My take on the Rob Bell controversy over at my other blog. Here’s an excerpt:

When the current Love Wins hype is over and the book completes its guaranteed run as a bestseller, Rob Bell will be able to release a book twice as controversial in the future and receive less than half the fanfare. HarperOne should enjoy the flood of free publicity from the power writers of the Evangelical blogosphere this time around. Next time out the bait will be a much tougher sell.

Read the rest here.

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Enjoy!

Scot McKnight on the recent Rob Bell controversy:

“…we saw too much gloating and pride and triumphalism on both sides. I felt like those who watched the sinking of the Titanic and who didn’t cringe at the thought of thousands sinking into the Atlantic to a suffocating death. They were instead singing and dancing to a jig that they were right or had been predicting the sinking all along.

If there is an eternity, and I believe there is, and if there is a judgment, and I believe there is, then let us keep the immensity and gravity of it all in mind and refrain from flippancy, gloating, triumphalism — and let it reduce us to sobriety and humility and prayer. When Abraham faced the prospects of the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 18, he didn’t gloat that he was on the safe side but supplicated YHWH for mercy for those who weren’t. We need more Abrahams.

***

I find some people can get intoxicated on wrath and it can lead them in a triumphalist dance of anger. And I find some who get intoxicated with a flabby sense of grace. Isn’t it better to get lost in the dance of God’s good and triumphant grace and of making things right? If we are to be intoxicated, let it be from imbibing the hope and grace of God’s love which will both win and be right in the End.”

Read the rest here.

So Rob Bell sounds like a Universalist… this is news? Rather than add even more to the recent controversy, I’m reposting my review of one of his previous books called “Jesus Wants to Save Christians” from two years ago. The latent Universalism was already obvious then, so the current (potential?) continuation of that trajectory should not be that surprising.

__________________________________

To be honest, I have tried to like Rob Bell’s work many times without much luck.  That’s probably a bad way to start a review.

I’m not a Bell-basher, but I’m not a fan either; I understand his appeal, but it doesn’t appeal to me; I have been to his church, I know some people there, and I like them and have enjoyed worshiping at Mars Hill.

Many who haven’t read Rob Bell’s books are at least familiar with the phenomenally successful series of short films called Nooma (which are quite good). Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile is the third of his provocatively titled books – the previous two being Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (my review) and Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality.

If you’ve ever heard Bell speak, it’s easy to hear his voice when you read his books – his pacing, pauses, and emphases are communicated well by the format of the text. The size of the books is appealing and the cover designs are clever, making them nice books to be seen with.

In Jesus Wants to Save Christians Bell uses the motif of exile to illustrate the condition of God’s people at present and in times past, drawing parallels between the two. Exile, by Bell’s definition, is “when you fail to convert your blessings into blessings for others… [and] when you find yourself a stranger to the purposes of God.”

In describing the new covenant Bell says: “No more fear, no more terror, no more thunder. That was the old way, the former thing, the first covenant.” In this new covenant, “the truth will be so deeply etched into people’s consciousness that they will naturally do the right thing.” There is a common thread in Bell’s work, one that is the cause of some accusations that he favors Universalism. There are certainly overtones of that soteriological view and it would be nice to hear Bell explain his thinking on the matter a bit more.

By challenging Bell’s allusions to Universalism, one is put into the position of having to answer questions like “Are you saying you DON’T want everyone to be saved?” That is not the point here. Of course everyone (except the most extreme hyper-Calvinist) DOES hope that all will be saved, but the likelihood of this goes against numerous passages of scripture.  Some will spend eternity separated from God; Bell would do well to mention this more often in his teaching – not as a gleeful condemnation, but as a plea for repentance.

The text on the back cover says the following:

“There is a church in our area that recently added an addition to their building which cost more than $20 million. Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty. This is a book about those two numbers.”

That claim is not substantiated in the pages of JWTSC; it would have been a much better book if it had.

The tone and scope of JWTSC reminds me of two other titles I’ve read. Neither one sold me completely on its thesis, but they challenged my preconceptions more effectively. So if a vibrant screed against the culture of excessive consumption and affluence is what you’re after, you’re more likely to be inspired by reading Naomi Klein’s No Logo or Kalle Lasn’s Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge–And Why We Must.

A pattern is emerging: every time I read a book by Rob Bell I’m reminded of other books that tackle the same subject matter but in a more complete and engrossing way.

Bell’s latest is no different. Drops Like Stars is an art book about suffering and creativity that leaves you wishing he’d say more about each subject – that he’d use some of that white space to say something. Yes, I understand the white space is a statement in itself…

But Drops Like Stars takes Bell’s proclivity for white space to a new level. He has finally reached the tipping point and released a book with more white space than print space. The next book might be a collection of completely blank pages. He could be the John Cage of the book world…

Bell’s weakness (which masquerades as strength) is that he says things and presents himself in a way that communicates depth while saying and writing things that aren’t actually that deep. This seems impressive at first but eventually becomes a bit tedious. And it may work in person, as a performance (no negative connotation intended) but on the page it just comes off as shallow – or worse, as false depth.

The book is visually beautiful and this is par for the course with Bell. You can read this book in about 30 minutes, but if you have 30 minutes to invest in a book about art, pick up Madeleine l’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art and read the first few chapters.  Bell’s book might act as a good trailer for Walking on Water, but standing alone it has very little to say.

I never read other reviews of books I intend to review until I’ve written my own, but I always read a few after I’m done to see if other reviewers saw the book the same way.

From Publisher’s Weekly:

“While Bell’s books Velvet Elvis and Sex God received generally strong reviews, this effort to understand the relationship between suffering and creativity feels superficial and overly self-conscious.”

“Bell’s spare prose lacks original insights into age-old theodicy questions. Although the design and layout are first-rate, $35 is a lot of money for a 160-page book that is mostly white space.”

Customer reviews at Amazon:

“…you’d think, with the size and price, you’re going to get a lot of Rob Bell goodness…think again, the pages are so large but the words are only printed in the middle – thus wasting entire forests of paper.

Which is ironic seeing as Bell’s last book was all about how we abuse this planet and need to take care of God’s creation.”

I stand with the crowd on this one.

I will be reviewing Shane Hipps book Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith soon. Here’s an idea of what the book is about.

To be honest, I have tried to like Rob Bell’s work many times without much luck.  That’s probably a bad way to start a review.

I’m not a Bell-basher, but I’m not a fan either; I understand his appeal, but it doesn’t appeal to me; I have been to his church, I know some people there, and I like them and have enjoyed worshiping at Mars Hill.

Many who haven’t read Rob Bell’s books are at least familiar with the phenomenally successful series of short films called Nooma (which are quite good). Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile is the third of his provocatively titled books – the previous two being Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (my review) and Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality.

If you’ve ever heard Bell speak, it’s easy to hear his voice when you read his books – his pacing, pauses, and emphases are communicated well by the format of the text. The size and outside cover designs are clever and appealing, making them nice books to be seen with.

In Jesus Wants to Save Christians Bell uses the motif of exile to illustrate the condition of God’s people at present and in times past, drawing parallels between the two. Exile, by Bell’s definition, is “when you fail to convert your blessings into blessings for others… [and] when you find yourself a stranger to the purposes of God.”

Bell wisely recommends that, “a Christian should get very nervous when the flag and the Bible start holding hands. This is not a romance we want to encourage.”  And adds: “For a growing number of people in our world, it appears that many Christians support some of the very things Jesus came to set people free from.”

He does excel at delivering a concise synopsis of Old Testament Biblical events, but beyond that and into his interpretation of the events, I found little of value.  The book does not deliver on it’s promise.

In describing the new covenant Bell says: “No more fear, no more terror, no more thunder. That was the old way, the former thing, the first covenant.” In this new covenant, “the truth will be so deeply etched into people’s consciousness that they will naturally do the right thing.” There is a common thread in Bell’s work, one that is the cause of some accusations that he favors Universalism. There are certainly overtones of that soteriological view and it would be nice to hear Bell explain his thinking on the matter a bit more.

