Rob Bell's Nooma Videos 1-5

Nooma is the Anglicized version of the Greek word pneuma, which means spirit, breath, or wind. This word is presumably chosen for the series of short videos Rob Bell is producing signaling the fresh winds that are blowing through the church and the world in part through the Emergent Church movement. Each of these short films have one word titles like 'Rain' or 'Flame' or 'Trees' or 'Sunday', and each center on some elemental concept or idea about which Rob can give some Biblical and spiritual reflection. In the liner notes of the first video we learn that the first of these films was in fact being shot on 9-11-2001 and was about the storms we have in life. That is truly an interesting harmonic convergence. As Sting once said "when the world is falling down, let's make the best of what's left around."

There is an edge to each of these videos which is partly conveyed by the often eerie stripped down background music (the lyrics of which are often not decipherable---think some of the darker stuff by Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or even the circus organ in some of Eminem's music, or even some of the elemental Punk stuff by the Pixies or Violent Femmes). Rob's background in a punk band comes through in his stripped down or back to basics approach to Christianity, as is evident in these films.

Filmed, (it would appear), in high def and focusing like a laser beam on Rob himself in various settings and scenarios each of these well produced videos is somewhere between nine and perhaps 14-15 minutes in length-- perfect for those with short attention spans, or used to channel or website hopping. The colors tend to be stark or primal (black, blue, green, white) with bursts of normalcy here and there, some of the shots are aerial, some are deliberately fuzzy, some are grainy, some are quite artistic, the cinematography itself is carefully thought out and by no means amateurish. The medium and the message co-inhere in their elemental character.

Each DVD comes with a little booklet that reinforces some of the thoughts conveyed in the video and provides the citations and quotations from Scripture that are crucial to a particular film. Clearly the target audience is primarily those who do not know the Bible well or at all, those who are not likely to find appealing the normal approach to Christianity and church, and also primarily those who are 35 and under. From all accounts I have heard these videos are enormously popular with high school youth groups and college Christian fellowships or Sunday school classes as conversation starters. I can see why. They are clear, direct, and Biblical. One thing that is very characteristic of Rob Bell's ever developing work is that he is the most clearly and profoundly and uncompromisingly Biblical in content of the Emergent Church folks I have encountered.

And interestingly it is very different in form and substance from other popular Evangelical trends such as Dispensationalism, or resurgent Calvinism in the Passion movement. Rob Bell is a very different sort of guru than John Piper or say folks like Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, or Pat Robertson. Not only is his approach more counter cultural in form and substance that these aforementioned folks, in comparison to Piper, Rob is definitely not Calvinistic.

Rob says things in these videos like " God doesn't force himself on anyone". There's no theology of irresistible grace here. Or as he stresses in "Velvet Elvis" Jesus died for everyone, atoned for the sins of everyone. And then there is that profound stress throughout out on the importance of this life, this world, and how we respond to the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the diseased, here and now. This is not 'beam me up' escapist theology. Indeed it is ecologically and environmentally friendly theology (we even see Rob planting trees in an urban area in the 'Trees' video). There is a reason for this-- Rob believes that God intends to come back down here, having transformed this world into the new heaven and new earth, to dwell with us forever. It thus behooves us to clean up our room down here to show we are preparing for his return and dwelling amongst us.

A few comments on the first five videos are in order here, and there will be two more posts on the second, and then the third five. Hands down, the most creative and interesting in every way of the first five short films is "Noise" (number 5 filmed in 2003). The video begins with us seeing Rob sitting on a sofa in a living room channel hopping but there are all these lines across the screen. Suddenly you realize you are looking at Rob from inside the TV (!) and then you see the little channel numbers inverted in the upper right corner of the picture. Rob is talking about the value of silence and listening to God and why we have such difficulty with silence in a noise laden culture. All of a sudden Rob turns off the TV and we no longer see or hear anything-- for about a minute! Its just a blank black screen. Then we have words appearing on the screen-- some Scriptures about silence and the need for quiet and rest. Some comments by Rob on the importance of this. Some reminders that we keep using our technology to put more noise and cognitive dissonance into our lives (cell phones, pagers, voice mail etc. etc.). Rob is listing the things that get in the way to listening God. He very aptly alludes to the story of Elijah on Horeb in 1 Kngs. 19-- and how the message of God was not in the conflagration, or earthquake or wind, but in the silence and the still small voice. And the chaos around him needed to subside before he could hear it. This is a compelling little film, and thought provoking, and it taps into a lot of the current emphases in spiritual formation literature. One of the things you notice about Rob is that he draws equally on the OT and NT and is equally adept at getting at the heart of the message from either Testament.

Part of the 'lets get back to basics' approach can be seen in a video like 'Sunday'. Rob asks why we do the things we do. Why do we go to church, why do we give money to the church etc.? What do the habits of our hearts and lives tell us about ourselves? This is the film (no. 4) where we get the message, so characteristic of the Emergent Church approach, about the dangers of empty rituals, rules, and behavior where there is a disconnect between the outer and the inner, between where the heart is and where the body and behavior is. Heart piety, and really caring about the things God cares about are where the emphasis lies, but not at the expense of action-- its just that Rob wants heart felt, God motivated, enthusiastic service to God, not going through the religious motions. Here we are meant to think of some of the sterner stuff in the minor prophets about God despising our solemn assemblies if our hearts have gone far astray from Him.

'Rain' and 'Flame' (videos 1 and 2) provide us with the yin and yang of the storms of life vs. the passions of life. There is some interesting teaching in Flame about the three different words for love used in Song of Songs, and the very effective point is made that in a marriage, friendship love, erotic love, and companionship/ family love all coalesce into one and that makes the flame all the more potent and powerful (and indeed potentially life changing either in a purifying or a destructive way). I must say that I like all these shorts films. Some are more compelling than others, but all of them are useful and edifying in various ways, and Rob does a good job of integrating his own experiences with his teaching of the Biblical text.

Here is a fresh voice for the Lord, who has a vision and an understanding of what he is trying to accomplish, while remaining himself and true to his Lord. When one watches Rob with his painful honesty and genuineness and contrasts this with some of the tele-evangelists who seem so phony and unbelievable as if they are just putting on a show, it is refreshing. Maybe these Nooma winds will blow away the competition and the flotsam and jetsam that clutters up some of our lives and our churches, and particularly our young folks lives. If that's the impact of these films, it will be a breath of fresh air. Indeed, one might say it will be truly pneumatic-- Spirit inspired and empowered.

New Time Article on Rob Bell's Take on early Judaism (and Mine)

You might not realize it from the most recent article in Time about Rob Bell and myself, but I am a Rob Bell fan, and am very grateful for numerous things he is doing for Christ. I do have an issue with his use of early Jewish sources that date from after the time of Jesus, and the attempt to read Jesus as if he were a post-70 A.D. rabbinic figure, when in fact he seldom sounds anything like a rabbi in the way he teaches, but rather more like a Jewish sage such as Honi the Circle Drawer, or Hanina ben Dosa. Here is the link to the article itself, and a good article it is by a fine writer (David van Bema). See what you think, and compare it to my earlier posts on Rob, which you can easily find by doing a search on my blog typing in Rob Bell.


10. Re-Judaizing Jesus

"Velvet Elvis and the King"-- Has he Left the Building?

Rob Bell’s best-selling first book “Velvet Elvis” has tapped a remarkably large market of young people ranging from early teens to late thirties who seem wide open to the Gospel, if presented in user-friendly forms. And Rob has a gift at reaching them. One of the things I like most about Rob Bell is his genuineness, his honesty. He may have a funny bone, but he certainly doesn’t seem to have a phony bone in his body. Its very refreshing. And full props should be given to him for presenting a Christocentric worldview. This is of course characteristic of the Emergent Church movement. In fact it has been criticized for being too Christ focused in some respects. I disagree.

Furthermore, Rob writes clearly and well. It was interesting to hear him describe the agony of the writing process for him when he was here in Lexington this week. Clearly, writing is a labor of love for him, which may explain the one word, and one line sentences from time to time, not to mention the shortness of his two books. But I suspect this is partially intentional. If one takes time to peruse his notes, you discover he has read widely, and fortunately a goodly number of his sources are good ones. Some however leave a good deal to be desired. But more on that in a moment.

It is evident, particularly from the way that Rob uses and quotes the Bible that he has a high view of the Bible’s authority, probably a higher one than some other Emerging Church folks I have encountered. I like the Biblical depth of his arguments at points. His books may be short but they are substantive. They reflect a real wrestling with deep issues, and a real honesty about growth areas Rob sees that he still has. Sometimes as well, there are some really profound insights reflecting deep meditation on the Word.

And let us discuss for a moment how Rob sees the Gospel. He believes that the whole Gospel in all its spiritual and social dimensions needs to be preached and lived out. He has a strong commitment to the poor, the diseased, the hungry, the homeless, not only locally but globally. And he makes this commitment without ever compromising on the spiritual dimensions of salvation as well. He believes that Jesus died for everyone, atoned for everyone’s sin, that God desires that none should perish, and that salvation should be offered to everyone from the least, last and lost, to the first the most and found. He has a profound grasp of sin, guilt, atonement, salvation, God, the afterlife. It is a joy to watch this thirty six year old think and ask questions.

And he has good questions. In some ways questions are his forte. But he does not just use questions to fend off other questions or avoid giving answers when he knows them. He sees himself as following the M.O. of Jesus himself and other early Jews in this. He also has a very good and broad vision of God, not to mention a broad vision of God’s plan for humanity and the earth. As Rob says—escapist theology is not Biblical. Our final destination is not ‘somewhere out there’ its right down here.

The reason ecology and environmental concern is so important is that surely we ought to clean up our room before God comes in the person of Jesus to dwell with us down here forever in the new heaven and new earth. Robb thinks on a cosmic scale, pointing out that God intends to redeem and restore not just you and me, but the earth and all that is in it. Praise God for good holistic visions of salvation that motivate us to be our best selves. It will be clear from all this that I think there is a good reason God has given Rob Bell such a platform—he is a sincere, orthodox communicator of the Gospel with a passion for people and their shalom, their wellbeing. And he is indeed a gifted communicator.

What I am about to say thus must be taken in the larger positive context in which I have framed it. While the following list of concerns should not be seen as minor, they do not by any means outweigh the good that Rob does and which characterizes his ministry. So I would want the following to be seen as a list of desirable upgrades:

1) 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. After 70 A.D. of course some schools were established in Galilee because Jerusalem was no longer capable of supporting such things. This became totally impossible in Jerusalem after the Bar Kokhba revolt in the early second century when the Romans turned Jerusalem into a pagan city with a temple to Jupiter/Zeus and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina. In fact, you will notice that Jesus has no encounters with ‘rabbis’. Scribes yes, Pharisees yes, Sadducees yes, priests yes, synagogue Presidents like Jairus yes--- but no rabbis. This is because there were no ordained rabbis hanging around synagogues in Jesus’ day. It is a huge mistake to read the Talmuds and the Mishnah as if they were describing the world that Jesus lived in, when in fact they mostly described Judaism after the two Jewish wars when Judaism had been whittled down mostly to Pharisaism and had become a much more Torah-centric religion. Jesus was not a rabbi, nor did he have close encounters of the first kind with ordained rabbis. There were none in his day.

Along this same line it needs to be stressed that Jesus was in various ways a radical Jew. He did not simply keep the Mosaic Law, he believed that he came to fulfill it in some respects, and to intensify it in some respects, and yes, to replace it in some respects because the new covenant was being inaugurated through his ministry. Over and over again Jesus healed on the Sabbath—a violation of the work rules in the OT, never mind the more strict ones the Pharisees upheld. Jesus not only dined with sinners and other unclean folks, he famously declared that nothing that enter a person actually defiled them (see Mk. 7). Say what you will, but this makes clear he does not think Leviticus any longer applies in various ways since the Kingdom is breaking in. When Jesus says “you’ve heard it said… but I say” Jesus often contrasts his own teaching with that of Moses, not just contrasting his interpretation of Moses with other interpreters of Moses. Jesus spoke on his own authority, and in this he spoke very differently than rabbis—who were always using footnotes and quoting previous teachers. Jesus never once quotes the great teachers from before or during his era--- Hillel or Shammai or Gamaliel. For the most part Jesus does not spend his days debating Bible passages with people. His occasional debates in Jerusalem do not characterize the majority of his teaching which is wisdom material—riddles, proverbs, aphorisms, one liners, parables, even a bit of allegory. Jesus is a Jewish sage, not a rabbi in fact by trade he was an artisan ( a carpenter or stone mason) and he came to change the world, including Judaism. In other words, Since he is going to focus so much on the Jewish Jesus, Rob needs to use best evidence on what that looks like. See the bibliographies in my books The Christology of Jesus, Jesus the Sage, and Jesus the Seer. 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.

2) Rob needs a better knowledge of Hebrew. One example from ‘Velvet Elvis’ will have to suffice. 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. In the midst of this discussion Rob throws in a mention of Mithras cults. Now unfortunately he likes to do the comparative religions thing from time to time, but he needs to get his facts straight: 1) 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; 2) 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. Rob is however quite right that some of the Greek terminology like euanggelion (Good News) was used by the Emperor cult, and was borrowed by Christians to make their own claims about Jesus. As my friend Tom Wright says—Jesus is the reality of which Caesar was only the parody.

3) The good news is that Rob is committed to contextual exegesis of the NT. The bad news is a fair bit of the time he has not read the commentaries so he will get the context right. When I say he hasn’t read the commentaries, I mean he hasn’t read the standard commentaries on the various books of the NT written by Evangelical or other Orthodox scholars, or at least he never footnotes them or shows any knowledge of them. Instead he has read the Paleo-Jewish commentaries of folks like David Flusser or Brad Young, or the like, whose views represent a tiny minority opinion within the world of NT scholarship. I find this odd since he had a chance to study with folks like Don Hagner and Marianne Meye Thompson at Fuller. How did this happen? In any case, he needs a commentary tune up, as one is only as good a teacher as one’s sources.

Enough with the wish list. There is more, but it can wait. I like Rob’s integration of personal stories with Biblical interpretation. I like his big vision of the truth—that all truth is God’s truth wherever we find it. His insights into forgiveness for example and its connection to the death of Christ are profound (see pp. 107-08) and he is so right that God doesn’t just want to forgive us, God wants to restore us. I like his paradoxes which he explores—for instance “For Jesus the question was not how do we get into heaven? But how do I bring heaven here?” (p. 147).

There is so much more positive I could say, but I will leave it at that. I admire Rob’s courage and commitment and creativity (he's left handed like a few other ministers I know), and it would be a good thing if we all prayed for him and the ministry God is doing through him. Who knows but that God has called him especially to reach our youth in days such as these as we drift in an increasingly non-Christian cultural direction.

Elvis may have left the building a long time ago, but the real King, Jesus is alive and well and Rob is lifting him up.

Rob Bell hits Lexington and a Packed-Out House

Zondervan seems to know its got a tiger by the tale. And not a tame one either, so they've boldly decided to let him out of his Grand Rapids cage. Indeed they have decided to take him out on tour-- more specifically the Sex God Tour, promoting his latest book "Sex God" and his new Nooma video. Both were on offer tonight at Singletary Auditorium for the performing arts on the campus of the University of Kentucky.

There was a definite buzz in the air and in the audience as we all waited for Rob to arrive (his plane flight from Detroit was canceled and so he drove and arrived a bit late. It says something for his integrity that he refused to disappoint the large crowd awaiting his coming). The format of the evening was Q+A on whatever subjects the audience wants to ask Rob about. His approach is in some ways post-modern (its more about the questions than the answers), but more than that it shows respect to the audience to care about their questions and try to respond. After about an hour of Q+A the new Nooma video "You" was shown.

There are a variety of things to commend about Rob and his two books "Velvet Elvis" and "Sex God". They often raise the right sort of questions, and it is clear that Rob connects well with the 20 something crowds. He is an engaging dialogue partner, and witty at times. I especially appreciate how self-effacing he is in his books in dealing with issues like his own struggles for example with depression. He is good at the relational level of things, and one can readily see that he has some pastoral skills. He also has some teaching skills as well. I am thankful that he takes the Bible seriously, and that he seeks to understand it in its original Jewish context. And he has some justified complaints about modernity and its world view as well. It seems clear that God is using him to reach a wide variety of young people, perhaps many who are not darkening the doors of church or can't relate to traditional church. The videos are engaging from a cinematographic and musical point of view, and there is content which is challenging, and not just fluff.

Having spoken of the promise of his writings and speaking engagements and videos, it is necessary in all fairness to turn around and talk about the problems. I will stick to a few major ones in the way he handles the Bible and issues of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. First of all it seems clear that Rob, in his valid attempt to read Jesus and the NT writers in the context of early Judaism, has not used good enough sources to really help him understand the difference between Judaism prior to the two Jewish wars in the first and second centuries A.D, and later Mishnaic and Talmudic Judaism.

Jesus was certainly not a rabbi in the later Mishnaic sense, much less like modern ordained rabbis. It is telling that the only time Jesus is ever really called rabbi by any of his followers is when Judas does so when he is betraying Jesus with a kiss. Jesus' approach to the Torah is not like later rabbis in various ways, not the least of which is that he does not cite (indeed he often contrasts his teaching with) the oral traditions of the elders, such as Hillel or Shammai and the like. Jesus spoke on his own independent authority. At times Rob seems too uncritical in his reading of sources like the truly dated works of Alfred Edersheim, and apparently he spends too much time listening to folks like Ray Vanderlaan, a local teacher in the Grand Rapids area who doesn't really much understand the differences between medieval Jewish rabbis and the context and ethos of teachers in early Judaism of Jesus' day. Rob needs to read some viable sources on early Judaism, for example some of the work of Craig Evans or George Nickelsburg or Jacob Neusner if he wants to paint the picture of the Jewish Jesus using the right hews, tones, and features.

The second problem area is ethics, which became very apparent tonight when Rob Bell was asked about homosexuality. His answers was evasive in part, and disturbing in other parts, and clearly unBiblical in other parts and in this he sounds like some other leaders in the Emergent Church movement. Some specifics should be mentioned.

First of all, Rob made the blanket statement that you have no moral authority to speak on this issue unless you have gay friends and understand their struggle. While I am all for having pastoral empathy with people and their struggles, on that showing, Paul should never have spoken on this issue at all. This comment by Rob is simply an unhelpful way of silencing important voices in a divisive conversation, and its not helpful. Indeed it goes against the whole M.O. of Rob himself, which is to honor other people's views and beliefs and questions.

Secondly, Rob then makes an argument from silence which is in fact misleading. The argument is this--- "Jesus never said anything about homosexuality". This is not quite true. Jesus took all sorts of sexual sin very seriously, even adultery of the heart, as Rob admits, and so it is no surprise then that we find Jesus telling his disciples in Mt. 19 that they have only two legitimate options: 1) marital fidelity (with marriage being defined as a relationship between one man and one woman joined together by God which leads to a one flesh union), or 2) being a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom.

The term 'eunuch' here whether taken literally (as in a castrated person who is incapable of normal sexual intercourse), or simply morally (as in a person who never engages in sexual intercourse, remaining celibate in singleness, though he or she is capable of such an act), makes very evident that for single persons, any single persons, celibacy in singleness is the standard Jesus holds up for the unmarried.

Nor, in view of the way Jesus talks about marriage in the context with the discussion of the original Genesis story about the creation order-- the creation of woman for man (and their interdependency), could one ever imagine Jesus redefining marriage to include same-sex sexual partners. Jesus is not silent on such matters at all-- fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness are his standards, and indeed they are standards by which Jesus himself lived when we are thinking about the celibacy in singleness issue. He is likely talking about himself when he speaks of persons who have chosen to be eunuchs for the Kingdom. Chastity was considered a great virtue in that honor and shame culture.

Rob then raises the issue of hypocrisy. Of course he is right that all sexual sin should be taken equally seriously, and in view of the abysmal record of heterosexual Evangelical Christians when it comes to issues of marital faithfulness he is right that one should not single out homosexual sin for special attention and ignore the seriousness of heterosexual sin. True enough-- but the proper response to such a situation is be an equal opportunity critiquer of all such sexual sin, while honestly admitting one's own failures and shortcomings.

Rob then raises the point that the Bible says nothing about sexual orientation. This is true, but irrelevant. It says plenty about sexual behavior, including same sex sexual activity between consenting adults in Romans 1, 1 Cor. 6 and Gal. 5, to mention three texts. It is simply not true that the Bible is just opposed to pederasty or male prostitution, though certainly both of those forms of same-sex sexual expression are prohibited. The terms used in 1 Cor. 6 refer to males who play the role of 'malakoi' or the soft or effeminate role, and those that play the aggressive more male role called 'arsenokoites'-- which literal means a male who copulates with another male (and the word certainly does not imply copulation only with under aged males). On all of this Rob really needs to read Rob Gagnon's definitive work The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon).

Of course it is true that we all are sinners who fall short of the glory of God, so there is no basis for finger pointing on such issues, and everyone must in all humility deal with their own sins rather than focusing on other people's sins. A Christian approach must be that everyone is welcome to come to Christ and come into the church as they are without pre-conditions. But no one is welcome to stay as they are--- no one. They all must change, repent of their sins as needed, and strive to live in newness of life whether gay or straight.

I do not want to let my disagreement with Rob on some issues overshadow the fact that I think in many ways God is using him for good to reach young people. It is clear he deeply loves God and is striving to please God and help many people connect with Jesus. I am grateful for this.

But since God has provided him with such a forum, he must be all the more careful to speak in a way that honors what the Bible has to say about important subjects, and be clear about what it says, even if at present he finds it hard to accept. He needs to commit himself to studying more carefully the Bible in its proper contexts so that he will avoid needless off hand comments that reflect a lack of understanding of God's Word. And above all he must not fall into the trap of so identifying with the culture he is trying to reach, that instead of actually critiquing that culture from a Biblical point of view, he baptizes certain prevailing cultural values and calls them good, and even mistakes them for Biblical values.

And one more thing. Rob is absolutely correct that there is a fine line between one's sexuality and one's spirituality. It is easy to mistake one sort of passion involving another person for another sort passion, especially in an age which is as confused about sexual roles and sexual identity as this one is. Confusing and fusing spiritual and sexual thoughts, emotions, expressions is all too common these days. It is thus wiser to err on the side of caution when talking about such volatile and controversial issues, especially if you are unsure what God actually says about a subject.

Paul reminds us in 1 Cor. 7 that at the end of the day remaining celibate and single or faithful in marriage is a matter of God's gracious gift-- called a 'charisma'. Its not just about nature, or what feels natural. It requires a grace gift from God to remain true in either condition. And frankly grace restrains and transforms nature. Nature, in the Christian lexicon, does not have the last word, especially fallen human nature. Grace does.

ROB BELL'S NOOMA 16-22

The Nooma video series (from the Greek word pneuma--- spirit) continues to be produced apace at the rate of two-four videos a year, and we are now up to twenty two of these 13 or so minute presentations. The production values continue to be remarkably good, the background music continues to sound remarkably whimsical, (like it was out-takes from the Sgt. Pepper's Track 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite'), the content continues to be remarkably creative, and Rob continues to be remarkably Rob-- with that puckish grin and the Buddy Holly or Elvis Costello glasses and scenes mostly filmed in and around Grand Rapids Michigan where his church can be found. The DVDs still come with study guides or booklets to help along the reflection or use of the material, and they still come in those Carolina blue sleeves with some picture on the front and with one word titles (e.g. store, today,name, open,shells,she, and tomato are the titles of this batch included in this review).

In one sense these films are quintessentially post-modern. They tell stories about life with which most of us can identify in one way or another, and then the stories are related to this or that text, theme, motif in the Bible. Rob has a considerable gift of being able to speak clearly and directly even about complex theological and ethical concepts, and he understands the need to tease the mind into active thought. Some of the videos are more effective in accomplishing this than others, and some are actually provocative in a good sense.

Some of these videos have an anthropological focus. Take for example 'Store' which is actually about our experience of anger in all its manifestations from road rage all the way to righteous anger, or 'Tomato' is all about the false self and how it needs to die in order for a person to be reborn. Still others deal with traditional topics of Christian discourse for example prayer is the subject of 'Open' which is perhaps the best of this new batch of videos. More provocative (at least for some) is 'She' in which Rob talks about the maternal instinct of all sorts of creatures ranging from a mother goose he once encountered to God's maternal instinct (reminding the listener that the Hebrew word often translated compassion, even when God is the subject, means more literally 'womb'). God who is spirit, who is neither male nor female in the divine nature, nonetheless has aspects of the divine personality that we would associate primarily with women or with men. This is hardly a surprise since we are told that both male and female are created in God's image.
In the video 'Shells' Rob reminds us that the good is often the enemy of the best. Too many Christians spend time doing a variety of good things, which in fact prevent them from doing God's highest and best for them. In the video entitled 'Name', Rob talks eloquently about the difference between our personas and posturing and fronts, and our real identity, our real names, and our need to know who we really are, and whose we really are.

On the surface, some might be tempted to accuse Rob of serving up chicken soup for the soul, or pablum for the masses, or what passes for Christian pop psychology, but in fact on further review there is much more Biblical substance to these videos than might appear on first glance, and one needs to bear in mind that Rob is speaking to a post-modern generation that even if church attending are largely Biblically illiterate, and Rob is not. Indeed his teaching, including in his books tends to be consistently grounded in the Word, and those who keep complaining that this is not so: 1) need to lighten up; 2) need to consider the audience and level of discourse Rob is dealing with, especially in these videos.

Rob has learned the truth that you have to start with people where they are and lead them somewhere or persuade them to go on a journey of discovery. It is no good starting with them where you would like them to already be. And yet there needs to be enough challenge and impetus in the message and presentation to motivate a response, a change, a repentance, a recommitment. The testimonies from around the world to these videos, is that they are achieving the ministry Rob and others envisioned for them-- as they are used in Bible studies, small groups, youth rallies, Sunday school classes, evangelistic outreaches, and a host of other settings. Indeed, they accomplishing far more than Rob and his team could ever have imagined they would when they first envisioned taking on this project. I personally am happy for any and all creative and constructive ways of getting people to think about life in a more Christian and Biblical way. Kudos to Rob for pushing the envelope a bit, and advancing the conversation a bit in a Jesus haunted culture that is Biblically illiterate.

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Rob Bell's Nooma Videos 11-15

One of the things one could wish about this Nooma series is that we knew more about the background music. But we may be thankful at least that we have subtitles to these films for those who are hearing impaired, so we must take what we can get. In Nooma 11 (‘Rhythm’) music comes out of the shadows and literally takes center stage, becoming the central metaphor for this particular film. It is filmed in a beautiful concert hall and centers around a rehearsal of a piece of music. This choice of metaphor is not surprising since Rob is a musician (indeed he is left handed and right brained, which this reviewer finds particular resonance with ).

The film begins, as several of them do, with certain misconceptions or limited conceptions about God. Rob relates how one person said that God helped them get a parking space one day, or another tells how they had been healed by God. As Rob rightly asks, this raises more questions than it answers about God--- like where was God when some real catastrophe killing many happened? Why did God heal this good person, but not that one? It would seem that God would have better things and bigger things to do with his time than to produce the occasional small miracle or serendipity. Rob sees this whole concept of a God who is distant and occasionally intervenes all wrong. He is struck by the fact that the Biblical writers believe God is everywhere, all the time—as the Psalmist says “where shall I flee from your spirit? If I go down into the land of the dead—lo you are even there”.

And so Rob draws analogy between the presence of God and their being a song which we all hear, sometimes hum, and if we are intentional occasionally sing on key with. Rob sees this life as an exercise of trying to get in tune with the song that is playing everywhere for everyone. He is not the first to have thought of this. John Donne in his famous poem “To God my God in my Sickness” says that when he faced death and “was about to be made God’s music” he thought beforehand how he ought to tune his instrument, so he could play well in his Majesty’s presence. We see here a strong stress on the imminence of God rather than God’s transcendence, and it is helpful. But most fundamentally we see a getting beyond the Enlightenment and Deistic image of a God who created a universe and then left it to its own devices, except for the occasional capricious and unpredictable intervention It was George Herbert, another English cleric who said that prayer itself is like a tune “we all hear and fear”. Rob would add—so is God.

I must confess to you that I was not prepared for Nooma 12—Matthew. This is the most personal of all the Nooma videos in which Rob recounts, and re-grieves the loss of someone he loved—a young man named Matthew. Here we see in living color Rob’s genuine love for his friends, and therefore the great sense of loss he still bears because of the untimely death in 2004 of a brilliant young man named Matthew, whom Rob had taken into his home in L.A. Matthew’s untimely death was caused by a car accident when he was only 27. The mood is not surprisingly subdued in this video, the setting is in a hotel room with a privacy please sign on the door, and the music is rather somber and ethereal. The undergirding and overarching theme of this video is that one must allow one’s self to grieve, to let out whatever one is feeling rather than being in denial or stuffing it, but that one must not allow one’s self to become bitter. In fact a person has a choice between becoming bitter and becoming better through such heart-wrenching situations. Rob counsels that one must not focus on the hole in one’s life, or grieve as one who has no hope, but one must focus on the positive things one still has to live for. Rob is able to convey these thoughts without being trite or condescending. He talks about the Jewish practice of sitting Shiva, which refers to sitting with the bereaved, just sitting, and not talking unless the bereaved want to discuss the matter. This would be a very different approach to the one taken by Job’s comforters. Rob draws an analogy with how Jesus in Jn. 11 wept at the grave of a friend and entered fully into his friends grieving process. Honestly, I did not expect either the emotional genuineness of this video or the wisdom beyond his years he serves up in this video. I suspect it may well help as a gift to the bereaved.

‘Rich’ is Nooma 13, and now we have gotten to videos shot in 2005 and 2006. This video first of all makes clear that by world standards almost all Americans, at least all that have a roof over their heads, jobs, and a car are rich. Rob tells us only 8 per cent of the world owns cars. I suspect that statistic is low, but even so, you get the drift. What he is certain right about is that America is only 6% of the world’s population but we consume about 30% or so of the world’s goods. God is going to asking for an accounting of our stewardship of our resources. Basically this video rehearses for us some of the teachings of Jesus and Paul that have to do with what godly people should do with wealth. Ron links this to the teaching in Ephesians that we are created in Christ for good works. We have been saved to serve to put it another way. We are not owners of anything we have, only stewards and we should consider them as gifts, not things we earn or deserve. Rob remarks on the bumper sticker “God bless America” Well that request has already been answered a million times over. God has already richly blessed us. The question is--- Are we being good stewards of what he has bestowed. It is one of the characteristic features of the Emergent Church movement that there is a considerable concern for the poor, and for accountability in the way Christians live and spend their money. Rob urges us to generosity and at the same time to a simple life style, which frees up resources so we can be generous.

We go subterranean in Nooma 14, and ride the subways with Rob. Here the subject is breath, and its connection with God. And here again we have an issue with deficient understanding of things Jewish, in this case, understanding of the Hebrew language itself. Rob wants to make a connection between the Hebrew name of God Yahweh (or Yaveh) and the Hebrew word for breath. Actually it is the Hebrew word for life (Hayah) that is normally connected to God’s name, not the word for breath. In fact, when God reveals himself to Moses and says his name is “Eyeh asher eyeh” (sometimes translated ‘I am that I am’ but probably better translated ‘I will be what I will be’ the connection is clear between ‘eyeh’ and ‘hayah’. Yahweh likely means ‘the living one’—the one who was and is, and is to come. Nevertheless, there is good stuff in this video about how we are about as unconscious of God’s presence as we are unconscious of our own breathing every few seconds--- that is until we run out of breath. Rob rightly emphasizes that we are ‘earth creatures’ (the Hebrew word for earth is adamah, and so Adam means earth creatures) into whom God has breathed the breath of life. Out dependency on God is just as real as our dependency on breathing, and we seem just as oblivious to it. Rob is looking for what can be called powerful or master metaphors and analogies to explain the nature of God and reality, and he does it in clear fashion. Once again Rob sees mundane things as talismans of deeper spiritual realities—and he is right about this.

The most recent Nooma video ‘You (number 16) has just been unveiled. It involves the creative technique of filming into, and with the illusion of filming from a mirror. Rob asks us to reflect on the fact that there are no two of us alike. Only you are you, and so God has made us like the snowflakes, each unique, beautiful, of sacred worth, each created in God’s image. One of the themes that resounds through these videos is the reassertion of a robust creation theology, and of the goodness of creation, in the face of various Gnostic dualistic and escapist tendencies in our culture. This is a healthy corrective, and helps provide us with a much more Jewish view of the world. And that creation theology is reinforced by a new creation theology that looks forward to the final form of ‘you’—the resurrected you.

The Nooma videos, whether taken in slowly, or in bunches, or even in one all day marathon are remarkable in so many ways. It is no surprise all the testimonies that have come into my blog about the ministry these resources are already doing in youth groups, prisoners, Bible studies, women’s circles, praise worship and other venues as well. Let us hope the creativity does not run dry, and thoughtfulness of the chosen topics does not run out. Since there are now fifteen of these videos available, there is no rush to do more. The folks at Flannel can take their time now and continue to hold the standard of excellence high. And it would be well if we all supported their non-profit ministry, for they are doing some of the heavy lifting when it comes to lifting up Christ and a Christian lifestyle and belief system to many in our culture—especially those Rob’s age and younger.

Rob Bell's Nooma Videos 6-10

Oh those aquamarine and white Nooma boxes. They contain interesting things.

You can see in the second five films in this series how they’ve hit their stride, anmd in some cases we can see an increasing degree of complexity to the films. The music is background music but it continues to give motion to the film. The lighting continues to suggest we are all living in the Shadowslands. Not quite winter in Narnia, but the Shadowlands for sure. Rob continues to have his blonde tinted hair. We continue to go to everyday places, but we discuss not so every day subjects--- like God, and sin, and suffering, and abuse, and revenge and forgiveness, and baggage.

Nooma 6--- the music in the background sounds like Alanis Morrisette, only less whiny, or maybe Jennifer Knapp with the acoustic stuff. Its entitled “Kickball”, and its set on the shore of Lake Michigan, it would appear. Again like some of these other Nooma films it has a bleak look, or basic primal look. The subject matter is in fact however anything but simple. What is the character of God? Is God good? And if God is good, why doesn’t he give me the stuff I want which will make me happy? Rob draws an analogy with his own parental situation. Sometimes the parent just knows that giving the child what he wants, is not giving him what he needs, indeed it maybe giving him a stone instead of bread, a snake instead of steak. There is less direct Bible content in this one, but the message gets through none the less. It is noticeable how Rob wants to concentrate on the most basic things, like the character of God and do we believe God is good. We should not expect delicate explanations of the Trinity in these videos. They are for entry level discussion, and yet they do not lack meat.

Nooma 7-- This video has a surprise ending, and a back story, so pay close attention to what goes on in the airport. But the subject of this video is revenge. And the most interesting point made in the video is that taking revenge implies something quite clear about one’s faith in God (or lack thereof). It implies one doesn’t trust God to take care of it. Rob focuses on Paul’s words in Romans about leaving room for God’s wrath. He also has some helpful things to say about forgiveness helping the one who does the forgiving as much as the one forgiven. The title of this film is ‘luggage’ but it really should have been baggage. One thing that becomes clearer, the more of these films that one watches-- Rob sees the world has highly dysfunctional and most if not all people are broken and have ‘issues’. So some of these videos necessarily come off more like pastoral counseling videos than straight Bible teaching videos, which is fine. Rob after all has a pastoral orientation and intent in doing this kind of ministry. He is not trying to be something he is not (i.e. a Bible scholar). But there is no mistaking he has interacted deeply with the first principles of the Gospel, like forgiveness.

Nooma 8--- This film entitled ‘Dust’ is one of the one’s I find more deficient in understanding Jesus’ milieu. Here Rob, now brown haired (it was filmed in 2004), basically restates what he has said in “Velvet Elvis” about Jesus being a rabbi, about synagogues where Jewish boys memorized the whole Torah and the like. Since I have already critiqued this point on the blog, I do not wish to belabor the point. Not only was Jesus not a rabbi, like later rabbis, but neither was anyone else really before 70 A.D. Of course there were Jewish scribes and teachers, but we have no historical basis for thinking of ordained rabbis running synagogues and little schools in Nazareth or elsewhere in Galilee during this era. For sure, there was no Bet’ Talmud in Jesus’ day. Nobody was busy memorizing Genesis to Malachi, because there was no closed canon in Jesus’ day, nor a single book to be memorized, nor even agreement on all the scrolls that should be memorized. I bring this up precisely because Jesus is so grounded in non-Mosaic parts of the OT-- the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel, and also the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the wisdom literature like Proverbs, which is what his parables, riddles, and aphorisms most resemble. That is, he is grounded in the latter parts of the OT, including in disputed books like Daniel from which he takes his onw self-chosen moniker—Son of Man, Jesus in short, is a Jewish wise man or apocalyptic sage. He is not someone who teaches Scripture like scribes, or spends much time debating other Jewish’ teachers interpretations of Torah. He speaks on his own authority, and without footnotes, or citing other teachers. Instead of exegesis, he is mainly engaging in creating new Jewish teachings.

It is of course true that early Jewish teachers encouraging imitation of their behavior as well as recitation of Scriptures and important teachings. But when Jesus is calling fishermen and tax collectors to follow him, it has nothing to do with the later practice of picking the best of the best to be one’s disciples because you think they’ve got the intellectuals goods to become like the rabbi. On the contrary Jesus seems to be picking up, not budding scholars, but in some cases the least, the last and the lost—folks like fishermen, or a woman who was demon possessed. And here is an important point--- women certainly did not have the privilege of doing the same sort or degree of Torah study as men. And yet Jesus had a group of very loyal women disciples. This simply punctuates how very different he operated than later more patriarchally oriented rabbis.

Rob however is right that the story of Jesus and Peter walking on water is a very telling story about Peter not having enough faith in himself to walk by faith over to Jesus. Rob emphasizes that God and Jesus have faith in us, entrust us with the task of making more disciples. Its an important, indeed crucial point. Jesus believes in us! When’s the last time you heard a sermon on that? And Rob makes the point well.

Nooma 9, entitled ‘Bullhorn’ finds Rob taking on one of his pet peeves—fundamentalist hell fire preachers who stand on corners with bullhorns and tracts trying to warn people that if they haven’t repented and trusted Jesus, well then they are on the straight path to hell. Rob’s disagreement with this whole approach to evangelism is not just that hardly ever works or accomplishes the intended outcome. His disagreement with it is that it is a violation of the heart of the Gospel which has to do with loving God and others with one’s whole heart. In fact, as Rob stress by loving others one is loving God. What this film emphasizes is the unconditional love of God, which we as well should offer unconditionally to all whether they receive it or not. What this film does not say, and really needed to say, if only in passing, is that in fact God does not love many of our sinful and self-destructive ways. He does indeed begin with us as we are, but he never leaves us there, for the very good reason that our sin continues to alienate us from God, like a cancer which destroys our most precious relationships. There are some subtle touches in this video, for example when bullhorn guy is in an elevator on the way to his rant site there is a sticker on the wall of the elevator that says ‘Love Wins’. Indeed, it does and it should. You can attract more flies with honey than with gall for sure.

Nooma 10, entitled ‘Lump’ is one of my favorites thus far. Rob is at his best when he is relating his own personal experiences to the Scriptures, and here he is dealing with his son lying to him about something he had taken from someone and then again about hitting his brother. And when the moment of realization comes and he knows he is busted, then he runs and hides not in his own bed, but in the safest place he knows—in his parent’s bed, under the covers. Rob tells the story about finding him there some two hours later, and reassuring his son he is still loved. But at the same time Rob talks about the need in due course to make amends to those he hurt, or hit, or stole from, or lied to. What this story reminds us of is that children, even small children are not pure. Up to a certain age they have a certain innocence, in the sense that is the opposite of experience. They have not yet willfully violated a known law, and so committed a willful transgression. But they are not pure. Innocent and morally pure are two different things, and often small children are the most self-centered, its all about me creatures that one could imagine.

St. Augustine tells the funny story about am infant who was caterwauling at the baptismal font, and he says it was evident he was unregenerate and resisting the waters of grace. Shows how little he knew about the conscious behavior of infants. But in a sense he had a point—we are all born fallen creatures. The story also reminds us that even reasonably small children are capable of knowing they have done something wrong and of feeling shame for it. But like the father in the Prodigal Son parable, Rob tells his son, “there is nothing you can ever do that will stop me from loving you.”

I am reminded of Paul’s words in Romans where in one chapter we are told that Christ died for sinners, for the ungodly, for his enemies. How much clearer could it be that God loves us in spite of what we do and have become, not because of it. Victor Furnish once said that God’s love is not like a heat-seeking missile targeting something inherently attractive in us. God does not love us because we are lovely or loveable. Rather his love for us makes us that way. God doesn’t love us because he has already chosen us before all time. Rather it is his love for us and our response to it which makes us his bride, his chosen ones. We must say ‘I do’ in response to his ongoing ‘I do’. Rob is right to emphasis that God is love. The question is, how will we respond?

Rob Bell just in Time

There is a nice new piece in Time magazine that I have been helping with for some time on Rob Bell written by David van Biema, one of the very best writers on religion in America. Here is the link---The Pastor's No Square. Unfortunately much of the analysis of Bell that I offered is deleted from the final version of the article, but you will get the gist of the matter.

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THE NEW ROB BELL BOOK--- A PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS

Jesus Wants to Save Christians, by Rob Bell and Don Golden, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), $19.99 (224 pages) Due out in October.

I thoroughly enjoy the creative material that comes out of Rob Bell’s grace-filled and artistic brain. Even when I disagree with him, there is no denying he is tapping into a deep well of truth and riding the wave of a new movement of the Holy Spirit which the church, especially in America, so desperately needs. Rob Bell, and until recently, Don Golden have been doing this together at Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, and undoubtedly this book comes out of some of their ministry together. This third of the Bell books, this time with collaboration from a partner in ministry has the same bite and passion as the first two, but mostly missing are the personal stories and anecdotes which peppered Velvet Elvis, and Sex God. This book is all business, and it is God’s business the writers are about. Whether the Evangelical world wants to hear this or not, these authors feel it needs to do so desperately. This book deserves a thorough review.

It is thus with some excitement that I recently discovered that my friends at Zondervan had sent me a pre-pub copy of Jesus Wants to Save Christians (and boy do many of them need it!), which as it turns out, is a good faith attempt to articulate a specific theology for our post-modern situation, articulating what the author’s call a New Exodus perspective. New Exodus theology is of course not totally new, though it will be new to many in the blogosphere, and in the Introduction our authors acknowledge right off the bat an indebtedness especially to the work of Professor Tom Holland who teaches Biblical Theology at Wales Evangelical School of Theology, and has focused in his writings on the Pauline corpus (e.g see his Contours of Pauline Theology). Thus we could say that Bell and Golden are attempting to turn some of that Welsh grape juice into vintage wine in this little book, or perhaps we should envisage the process the other way around, since Holland’s is the more technical scholarly work, and this book more the distillation and clarification. But let the buyer beware--- anyone brave enough to take on and milk the All American sacred cows of greed and sex are bound to get to some other nice little non-controversial golden calves like ‘Christians and politics, or Christians and war’, or Christians and social justice, or Christians and the oppressed and the poor-- right? Right.

One of the things I immediately resonate with about this book is its attempt to do theology out of the Grand Narrative or meta-narrative of the Bible. This is precisely what I have been arguing for, for a long time even when it comes to more didactic material such as Paul’s letters (see e.g. my Paul’s Narrative Thought World). What we discover pretty quickly in the first chapter is that this book is more than just a theological exercise by young theologians (to borrow a phrase from Helmut Thielicke’s classic little guide), it is something of a social manifesto, a probing of the necessary socio-political implications of the Gospel. Writing this is of course either a brave or a foolhardy thing to do in schizophrenic America which actually thinks you can keep religion and politics (and church and state) in hermetically sealed off comports in one’s brain, ones town, and one’s nation, and never the twain should meet. In short, this book comes at precisely the right time (due out October) in the latest political cycle of things.

