hungry, but that the poor would always be with us. Our actions, then, aren’t designed to eliminate, but to alleviate. Of course Christ’s statement should never be used as an excuse for inaction but neither should it be ignored completely.

In keeping with the Biblical metaphor of being salt, we are to be salt that we might prevent or slow the decay of this world. Salt does not rehabilitate, it slows decomposition. This should not be seen as a resignation to failure, but as a looking forward with anticipation to that which Christ will accomplish.

I agree with Bell that honest doubt and intellectual investigation are important to forming a robust faith. Bill Coleman is the Pastor of the church I attend and when I ran the quote by him he replied that

“Examining or rethinking a matter does not make it fall apart, in fact, it should do the opposite. It should confirm it one way or the other.”

This sums up what I find problematic about Bell’s book: He seems eager to examine and rethink but not to come to any conclusions.

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This is Part 2 of 5 in the series Smashing Brickworld. Go to Part 3.

Go to the series index page. This page contains other links and the option to download the series in one Word of PDF file.

Smashing Brickworld: Rob Bell’s "Velvet Elvis" – Part 1

Apr 7th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.
13 comments

So there was this quote making its rounds on the internet from a book called “Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith” written by Rob Bell. (I say ‘making its rounds’ because the internet is a series of tubes… in case you didn’t know. Listen to the whole thing – it’s worth it) Bell sets up a metaphor where faith is a trampoline, and the springs “aren’t God…aren’t Jesus… [they] are statements and beliefs about our faith that help give words to the depths that we are experiencing in our jumping. I would call these the doctrines of our faith.”

The quote that’s been drawing fire goes like this:

What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archaeologist find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births?

Questions. Big questions, right?
Was Jesus born of a virgin?
What if…?

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?

What if that spring were seriously questioned? Could a person keep on jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart?

If the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring then it wasn’t that strong in the first place, was it?

What if… Mary wasn’t a virgin in the way we understand it? The way you handle this question determines how you read this book.

Questions and Metaphors

All metaphors have their limits of course. They are much like cars – they all eventually break down. In my own limited metaphor, the string of reason and doctrine tethers the kite of faith and consequent action. Lose the kite and the string falls limp; lose the string and the tension and restraint that allows the kite to fly is gone. Freed from its tether, the kite may initially surge upwards, but it eventually returns to the ground, no longer capable of flight.

Reading the book brought to mind a few questions of my own, and I will try to be kind and careful in asking them. Bible scholar Ben Witherington has set the bar with his balanced critique of Rob’s book in his post “Velvet Elvis and the King’– Has he Left the Building?” I want to follow his lead here but I have to admit that I am more disturbed by the content of this book than he is.

Buy the book here and read it for yourself.

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This is Part 1 of 5 in the series Smashing Brickworld. Go to Part 2.

Go to the series index page. This page contains other links and the option to download the series in one Word of PDF file.