By challenging Bell’s allusions to Universalism, one is put into the position of having to answer questions like “Are you saying you DON’T want everyone to be saved?” That is not the point here. Of course everyone (except the most extreme hyper-Calvinist) DOES hope that all will be saved, but the likelihood of this goes against numerous passages of scripture.  Some will spend eternity separated from God; Bell would do well to mention this more often in his teaching – not as a gleeful condemnation, but as a plea for repentance.

The text on the back cover says the following:

“There is a church in our area that recently added an addition to their building which cost more than $20 million. Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty. This is a book about those two numbers.”

That claim is not substantiated in the pages of JWTSC; it would have been a much better book if it had.

The tone and scope of JWTSC reminds me of two other titles I read. Neither one sold me completely on its thesis and both are secular in orientation, but they challenged my preconceptions more effectively. So if a vibrant screed against the culture of excessive consumption and affluence is what you’re after, you’re more likely to be inspired by reading Naomi Klein’s No Logo or Kalle Lasn’s Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge–And Why We Must.

**These are some additional thoughts on my review of the book found here.**

I don’t agree with the entire book but at many places I found myself elated that this is out there “in the wild” being read by many non-Christians.

I realize how many people around me are against the book, but I don’t think ANY (or many) of them have actually read it.  I have determined not to come out strongly against some books based on the word of others. I just finished Rob Bell’s latest so I’ll be putting something up about that shortly as well.

But this should tell you how much my mind changed on the book by reading it.

I have a tolerance for fiction and personal reflection books, which is why I can read Donald Miller and Anne Lamott and Madeleine L’Engle, etc. and totally disagree with some of their views while still gaining a lot from their writings.  Same goes for The Shack.

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Ok, I’m done now… I told Anne Marie not to let me go out again.

Here’s the academic stack:

…and the other stack. You’ll notice I out the Bell and Pagitt books between some more solid theological works.  I tried to put them closer to MacArthur but there were sparks.

By the way, we’re going Rob Bell’s church (Mars Hill) tomorrow morning. I’ll put up a post about that sometime next week.

These came from a book sale in a mall

Rob Bell – Velvet Elvis

Dan Kimball – Emerging Worship

Dan Kimball – The Emerging Church

Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones (editors) – An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

David F. Wells – Above All Earthly Powers

And these are from Baker Book House (round one!)

Scott M. Gibson – Preaching the Old Testament

C. J. Mahaney – Humility

Ed Stetzer – Planting Missional Churches

John Stott – Between Two Worlds : The Art of Preaching in the Twentieth Century

B. B. Warfield – The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible 

Willow Creek is inviting Brian McLaren to speak at their upcoming Shift conference. This post will be very odd because I love what I hear from D.A. Carson and I dislike most of what I hear from Brian McLaren very much.

It is indeed sad to see Willow inviting McLaren to influence their flock. I do believe this is a mistake. Part of me fears that they are afraid of losing market share and are just trying to get on board with the hot new trend.

The question has been asked (at a blog called The Gospel Driven Blog) “How can a man who denigrates substitutionary atonement have anything helpful to say to the church?” Quite easily – he understands other aspects of the church quite well. He will no doubt say many helpful things at this conference, but I would still not invite him to speak to my leaders. Ditto Rob Bell – many of the Nooma videos are completely appropriate and helpful growth tools, but I wouldn’t endorse them to my leaders because the trajectory of interest would lead them to other of his materials that are, shall we say, considerably less orthodox.

Regarding D.A. Carson – his book on the Emerging Church has been rightly criticized (by Scot McKnight for one) as being far too narrow in focus for its title. This, I believe, is fundamentally a marketing issue. The book is not so much about the Emerging Church as it is about Brian McLaren. The problem is that the Emerging Church is about far more than McLaren. McLaren is a major player, but only on one side of the movement.

