I am reading the usually provocative Rob Bell this week: "Jesus Wants to Save Christians". As I expected, it is a challenging, interesting read.
Bell is quite the polarizing figure amongst the Evangelical illuminati. Some paint him with the broad brush of Emergent and dismiss him outright as an heretic (see Phil Johnson and his cohorts for a representative sampling of the slamming). Others paint him with the broad brush of Emergent and embrace him outright as one of their own. Like most people, though, who think hard and long about -- and interact with -- the Text of God and the God of the Text, Mr. Bell defies easy categorization.
I like him. I like his Nooma videos. I like his teachings from Mars Hill. I like the fact that he started Mars Hill by spending a year preaching through Leviticus and witnessing tremendous church growth. I mean, who does that?
As to the book, well, I am not sure I totally get it. Could be I'm not bright enough. Could be I am still holding fast, not to that which is true, but that which is conditioned. I don't know. A pastor I admire once said about another easily categorized "heretic", I do not necessarily like his answers, but I love his questions.
Bell's main thesis in the book (which he co-authored with former Mars Hill pastor Don Golden) is that the correct way to read the Biblical narrative is as an Exodus story. According to this thesis (borrowed in large part from Tom Holland's book, "Paul in Fresh Perspective"), salvation history follows a defined pattern which the Scriptures portray:
1. Egypt (enslavement and oppression of God's people)
2. Sinai (God brings them out of slavery and tells them how to live -- in the Scriptures, of course, He gives them Torah)
3. Jerusalem (God's people prosper, but in prospering, they begin to resemble not so much the people of Sinai, but the people who oppressed them in Egypt; they move from oppressed to oppressors)
4. Babylon (because of their sin, God's people are humiliatingly and crushingly defeated by an overwhelming enemy)
And here ends the Old Testament (or TaNaK). God's people disbursed to the four corners of the world, rootless and homeless. They wait expectantly for their return. They develop (or rather, begin to focus on), prophetically, a notion that they will be delivered from their exhile by an Annointed One -- a Messiah -- who will defeat their enemies and put things to right. He would, in short, lead a New Exodus.
An interesting thesis. Not the whole story, but an interesting view on it.
Bell is quite the polarizing figure amongst the Evangelical illuminati. Some paint him with the broad brush of Emergent and dismiss him outright as an heretic (see Phil Johnson and his cohorts for a representative sampling of the slamming). Others paint him with the broad brush of Emergent and embrace him outright as one of their own. Like most people, though, who think hard and long about -- and interact with -- the Text of God and the God of the Text, Mr. Bell defies easy categorization.
I like him. I like his Nooma videos. I like his teachings from Mars Hill. I like the fact that he started Mars Hill by spending a year preaching through Leviticus and witnessing tremendous church growth. I mean, who does that?
As to the book, well, I am not sure I totally get it. Could be I'm not bright enough. Could be I am still holding fast, not to that which is true, but that which is conditioned. I don't know. A pastor I admire once said about another easily categorized "heretic", I do not necessarily like his answers, but I love his questions.
Bell's main thesis in the book (which he co-authored with former Mars Hill pastor Don Golden) is that the correct way to read the Biblical narrative is as an Exodus story. According to this thesis (borrowed in large part from Tom Holland's book, "Paul in Fresh Perspective"), salvation history follows a defined pattern which the Scriptures portray:
1. Egypt (enslavement and oppression of God's people)
2. Sinai (God brings them out of slavery and tells them how to live -- in the Scriptures, of course, He gives them Torah)
3. Jerusalem (God's people prosper, but in prospering, they begin to resemble not so much the people of Sinai, but the people who oppressed them in Egypt; they move from oppressed to oppressors)
4. Babylon (because of their sin, God's people are humiliatingly and crushingly defeated by an overwhelming enemy)
And here ends the Old Testament (or TaNaK). God's people disbursed to the four corners of the world, rootless and homeless. They wait expectantly for their return. They develop (or rather, begin to focus on), prophetically, a notion that they will be delivered from their exhile by an Annointed One -- a Messiah -- who will defeat their enemies and put things to right. He would, in short, lead a New Exodus.
An interesting thesis. Not the whole story, but an interesting view on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment