Rob Bell Fixes Calvinism

Right, so I did all those posts on "Love Wins" before it came out and then just one short one when I got it and then I never got around to giving my final impressions on it.  Not that anyone asked...

I'm sure that by now you can find all kinds of reviews of the book online both positive and negative so I'm not going to do a review.  The book was interesting and well written but not quite what I expected.  Not that I'm all that sure exactly what I expected.  Rob came out both for and against orthodox Christian theology.  Simultaneously.  In short, Rob Bell fixed Calvinism.

See, Calvinists say that God is the omnipotent, omniscient King of the Universe.  Therefore it's impossible for Him to fail - to even suggest that people go to Hell because God failed to save their souls would be blasphemous.  Therefore, people only go to Hell because God ordained ahead of time that they were meant to go there.  Thereby, the Majesty of God remains unblemished because everything happened exactly the way He wanted it to all along.  This is why Calvinism always left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Rob took the same concept and turned it around.  He pointed out that salvation, Heaven, Hell (and how you end up there) is nowhere near as neat and formulaic in the Bible as Christian theology suggests.  (Fun fact - he uses the Bible to prove it! )  He tackles the unblemished Majesty of God slightly differently than the Calvinists.  Simply put, God wants to save the world and therefore God will find a way to save the world.  This means everyone.  Even the bad ones.  If it takes you some time in Hell to be cured of your evil then so be it but in the end, Love/God wins out and everyone is reconciled with Him.  Not that he suggests Hell is more like Catholic Purgatory.  In fact, he mused that Heaven and Hell may even be the same place.  For if Heaven treats all races with love and respect then that Heaven would be Hell to a racist for instance, or if everyone shares freely then it would be Hell for the selfish and so on.  Anyway, point is that you don't just die and end up either immediately perfect or eternally damned.  Everyone gets sanctified over time until they are able to fit into Heaven's way of doing things.  So really just like the Calvinist, Rob believes that God is the omnipotent, omniscient King of the Universe.  This God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to save it and this God cannot fail since He is the omnipotent, omniscient King of the Universe - eventually then He saves everyone and to suggest otherwise would be blasphemous.  That's a taste I can live with.

Is he right?  I don't know, but I hope so.  Having a God that actually turns out to be benevolent and good at the end of the day is really good news.  I can totally see why so many people were upset with this book though!  Lots of believers aren't that happy with the Gospel being good news.  It was that way even in Jesus' day...  

The Joy of Being Listened To

OK so maybe blogging when I'm halfway through a bottle of 10 year old white wine isn't such a good idea but then, neither was opening a bottle of white wine from 1997.  Clearly this is was never going to be night of good decision making.

Here's the thing.  I finally got my very own copy of Rob Bell's book "Love Wins".  Hardcover and everything, because I'm just classy that way.  I'm about half way through it and as usual when reading Bell I'm pretty depressed because I realize that I'm never ever ever ever going to be that good.  I know 65% of the Christian world disagrees with me on this but the man is an exceptional writer.  The kind I wish I could be.  But anyway, I'm digressing, probably because my playlist just went from Metallica to Tanita Tikaram.  I really ought to make less random playlists.

Anyway, here's the thing.  I just read an atheist blogger's review of "Love Wins".  Go ahead and check it out, it's reasonably spoiler free and far more positive than you would have probably expected.  One thing in particular struck me in that review.  Ahh, finally some Lady Gaga, my playlist loves me!  Where was I?  Oh, right the surprisingly positive review.  The Uncredible Halq said:

"Aside from agreeing with much of Bell’s message, I also enjoyed his book’s style. It reads like it was written by a preacher, in the best possible way. It reads like it was written by someone who’s made a living out of speaking to people week after week, and been very successful at it. It also reads like it was written by someone who’s used being listened to. Too often, I think, atheists get used to having people not listen, so we put too much energy into arguing with people who will never change their mind. Bell, though, just makes his points and doesn’t worry that some won’t agree."

OK, that last part.  That's what I'm talking about.  He talks like someone who is used to being listened to.


*Sigh*

I wish I could do that.  Thing is I'm not used to being listened to at all!  I think that explains my blogging style.  Feels like a lot of it is me second guessing myself and arguing against my own point.  That's what people do when they are used to being ignored.  It blows.  Chunks.  Big ones.  Also why do I have 2Unlimited on my playlist??  What is wrong with me????

OK, listening to The Cure now, world is better.  Anyway I guess I don't really have a point.  I only wish that I could talk like someone who is used to being listened to, like someone who could just make a statement and people can take it or leave it.  I sometimes wish this blog could just reflect all the fucks I don't give, you know what I mean?

God bless spellchecker!!  No more red lines so I'm pressing "publish"!

Strange New Godview: The A-hole Boyfriend

The Bible offers a whole host of ways to picture God; He is presented as a Warrior, a Shepherd, a loving Husband, a Judge and a King to name but a few.  This is a practice that continues to this day and people come up with new ways to view God all the time.  Thing is, some of these are a little odd while others are downright disturbing.  I'm going to see how many of these strange Godviews I can find to share with the class.

I came across the first one in a recent blog I did on Rob Bell (it's what gave me the idea for this series).  I was watching this Aussie pastor giving a critique of one of the NOOMA films and noticed something strange about his God.  See if you notice it too.



Is it just me or does he make God seem like an emotionally abusive boyfriend?  This God doesn't think you can do anything right!  Self confidence?  Believing in yourself?  Don't make Him laugh!  You're stupid and rotten and you can't do anything right no matter how hard you try (He probably thinks you could stand to lose a few kilos too).  Honestly He doesn't even know why He bothers with you!  You're completely useless and unlovable!  You should just be grateful that He's willing to put up with a screwup like you in the first place.  Just do Him a favour and stop trying to think for yourself.  Since you're too fat and stupid to do anything right you better leave all the thinking to Him and stop seeing those friends who tell you differently!

You've seen guys like this with their belittled and bewildered girlfriends.  Does this God seem any different?

Rob Bell states his beliefs

People often ask me if I get tired of being right all the time.  My humble answer is that no, I really don't.  Just yesterday I said of Rob Bell and his new book "Love Wins":

"I don't really expect him to actually come out as an universalist (everyone goes to heaven) or an annihilationist (you don't burn in hell, you are destroyed forever) or anything like that.  Despite all the controversy, I've found Rob to usually be pretty orthodox in his beliefs so I'm interested to see where he is going with this."

Today, on my FB news feed, I find the following video:



Slam dunk on the orthodoxy baby!  I just love the smell of vindication in the evening!!  In fact, I think I'm going to start insisting that my friends start calling me "Prophet Eugene".  On second thought, now that I said that out loud, perhaps not...  Hardly rolls of the tongue now does it?

Anyway, perhaps Rob has a point.  Perhaps if you know something about someone's character you can infer a thing or two about what they will or will not do...

Everybody Hates Rob Bell

I don't think it's strange that Rob Bell faces so much hate.  For the most part what is happening to him right now happens to every public figure that dares to have an opinion.  No matter what you say, someone in this great wide world is going to nitpick, disagree and/or call you names for saying it.  Sometimes this criticism will be richly deserved, other times completely unfair and the only constant in all this will be that you can't please all the people all of the time. Not ever.

Here is what I do find strange about all the cries of "heretic" and "false teacher" directed at Rob Bell though.  Somehow these same people only find these words objectionable when Rob speaks them - from the mouth of another they are perfectly acceptable.  Why is it that something can be a profound truth when someone else says it but at the same time be a profound heresy when Rob Bell says it?

It's the hipster look isn't it?  "Cool" pastors are always up to something!

I have two examples of this phenomenon.  The concerns a claim he made in the NOOMA video "Dust".  Behold the scathing Australian criticism:



Clearly Bruce* here has a real bug up his ass about the idea that people having any self confidence at all.  That is the only explanation I can offer for such an extreme reaction to such a minor point.    Apparently if you dare have self confidence and entertain the idea that God could somehow like you, you are giving yourself over to humanism, which is almost worse than choosing to be gay!  I have a few short notes on his criticisms.  Firstly, the Scripture is wide open to interpretation here.  He's right, it doesn't explicitly say Peter didn't have enough faith in himself but its not as if Jesus was specific in His reprimand; He didn't say "Why did you not have more faith in ME?"  Secondly, his analysis of the original Greek is an outright lie.  The original word by no means translate as "Faith in Christ".  For such a Greek word to have existed Christians would have had to invent it!  Check for yourself, the word Oligopistos means exactly what it was translated as: "little/scant faith".  Thirdly, commentaries are exactly that, they are opinion pieces written about the Bible.  What makes these interpretations more valid than the one offered by Rob?  Commentaries are not sacred, authoritative interpretation handed down to us from the Lord God Almighty!  They may be informed opinions but still just opinions.  Lastly it is his claim that no scholar ever expressed a similar opinion to that of Rob Bell that brings me back to my original point.