The book begins with a retelling of the tragic tale of Cain and Abel which gives the authors the opportunity to suggest that this story is about all of us—somewhere East of Eden, trying to build a city and a civilization outside of Paradise and in a fallen world. Ain’t it the truth. But this book is especially about the indigenization of human falleness in America particularly, and how our behavior as an Empire, in some ways much like the Roman Empire, is a particular manifestation of what is deeply wrong with human society, something which is more like the behavior of Cain, than Abel.

One of the roots of the problem in America is pointed out at the very outset of the book is put in these terms—“A Christian should get very nervous when the flag and the cross start holding hands. This is not a romance we want to encourage”(p. 18). Indeed, if pushed far enough it becomes a form of idolatry, the ultimate fallen behavior. And of course Bell and Golden are right. When you are spending a trillion dollars in Iraq and untold billions here in America for Homeland In-Security, and invest 50 billion in one plane with helicopter features as a ‘better weapon of mass destruction’ and of course it still is not making us safe, indeed it makes us feel less secure in many cases not more, isn’t it time to ask—Is fear or faith dictating our dominant national behavior in such matters? What’s wrong with this picture from a Christian point of view? At least Bell and Golden are brave enough to ask the right questions about all of this, even though doubtless they are going to be slammed as unpatriotic, rather like Jews were by the Roman Empire when they refused to worship at the altars of the Emperor cult.

And interestingly, quoting Colin Powell no less they put their finger on it early on: “The only thing that can destroy us is us. We shouldn’t do it to ourselves, and we shouldn’t use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex”
(Colin Powell in interview in GQ October 2007 http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_5900).
I knew I liked that Colin Powell. With this opening salvo, Bell and Golden turn to a retelling of our story, our meta-narrative, the story of salvation history.

CHAPTER ONE In the first major chapter of the book, the authors turn to Exodus and isolate a particular key motif. If we ask what it is that gets the ball rolling, the juices flowing, and more to the point what sets God into motion and into action, it is the cry of the oppressed. Whether it’s the blood of Abel crying out, or the oppressed Israelites laboring under Pharaoh’s hard yoke, it is the cry of the oppressed for help that sets the Biblical story in motion in regard to God’s divine intervention and redemption activity. God doesn’t just hear, he is a crisis intervention specialist. But not like an EMT team. More like someone who is rescuing his own bride to be, and longs to have a permanent binding covenantal relationship with them. And God has a mission for this bride, to become a priest, a mediator between God and humankind, a light-bearer to the nations.

Much is made by Bell and Golden of the word sa’aq which Walter Bruegemann has referred to as the primal scream of a wronged people. Not a lament or a cry of resignation but the strong voice of a person badly wrong crying out and believing it will be heard and remedied. God responds to the primal scream of humanity for liberation, freedom, rescue. The cry for release from injustice and oppression.

Egypt is viewed as the epitome of anti-kingdom. It is seen as what happens when sin becomes structured into society itself and its laws. “Egypt shows us how easily human nature bends towards using power to preserve privilege at the expense of the weak.” (p. 27). Pharaoh is “part of a larger system, a complex web of power and violence and industry and technology that exploits people for its expansion and profit.” (p. 26). Bell and Golden are enunciating a certain kind of non-Marxist liberation theology, but they have indeed drunk from the well of Horsley and Crossan as they trek across the desert towards the oasis they are looking for.

One of the more interesting points in this chapter is that God deliberately calls his people away from the city away from fallen civilization to a place where he can speak to them “And it happens in the wilderness, which has global implications. Because the Sinai event happened in the wilderness and not in the midst of a nation or city or province where someone could make ownership claims, it was for all the people of the world.” (p. 29).
This first chapter could be called a tale of going from Exodus to Exile. And there are many helpful and key points along the way. What does God do when his oppressed people, once they begin to prosper, turn around and oppress others? Does God stand idly by when that happens? No, he sends his very own people off into exile. There is both a helpful exposition of the ten commandments in this chapter and then an eye opening exposition on Solomon and how he became like Pharaoh, an oppressor.

In regard to the ten commandments the authors stress that this is an exegesis and a reminder of the Israelite experience in Egypt and thereafter. So for example, it reminded them they lived in Egypt in a polytheistic environment which was an insult to the one true God, as he was about the only God not honored there! The Sabbath commandment is said to remind the Israelites that Pharaoh made them work every day without rest, that is it reminds them of their life as slaves not allow shalom or restoration or a time to honor their God.
The ten commandments then are seen as a new way of being human, getting one’s life in proper order in relationship to God and others. God’s people are to go and hear the cry of other oppressed peoples—the widow, the orphan, the stranger in the land, the foreigner. “They’re commanded: Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan… Do not deny justice to your poor people….It is as if God is saying, ‘The thing that has happened to you—go make it happen for others….God measures their faith by how they treat the widows, orphans, strangers—the weak—among them God’s desire is that they would bring exodus to the weak, in the same way that God brought them exodus in their weakness.” (p. 35). And later when they speak about the perfidies of Solomon they remind us that it was the Queen of Sheba who said “Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.” (p. 37). But in fact Solomon failed in this enterprise and became a king like unto Pharaoh. The authors then chronicle not only the buildings based on slave labor, but the building up of homeland security at Megiddo and elsewhere. And Solomon becomes an arms merchant, buying chariots and horses from Egypt and selling weapons of war to the Hittites and the Aramaens. (p. 41). Solomon creates an anti-kingdom for his own pleasure and protection and honor, in direct violation of Deut. 17.16-17 telling a Israelite ruler what he must not do.

One of the gems of insight is that “The Bible is full of stories in which the ‘pagan’ characters seem to have better insight into the ways of God than the people who are supposed to have that insight. See Jethro in Exodus 18, Rahab in Joshua 2, the magi in the Gospels, and Numbers 22, we’re not sure about Balaam’s donkey” (p. 198). To this they add the telling example of the Queen of Sheba who reminds Solomon that his job as ruler is to uphold justice and righteousness, not build a glam temple on the backs of slave labor, and set up military bases in Megiddo, Hazor and elsewhere in the Holy Land, or have loads of concubines and wives, and thereby one’s heart is turned away from the Lord. The one oppressed has become the oppressor, and where this leads is straight to exile, do not pass go, do not collect any more shekelim (see 1 Kngs 11). What’s the point here? “God doesn’t have a problem with eating and drinking and owning things. Its when those things come at the expense of others having their basic needs met—that’s when the passionate rants of the prophets really kick in.” (p. 46). They are right on the money about this.

Another of the major themes of this chapter is that God wants or needs a body on earth. No, this is not Mormon theology coming out of the mouths of Bell and Golden. By body they mean a tangible people, a real people of flesh and blood to carry out God’s will and plan on earth. Herein we see the deep impact that Jewish scholars like Abraham Joshua Heschel have had on their theologizing (see p.200). God gives power and blessing so that justice and righteousness will be upheld for those who are denied it (p. 44).

CHAPTER TWO The second major chapter in this book is entitled ‘Get Down Your Harps’ and chronicles what it means to be in exile. One of the major leitmotivs in the first two chapters is that it seems that for a fallen people “take away the comforts of kingdom, deprive a person of the structures and institutions of empire, and they just might find the spine to envision a new tomorrow. Push a person to the limits of suffering, and they just might become a revolutionary.” (p. 54). No not a Che Guevara kind of revolutionary. A non-violent sort who is sold out for God, and whose bread is God’s Word, and whose hope is in the Lord, not in empire, or military protection or the like. As this chapter goes on to show, one Exodus was not enough. There needed to be an Exodus from Exile as well, and vision borne in exile that was big enough to include all of humanity—a cry for all of humanity to come home to their God.

‘The kings of the Babylonians, the prophets concluded wasn’t the real problem any more than Pharaoh the king of the Egyptians was the real problem for their ancestors…The real problem, the ultimate oppressor, is something that resides deep in every human heart. The real reason for their oppression is the human slavery to violence, sin, and death.” (p. 57). It is the Cain in all of us that is the real problem.

One of the stresses in both the first two chapters is the conditional nature of God’s promises in some respects—God had told Moses that if his people would be faithful and obey fully then they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And on the other hand, if they did not. If they forgot their true identity and story, there would be consequences, called covenant curses (p. 59). Penalties happen when you break a contract. Exile is a consequence of a nation’s infidelity.

But the vision of return, the vision of remarriage would involve a new sort of marriage covenant, according to Jeremiah, one where truth was buried deep in the inward parts of the believing people. And they would not go back to the Solomonic days, they would go forward, according to Isaiah into a place of beating swords into plowshare—exchanging destruction for food production. Turning spears into pruning hooks—exchanging the implements of killing for the implements of rescuing the least the last and the lost. And then there is the word about one’s worst enemies coming to love the Lord and be one’s brothers.
Jerusalem would become a city without walls, Israel a country without borders, and human beings people without racial bias, ethnocentricity, or national bias. “In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria a blessing on the earth. The Lord almighty will bless them, saying ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance” Is. 19.24-25). Hmm…. This doesn’t sound anything like some TV preachers’ visions of the future.