Rather than reading Carson’s book, I would direct you to two articles written by Scot McKnight. McKnight has the rare position of being accepted by the Emerging left while maintaining an appropriate critique of it.

In the article “Fad or Future”, McKnight describes his own discovery and early experience with the movement and in “Five Streams of the Emerging Church” he offers a follow-up and a couple of strongly worded cautions to Emerging leaders including the following:

“So I offer here a warning to the emerging movement: Any movement that is not evangelistic is failing the Lord. We may be humble about what we believe, and we may be careful to make the gospel and its commitments clear, but we must always keep the proper goal in mind: summoning everyone to follow Jesus Christ and to discover the redemptive work of God in Christ through the Spirit of God.”

At the Christianity Today blog Out of Ur, Chad Hall writes (Part 1 and Part 2) about the influence of young Christian leaders like Rob Bell and Mark Driscoll. He seeks to answer the question: Are these “new bishops” the result of a generation searching for leaders outside traditional church structures, or are they a product of publishers and slick marketing?
I’ll pull out a few quotes here but the articles are rather short so it won’t take long for you to read them yourself.

What had given rise to these new bishops? Hall names three primary factors:

1. Waning denominationalism

2. The “Global Village” effect (if you don’t know what that means, read Marshall McLuhan, especially his book “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”)

3. A populist mindset in the present generation that prefers to choose its own leaders rather than have them chosen by someone else

Hall raises the concern that this could devolve into theology by majority and I think he’s bang on with that diagnosis. Popularity is the crown of the celebrity, and with popularity comes power. He also raises the issue of marketing: “With book deals and conference invitations based on who will buy what, the consumer ambitions of publishing houses and conference promoters (and ad-revenue blogs like this one!) may drive choices more than ambitions of faithfulness. ” I don’t see how this is any different from previous generations. Book deals, conferences, and publishing houses have existed for a long time. I’d say the internet is the difference for this generation.

In Part 2 Hall asks: How can Christ-followers navigate the era of new bishops and guard against theology by marketing majority?

1. Let’s not forget that faithfulness to God often does entail faithfulness to leaders. Leaders discerning God’s movement and directing others toward faithfulness is Biblical. We happen to live in a world where we get to choose our leaders, and we should choose wisely. I hear some ministers today who almost seem unwilling to follow anyone other than themselves. Being your own bishop is not healthy.

2. Let’s be savvy in noting the complex relationship between following and consuming. We need to be alert to marketing hype and sensationalism and to separate message from medium lest we buy into an inappropriate message simply because it’s packaged well. If we’re blind to the new reality we can get sucked into inappropriate hero worship and faulty faith.

3. Although this may not be politically correct, I suggest trusting older leaders rather than the hottest and latest leaders. While I’m not disagreeing with 1 Timothy 4:12, men like Gordon MacDonald, Dallas Willard, Leith Anderson, Peter Kreeft and Eugene Peterson have enough water under the bridge to lead me to trust them, which is distinct from simply admiring them. People live a long time these days, so let’s not rush to make bishops of the young guns just because we live in a culture that worships youth.

4. Let’s not neglect the bishops who’ve lived in centuries past. The minor fact that they are dead shouldn’t remove them from our list of trustworthy leaders. They may not have websites or bestselling books, but they have insights that many of us need today.

Nothing funny this week.  I will have to follow up on any link found between Francis Schaeffer and Bob Dylan.  Rob Bell continues to be a big draw, and with the story on him in TIME this week I’m sure that will continue.

This week’s search terms that led some of you to my blog:

free will in job and genesis

rob bell dawkins

“trappist diet”

Self-conquest is really self-surrender.

Michael Krahn

Intentional Poverty

thomas merton+solitude

Caesar Rob Bell

Pedro The Lion:Achilles Heel

francis shaeffer bob dylan

R. Hoeppner

krahn

“rob Bell” “luke 18″

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.”

****************************************

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.

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?

*******************

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.

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.

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.

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.