Guess who said it long before Rob Bell did?  Scholar, historian and conservative Christian darling Ray Vander Laan.  His "That the World May Know" ministry strives to teach the Bible in it's original Jewish context and he has a DVD series where he takes tour groups to the archeological sites in the Middle East to to just that.  I own almost all the DVD's and would recommend them highly.  On DVD number six named "In the dust of the rabbi", (in section two) you will find him making the exact same claim Rob Bell makes.  In fact it should be pretty obvious when you watch it that Ray Vander Laan served as the source material for Rob Bell and not vice versa**.Now Ray is nowhere near as famous as Rob but he is not some fringe element either.  His video series is fully endorsed and distributed by none other than Focus on the Family.  You don't really get more fundamentalist than Dr James Dobson and I heard him give his personal hearty endorsement to the very video in question on his radio show once.  Interesting then that when a Christian scholar says it, it's a thought provoking discussion on what it really means to be a disciple but when Rob Bell says the exact same thing he is a heretic promoting humanism? 

My second example is of course the source of all the current hoopla, the latest book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.  Now I can't say too much about the claims the book makes because I haven't read it yet.  I'm definitely going to, I've already ordered a copy but for now I simply cannot comment on statements I haven't actually heard being made.  I don't really expect him to actually come out as an universalist (everyone goes to heaven) or an annihilationist (you don't burn in hell, you are destroyed forever) or anything like that.  Despite all the controversy, I've found Rob to usually be pretty orthodox in his beliefs so I'm interested to see where he is going with this.   But let's say the great fears of his critics are true and that he claims that God isn't going to torture untold billions for ever and ever while only saving the teeny minority who happened to have been at the right place and right time in order to believe the right thing.  Is that really anything new?  Is this a claim that has been made by other popular Christian authors perhaps?  You bet!

Guess who said it long before Rob Bell did?  Only one of the most popular Christan authors and lay theologians of all time, CS Lewis.

Yeah that's right, the Narnia guy!

As Jeff Cook noted in a recent blog comparing the two men, "There’s not one controversial idea in Love Wins that is not clearly voiced as a real possibility by the most popular evangelical writer of the last century, CS Lewis".  Now that blog post offers a good comparison between the works of CS Lewis and Love Wins so I'm not going to do a rewrite all of that and instead just offer one more example.  In the last book of the Narnia series, there is a scene (one of my favorites of the entire series really) that gives a facinating look into Lewis' views on the afterlife.  Here Emeth, a follower of Tash (a demonic entity that was the god of a different country in Narnia) meets Aslan (the allegory for Jesus) in the afterlife:

"But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

Yet while that piece seems to clearly suggest that CS Lewis thought that followers of other religions will ultimately be redeemed in Heaven I've never heard anyone make a peep about it.  Certainly the average evangelical doesn't habitually reach for their fainting couch when CS Lewis gets mentioned.  If anything he is considered a wise teacher of profound truths.  Why is Rob Bell then such a heretic for having an allegedly similar opinion?

I wouldn't have much issue with the criticism Rob receives if it was at least given consistently.  However it is increasingly starting to look as if the problem is more with the person giving the opinion than with the contents of the opinion itself.  Increasingly the relationship between Rob Bell and his critics are starting to resemble the relationship between Obama and the Republicans...


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*They're all called Bruce right?  Surely Monty Python wouldn't lie to me?
**The dvd series used to be on the Mars Hill recommended resource list (which doesn't seem to exist anymore).  If a comment he made on "Everything is Spiritual" is anything to go by, Rob actually attended at least one of these tours too.

All Hell Breaks Loose

The moment this video promoting Rob Bell's upcoming book popped up in my Facebook newsfeed I knew that this would not pass quietly.  But then I finally got a long overdue copy of Starcraft 2 and so the happenings on the internet was put aside while I lost myself in glorious battle.  However I was happy to find that I was completely correct.  That simple promo set the interwebs on fire (well the part of it that has interest in religious matters anyway).  Predictably, a large group of Christians threw a shit fit and called for the heretic to be burned at the stake (I'm paraphrasing of course).  My favourite Christian blog, The Slacktivist, came out in strong support for Rob and in a twist I did not see coming this led to a prominent Atheist blog weighing in on the matter - on the Fundamentalist side no less!