Salvation to the ends of the earth, which Isaiah also forsees means no more partiality. God is the God of all people, he loves them all, and desires to redeem them all. The lion is going to lie down with the lamb and not dream of lambchops. The wolf is going to den with the sheep and not wolf him down. And we will study war no more…… “For the prophets in exile, no vision was too large, no dream too big, no hope too beyond what would happen in the new exodus….A movement bigger than any one nation, bigger than any one ethnic group, bigger than one religion” (pp. 67-68).

To their credit, Bell and Golden point out that when Isaiah talks about this new leader, they see that he was to be like Solomon, only wiser and better. One who would use power purely to help the oppressed and the poor. One who would in fact be a servant—a suffering servant. A righteous and just servant. The authors see the promises in Isaiah 7,9,11 pointing to a leader that not only has a miraculous conception but can rule forever, some sort of interesting servant who is both truly human and yet truly divine. A prince of peace who will bring shalom forever.
What if David had another son, like but much greater than Solomon? “What started as a promise of hope for a particular group of people beside a particular river turned into a universal hope for all of humanity, whatever river they find themselves beside.” (p. 71). But these dreams were deferred for a long time. These hopes were left hanging in air, and even the moment of Macabbean glory did not fulfill these dreams. What or who could? The Old Testament leaves us hanging like the last episode in season 4 of Lost.

CHAPTER THREE Bell and Golden subscribe to the theory that Jews of the first century in Israel saw themselves as still in a sort of exile since the Roman oppressors were in their land, and they were not free, since even their temple was abutted by a taller Roman installation like the Antonia Fortress. I would call this occupation which involved some oppression to be sure. But not exile. The portrayal of Jesus as the true Son of David, like Solomon was supposed to be, is poignant and accurate, beginning on p. 78. There is also a stress on how much the story of Jesus is seen in light of Isaiah 40ff. and further there is a stress on how the ministry of Jesus is seen as not just one more return from exile, one more exodus, but in fact a new genesis—the beginning of the kingdom on earth leading to the new heavens and the new earth. There is a stress on the universal intent and scope of Jesus’ ministry—“this new son of David isn’t just leading a new exodus for a specific group of people; he’s bringing liberation for everybody everywhere and ultimately for everything everywhere for all time.” (p. 83).

There is a helpful discussion, beginning on p. 85 of the Emmaus road story. The authors remind us that Jesus’ frustration with the two fellow travelers is not because they believed the prophets and Jesus’ death had dashed such hopes. It is because they had not believed the prophets that spoke of the servant suffering. “For the fellow traveler, Jesus’ death isn’t the end of hope; its actually the beginning of hope.” (p. 86). Jesus was not going to change the world by killing, but rather by dying. “If evil always takes some form of violence, then more violence isn’t going to solve anything.” Jesus came to change the paradigm for “those addicted to the myth of redemptive violence.” (p. 87, and here an indebtedness to Walter Wink is acknowledged). Instead there is the truth of redemptive suffering and death. Violence cannot bring peace, the death of the prince of peace can, for only by absorbing the world’s attempt to be Cain over and over again, can the paradigm be changed, and the world be changed, and even God’s people be changed.

CHAPTER FOUR This chapter begins with a bit of a historical problem. Apparently the authors think that Philip the Evangelist is the same person as the Philip mentioned in the Gospels. This is probably incorrect. The Philip of Acts 6-8 is not one of the apostles, but someone picked to relieve the apostles of their table waiting duties, and their duties to care for the widows. And a picture is painted of this Philip that he comes from an ultra orthodox region of northern Galilee including Bethsaida. This idea they got from Ray Van der Laan, and it is likely wrong as well as it is based on what that region was like long after A.D. 70 when it became a haven for Jews after the debacle and destruction of Jews in Jerusalem. Bethsaida was not known as part of the orthodox triangle in Jesus’ day. Indeed, it was known as a border town dangerously close to pagan influences from Gerasa and elsewhere.

In their retelling of the story of Pentecost they connect it with the Mt. Sinai experience of Moses, and the Jewish tradition that Moses got the Big Ten and these truths were then spoken in the languages of all nations. This story is more likely to be alluded to in Acts 2 than the usual suggestion that Babel is alluded to, for Acts 2 is quite specifically not about the return to one world, one language. It is about how the Good News can be indigenized in all languages and cultures.

One of the features of Bell’s approach to Scripture is to look for small correspondences between Biblical stories and then connect them—for example the mention of 3,000 killed at Sinai, and 3,000 added at Pentecost. Some of these connections are far more plausible than others and this one is just barely possible. The danger of course is to read too much into the use of specific numbers that were not particularly symbolic for Jews (though there were perhaps a dozen or so numbers that were symbolic) or specific terms, like the word ‘east’, as in east of Eden.

Another example occurs in this same chapter where the reference to too much wine is taken as an allusion to weddings and marriages, and then we are told that Pentecost is about the beginning of the new marriage with God. This is something Luke does not even remotely suggest, and indeed what is said by Peter rules it out--- the taverns are not open this early in the morning. He’s not thinking weddings, he’s thinking happy hour. Or again in this same chapter the fact that the Ethiopian eunuch is riding in a chariot is used to connect this story to the chariots of Pharaoh, never mind this eunuch is already a God-fearer reading an Isaiah scroll! Is the chariot seen here as a symbol of oppression and baptism a liberation from that sort of oppression? Luke does not say or imply that is his message here. He is concerned about Good News traveling to the ends of earth, by means of folk like the Ethiopian (see my Acts commentary).
We are then given the picture of ultra-orthodox Philip who would have qualms about baptizing a eunuch. But nothing in the story indicates this was an issue for Philip at all. And indeed, we are not given a scenario where Philip has a crisis of conscience before baptizing the eunuch. This is reading too much into the story, on the basis of dubious background info. Context is great when it’s the right contextual info, to illuminate the text.
There are however better connections made later in the chapter for example between Paul in Rom. 1 seeing himself as a servant and sort of priest to the nations, thus fulfilling what is said in Exod. 19 and elsewhere. Bell and Golden are right, that the new covenant did want to emphasize the more universalizable aspects of the prophets words, and indeed of the words of Moses.

If we wonder where the title of this book comes from it comes from insights like the following: “Paul is gathering with the religious leaders, trying to persuade them about Jesus. He doesn’t first go to the Gentiles, he goes to the religious faithful, he attends their gatherings, he speaks to them in their language. Paul does this because he knows that if the church gets converted, the whole world will follow.” (p. 115, emphasis added). Of course in Acts 28 Paul is talking to Jewish leaders, not Christians, and of course they are synagogue leaders, not church leaders, and it is not clear whether the whole world’s following is meant to be an allusion to Rom. 11.25 and context where the full number of the Gentiles and all Israel being saved are connected. This is the weakest chapter in this book in terms of sound exegesis at various points, but it does manage to stay on message and rightly emphasis the new creation theme and the new covenant character promised in Isaiah and Jeremiah. The early Christians did believe they already lived in the age of fulfillment. Indeed every conversion was already a new creation, at least in that life.


CHAPTER FIVE This chapter begins with a bang, the big bang of the bombing that began Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003. As is reported here while we were busily lauding the precision of our new weapons, in fact the hospitals nearby were reporting almost entirely civilian casualties—women, children, the elderly, and men. Not soldiers, not a one, and not Saddam Hussein. The accurate report from that day of one Iraqi trying to overcome the disaster is given. He said “Due to this [inhuman] behavior. America will fail. She will fail completely among the countries. And another nation will rise and take America’s place. America will lose because her behavior is not the behavior of a great nation.” (p. 118). The bombs you see fell in the wrong place, and any one who calls innocent people killed ‘collateral damage’ has certainly forfeited the right to think they stand on the moral high ground.

Now Bell and Golden are well aware of all the good that Americans have done in so many corners of the globe. They are well aware of , and agree that the loyal service of someone to their nation, is often to be applauded and honored. They quite agree that those who actually sacrificed their lives so we could live in freedom deserve our respect. That is not the issue. The issue is that Jesus has called Christians to participate not in Empire and ‘military solutions’ but in the Gospel and the attempt to save the world for true freedom in a very different manner. To the questions about the unjust terrorist act called the Crucifixion which happened to Jesus, and how we should respond, Jesus’ suggests “those who live by the sword shall die by it”. In short, Christians are not called to participate in the ‘military solution’.

Jesus has “an entirely different understanding of what just took place in Jerusalem [to himself], an understanding that strikes at the core of their entire worldview [which looked for the military restoration of Israel], and in the process of explaining to them what really just happened [namely the fulfillment of God’s plan—see Lk. 24], he reaches out to save them from perpetuating the very thing he came to save them from.” (p. 121, emphasis added). That is he came to save them from, among other things, the ways of Cain, the ways of violence to try and solve our problems. This stress on the Christian call to non-violence is both welcome, and Biblical. Its what Jesus would do.

