Smashing Brickworld: Rob Bell’s "Velvet Elvis" - Part 5
Apr 22nd, 2007 by Michael Krahn
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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Were there any rabbis outside of Jerusalem when Jesus was around?
Are you sure?
Absolutely sure?
I don’t know… did I say there weren’t any? What are you getting at?
I don’t know Michael, I think you’re attempting, in places, to create disagreements or arguments where none actually exist. For instance, your properly reference the Jerusulem Council from Acts 15 in rebutting Bell’s position regarding communities making decisions.
However, reading Bell’s book, I didn’t take it as if Bell is suggesting that is how the Bible was formed. Rather the oral form of storytelling was something which was done in homes and villages, and that people freely discussed and debated intrepretations afterward. It doesn’t seem to me as if Bell is making an authoritative statement on the formation of the Bible.
However, if we take your statement that the apostles and elders gathered to make these decisions, then what is that but a community? Are they not actual leaders and representatives of the different groups in the early church?
From my perspective, and I’ve only rolled over a few passages you’ve posted, it seems that you’re blocking on mundane hypotheticals rather than examine the overall direction of the book (and I offer that with all due respect). Bell, for instance, never refutes the Resurrection or the Virgin Birth (in fact he takes great effort to stress the opposite). What he’s doing is asking questions of how those things would affect the faith. He’s merely asking questions and starting dialogue, of which you’ve engaged in.
Hi Michael, have downloaded your posts and will read them.
I am now in the middle of finishing the book along with lots of other books. The revgalblogpals at http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com/2007/05/revgalbookpals-velvet-elvis.html are now in a discussion about the book. I gave them the link to your blog posts. Thanks for your invitation.
Michael:
I know I’m coming to this discussion late in the game, but I wanted to thank you for the time and care you took in reviewing Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis. Also, I wanted to compliment you on the fairness and gentleness of your comments.
I have been “following” (meaning reading and listening to Bell’s writings, sermons and videos, not being “follower of”) for several years now. His “take” on Christianity resonates with something inside of me. But I know I have to take care not to let my emotions and desires to override my intellect and the Truth found in the Bible. I think that Bell does have a genuine heart for sharing God’s Word and has no intentions to mislead. I also think that the vast majority of his teachings are right on track with scripture, but have to admit that there are times that I think his interpretations don’t hit the mark.
But does that mean that when he is wrong (in my opinion) a few times that it invalidates all of his other teachings? I don’t think so.
I have been under a number of teachers of the faith and I can’t say that I’ve agreed 100% of the time with them and I never stood up and called them heretics. And please don’t think that I think that’s what you are saying. But there is a contingent that does and as a Christian, that makes me sad.
What I respect most about him is his call to have an active and engaged faith. All too often, we can fall into stale and disengaged, by rote faith walks.
There are times in which I’m curious as to why he writes these “manifesto” like books because they seem to detract from his message. If you listen to his sermons, they seem so much more line with the scriptures and the books seem to be less clear and more tangential.
I figure if Bell can use analogies and metaphors, so can I.
I’m a huge movie fan and there are times when I see a movie that has it all going. The story, the acting, the editing, the soundtrack — all the elements of a great movie. Plus it has an ambitious and affecting message. Then there comes a moment where a line a dialog doesn’t ring true or the ending is as quite as satisfying as the rest of the parts of the movie.
There are parts of Rob Bell’s “movie” that really sing and soar. I find it inspiring and it pulls me closer to God and it encourages me to take a closer walk with my faith. Yet, there are places in his movie in which the dialog or idea beneath the script are off the mark, but on the whole, I think Rob Bell’s movie is well worth watching and one that is affecting is a very positive way — for both the viewer and for the advancement of the Word of God.
Peace,
Random