Now I have already written a long blogpost to explain my thoughts on why I don't believe the Doctrine of Hell deserves the prominent place it currently occupies in Christianity (and especially in evangelism) so I'm not going to write another blog covering the same ground.  But there is something interesting about all this that I do feel like mentioning.  The fact of the matter is simply this, Rob Bell's book "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived" has not been published yet.  Therefore no one can actually know at this point what arguments and claims he will or will not make in this book.  So then to accuse him of being a heretic, universalist, false prophet who teaches that Jesus is not the way and that everyone will go to Heaven because there is no Hell is pure speculation.  The little preview video certainly says none of those things.

So then what has everyone so upset?  The fact that someone suggested that love might end up winning the day?  That someone had the temerity to suggest that God wasn't a monster who would have billions upon billions of good people brutally tortured for all eternity for the crime of being born in a non-Christian part of the world?  Sounds as if a lot of people, much like Jonah of old, still get so angry they could die upon finding out that God doesn't wish the damnation of the heathens.

Really, why must the idea of Hell and eternal torture be so vigorously defended?  Doesn't say much for your carrot if you are this attached to your stick...


For some very elegant (Biblical) discussions far superior to anything I've ever written on the subject you may want to look at the following:

H - E - double hockey sticks
Still in Hell
Team Hell gets loud
The epistemology of Team Hell
Should I not be concerned?
Rob Bell vs. Team Hell (cont'd.)
The paradox of pitchforks, a devilish problem

How Francis Chan converted me to Paganism

Francis Chan

So the other day I watched a free online premier for a new Christian video series called BASIC.  Sadly the free, full length video is no longer available but you won't have to simply take my word regarding the content as I did find a copy of the audio here.  The first thing that struck me was how incredibly alike this video seemed to the NOOMA series by Rob Bell.  The similarities soon became even stronger and I started to suspect that the presenter of this series, Francis Chan, was a really big Rob Bell fan because he was downright channeling the man.  In all fairness, I probably can't judge since I've only seen the one video but to me it seemed that Francis here would like nothing better than to find Rob and skin him so that he may wear him and be him!

Anyway, apart from that it wasn't bad.  The theme of this particular video was "follow Jesus" and it made some very good points, for instance that we needn't debate how to follow Jesus since it should be obvious - just look at what He told you to do and then do it.  But then, about 8 minutes in, things got iffy.  The conversation turned from "how do we follow Jesus?" to "why should I follow Jesus?"  The first answer he offered basically came down to "Because it's totally a privilege that Jesus even lets you follow Him so you should, like, totally do it!".  Somehow I doubt that would convince a skeptic.  He probably guessed as much because then he sheds his Rob Bell impression completely and tells you that you need to follow Jesus because Jesus is one scary dude!

Here is why Francis says he follows Jesus, because Jesus promised to return one day and judge the earth and according to the Book of Revelation, this judgement is going to be pants pissingly terrifying (I may be paraphrasing here).  To illustrate, he quotes from Revelation 6:15-17:

"Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”

He points out that Jesus often spoke of Hell - more often that He did of Heaven - and concludes that you should follow Jesus because He is a powerful Being and you want to be on His side because you wouldn't like Jesus when He gets angry!  So really, according to this video it's a case of follow Jesus or else!

This was a moment of epiphany for me!  He was completely right, I was using all the wrong criteria in deciding what to believe and who to follow.  Obviously one should follow the one that scares you the most.  

Therefore, thanks to Francis Chan, I now follow Xipe Totec! I'm a little confused as to why I seem to be the only one though, Pastor Chan made a good argument though for some odd reason he claims that he is following Jesus because "what other choice do I have?"  Seriously?  Have you even looked at some of the other deities out there?  Did Pastor Francis even consider deities like Set or Kali?  I did and there sure are plenty of powerful beings out there you don't want to be on the wrong side of!  In the end I settled on Xipe Totec because honestly, just look at the guy!  He invented war!  Jesus wants you to give Him your heart (metaphorically) - Xipe Totec literally wants you to give him (the still beating) hearts of other humans!  Jesus wore a robe, Xipe Totec wears flayed human skin* - you tell me who you find more fearsome.  I just hope my new lord will forgive me for not offering him any freshly removed human hearts, flayed skin and human blood as sacrifice.  Sacrificial pyramids just take time to build thats all.  Perhaps I should have started with arrow sacrifice or a fire pit instead...