Bell and Golden are quite right that it is difficult to read the Bible from the posture of the oppressed when one is part of a nation that is not under oppression in the way ancient Jews were. When one is part of the world’s biggest super power it is hard to read the Bible with the eyes of the original writers of these stories that saw super-powers as the ultimate manifestation of evil, and even severely criticized their own nation when it briefly became a super power under Solomon. While it would be easy to put America on a guilt trip for how much it has and has done to obtain it and how much better we have it than any other country in the world (see pp. 122-23) Bell and Golden take the high road.
They do want to deconstruct the sense of smugness and entitlement, and make us realize we have indeed been blessed to be a blessing, and we need to get on with it, not being a curse to other nations. They stress that prosperity brings with it the temptation to forget not only one’s past poverty and exodus from it, but to forget one’s God who did the blessing and rescuing.
They stress that what so often is a telltale sign that you have in fact forgotten God is “you forget the people God cares about…the widow, the orphan, and the refugee.” (p. 124). They are right about this. One measure of the character of country is how it treats the foreigners and strangers in the land. They stress “Entitlement leads to becoming immune to the suffering of others, because ‘I got what I deserve’ and so, apparently, did they….In the empire of entitlement, when the fundamental awareness is lost that this is all a gift, luxuries can begin to seem like necessities. Excess can become normal. And it can be very easy to lose perspective on just how much we have.” (p. 125).

But Bell and Golden are not just critiquing luxury and excess. They are wanting Americans to see themselves in different places in the Bible than they usually see themselves. “If you are a citizen of an empire that has the most powerful army in the history of humanity and is currently on the way to spending a trillion dollars on a war, passages in the Bible about those who accumulate chariots and horses from Egypt are passages about you and your people.” (p. 128). It is no surprise that the Psalmist contrasts those who trust in chariots and those who trust in God.

One of the more key insights that Bell and Golden emphasize that makes the Bible a different sort of book is that the Bible records how God wanted God’s people to be self-critical. The Bible records both the good points about Solomon, but also the full critique of his attempt to make Israel like the other nations, an accumulating empire. This is a God thing, as not too many empires are self-critical. “This is a warning to us of the powerful impulse within an empire to tell only one version of the story, the version that glosses over the dark side and injustices in order to serve the larger story of continued supremacy and success.” (p. 130). When you begin believing your own rhetoric, you are self-deceived.

Not surprisingly in this chapter considerable time is spent on the book of Revelation, which is rightly seen as a profound critique of empire and the Emperor cult and the tendency of God’s people to compromise with the pagan culture and its values.
The critique of some popular forms of Dispensational interpretation of Revelation is trenchant: “Imagine how dangerous it would be if there were Christians who skipped over the first century meaning of John’s Letter [i.e. Revelation] and focused only on whatever it might be saying about future events, years and years away. There is always the chance that in missing the point, they may in the process be participating in and supporting and funding various kinds of systems that the letter warns against participating in, supporting and funding. That would be tragic. That wouldn’t be what Jesus had in mind. That would be anti-Jesus. That would be anti-Christ. Were the people in John’s church reading his letter for the first time, with Roman soldiers right outside their door thinking, ‘This is going to be really helpful for people two thousand years from now who don’t want to get left behind.”? (p. 135). They ask the pertinent question—how do the children of the empire hear a critique of the fallen tendencies toward and the existence of empires? They spend the final major chapter of this book trying to answer that question.

CHAPTER SIX The title of the final major chapter is striking—Blood on the Doorposts of the Universe. The image of course comes from the original Passover, which is seen as an occasion where the power of the Empire was rendered inert and the Pharaoh powerless to stop the angel of death because the God of the exodus was going to hear his people’s cry and rescue them. An extended comparison is drawn between the original Exodus which involved the sacrifice of a lamb, and its blood on the doorpost in lieu of the loss of the first born son, and the new Exodus in Jesus’ blood on the cross where in fact, by contrast God’s first born did lose his life. The lamb, and more specifically the sacrificed lamb becomes a symbol of freedom, of that which sets a people free. The authors then go on to discuss the Passover meal Jesus celebrated where he reinterpreted two of the elements, bread and wine, in light of himself, and his own coming sacrifice. When you change the referents of the symbols, you are changing the symbol system, and in this case that means new covenant, and not just a renewal of the old one.

On p. 150 much is made of the fact that Christ is called the firstborn of all creation, which is taken to mean that Jesus is the representative of all of creation. In fact Colossians is talking about his being preeminent over all creation, but they are right in general about the point they are making. Christ did die for all. God is reconciling all things unto himself through the blood of the cross. This is the language of estrangement overcome, not liberation from bondage, but it is said to be for all of creation. Probably preeminent over creation and preeminent and first in the new creation of resurrection is what Col. 1 is about, a statement about Christology, not so much about new exodus. In fact “making peace thru the blood of the cross” is more about cessation of hostilities between God and humankind, not about liberation from Egypt like oppression and bondage. The problem with paradigms is that when you try to read new Exodus into too many things, some texts get distorted like Col. 1.

The authors go on to stress that Paul apparently saw himself as, like Christ, a thank offering poured out for the world. They argue (see pp. 152-53) that we are all supposed to be offering ourselves as sacrifices and servants, for the world. One striking remark comes while they are discussing 1 Cor. 9, and notice that Paul does not say “to the strong I became strong” whereas he does say to the weak I became weak”. The reason this is notable is because of the previous antinomies (I became a Jew to the Jew, a Gentile to the Gentile etc.). Why not? Because a Eucharist is not about self-strengthening or identifying with the strong. “For someone to receive, someone has to give. For someone to be fed, someone has to provide the food. …if someone somewhere benefits, then someone somewhere has paid something” (p. 152). Eucharist is about self-giving, not self-aggrandizement or self-enhancement.

One of the things that is strongly critiqued in this last chapter is a consumer approach to church, especially when that makes a church an exercise in niche marketing for a specific subculture or cultural group. As Bell and Golden stress that doesn’t look like the new humanity talked about in Ephes. 2 that Christ died to create. They put it this way-- “A church is not a center for religious goods and services, where people pay a fee and receive a product in return. A church is not an organization that surveys its demographic to find out what the market is demanding at this particular moment and then adjusts its strategy to meet that consumer need.” (p. 161). The question is what does it look like to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the world, as Jesus did. A church’s authority in the world comes from its Christ’likeness is in essence what they are saying.

At this juncture, lest we think that Bell and Golden might be suggesting something ‘liberal’ about politics they make clear that is not their intent--- “This is why when Christians organize politically and start flexing their muscle, making threats about how they are going to impose their way on others, so many people turn away from Jesus. Jesus’ followers at that point are claiming to be the voice of God. But they are speaking the language of Caesar and using the methods of Rome, and for millions of us it has the stench of Solomon, its not the path of descent.” (p. 164).

In other words, they are all for Christians living out the radical demands of the Gospel, but they do not see this as a political program by which a Christian group weds itself to a particular political party or movement, and uses the world’s tactics to try and accomplish God’s ends. This would not be taking the way of the servant, the way of sacrifice, the way of eucharist. Giving unconditionally to others is different from demanding things of others, manipulating others, brow-beating others, and the like. Working for justice in the world does not just help the oppressed, it rescues us from becoming oppressors and forgetting we were once slaves who were set free by God. “The Eucharist is about people with the power empowering the powerless to make a better life for themselves.” (p. 168). The church is said to be an organization that exists for the sake of non-members.

”The church is the living, breathing, life-giving, system-confronting, empire-subverting picture of the new humanity.” (p. 172). Or at least it is supposed to be, but have you seen an American church much like this? I hope so.

EPILOGUE Perhaps the strongest plea from the end of this little book is that we are all indeed our brother’s keeper. And so “Jesus wants to save our church from the exile of irrelevance. If we have any resources, any power, any voice, any influence, any energy, we must convert them into blessing for those who have no power, no voice, no influence.” (p. 179). In other words, like God we are to hear the cry of those in need of help, relief, food, medicine, rescue, redemption because in fact all of this is the social outworking of salvation, and the spiritual and social dimensions of salvation should not be severed. God wants to save the whole person, body and soul, life and situation.

These two rather young men believe passionately in the whole Gospel for the whole person in the whole world. Listen to how they put it in the end, because indeed Jesus needs to and wants to save the American church from irrelevance—
“Jesus wants to save us from making the good news about another world and not this one. Jesus wants to save us from preaching a Gospel that is only about individuals and not about the systems that enslave them. Jesus wants to save us from shrinking the Gospel down to a transaction about the removal of sin and not about every single particle of creation being reconciled to its maker. Jesus wants to save us from religiously sanctioned despair, the kind that doesn’t believe the world can be made better, the kind that either blatantly or subtly teaches people to just be quiet and behave and wait for something big to happen ‘someday’.” (p. 185). In other words, “do not ask for whom this Golden Bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

BW3