"Our lord the flayed one"

 I must admit though, sometimes I do lie awake at night wondering if I made the right choice.  Especially when I consider the incredibly cruel punishments Zeus enjoys dispensing.  Don't get me wrong, hellfire is very scary!  Somehow having a a giant bird eat out your liver every day for all eternity sounds worse!  I guess it's because the flames of Hell just never end, its the same thing for every second of eternity.  But when you are chained to the rock waiting for the bird to come for your freshly regenerated liver those few hours of dread filled near normalcy just sounds even more excruciating somehow...

*Funny enough, according to Wiki, it seems both could heal you if you touched it.

The Two Mars Hills

 

I had barely published my previous blog on the wonders of yoga when I was confronted by this video by Past. Mark Driscoll explaining how yoga is evil and demonic and all who practice it are hellbound.  At times like these I am astounded by the difference between Mars Hill and Mars Hill.

There are two famous churches in the USA which go by the name “Mars Hill”.  One is in Seattle, Washington and is headed by Mark Driscoll.  The other is in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is headed by Rob Bell.  Superficially they seem very similar at first.  Both are very large and both are well known and popular far outside their respective city limits.  Both are thoroughly modern with pastors who are engaging public speakers – not to mention that they both sport interesting hair and non-traditional dress sense.  Yet these two couldn’t be more different from one another*.

If you sat down the leaders of both Mars Hill churches and made the statement that “everything is spiritual” then they would both agree with you but for very different reasons.  For Rob Bell, the statement “everything is spiritual” means that your spirituality involves the entirety of your life.  In other words, you don’t have a “spiritual life” and a “normal life” separate from one another.  Therefore everything you do can be an act of worship and God is involved in everything you do.  I suspect Mark Driscoll on the other hand would agree because he thinks there are demons behind everything.  Yoga?  Demons.  Popular works of fiction?  Demons.  Popular movies?  Demonic.  Mormonism?  Founded by demons.  I’m sure if I looked harder I could find more examples but clearly the man lives in a demon haunted world.

Mark Driscoll

This leads to the two Mars Hills preaching very different versions of Christianity.  Pastor Driscoll’s demon-centric worldview necessitates a tough kind of Christianity.  At his Mars Hill Church, God is tough as nails who tolerates no sin or deviation from doctrine.  He is the Yahweh the Warrior, the God of the predestined, the One who saves only a select few from this world filled with demons and deception.  In this Mars Hill they do not flinch from using strong language or violence.  This is a church that is into MMA and Christian Cage Fighting**.  Here the measure of a man is tied to his prowess in the field of battle.  Because of this you will find no gentle Jesus here.  At Mark’s church Jesus is the ultimate Alpha Male, a tough guy who can beat up your dad (much like Mark himself).  To him, “Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” 

Rob Bell

Rob Bell on the other hand doesn’t strike me as much of an alpha male.  In fact I’m pretty sure your mom could beat him in a cage fight.  His Mars Hill Church is far more geek friendly and you are far more likely to hear a Star Wars reference than an Ultimate Fighting metaphor from his pulpit.  Doubters, heretics, the lost, the weak and the broken are all welcome.  The God of this Mars Hill is far more welcoming and has hope for all mankind.  Rob Bell’s Jesus is more likely to give you a hug than an uppercut.  One quote by Rob has always stuck with me.  In Velvet Elvis he wrote “Why blame the dark for being dark?  It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn't as bright as it could be.”  That pretty much sums up this Mars Hill.  It isn’t focused on sin or demons at all.  Instead there is a constant focus on being a light in a dark world by doing good to others.  I think the closest I’ve heard him come to apologetics was his suggestion to those struggling with their faith to join a program that helps underprivileged children.  That is where their God lives – amongst the poor and the broken.  Like the one in Seattle this Mars Hill is also quite aggressive, only here they are aggressively into charity (both domestic and internationally).

Now if my tone wasn’t a clear enough indication, I’m not a fan of Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill but I am extremely fond of the Mars Hill of Rob Bell.  The funny thing is that when I was half as old as I am now it would have been the other way around.  Back then, I would have agreed with Rob’s detractors that to not preach on sin, hell and the demonic is simply unchristian.  The sheer manliness of Mark’s church would have been far more attractive.  I considered all that peace, love and charity stuff to be uncomfortably close to the antichrist agenda.  Not so much anymore though.  Nowadays the “lets call everything we don’t like/understand demonic” brand of aggressive Christianity that claims to always be right despite all evidence to the contrary drives me toward agnosticism.  It is only Rob Bell’s brand of Christianity that makes me believe that there is something to this faith after all.  I don’t think I would want to worship a God that would like to beat me up.  Violence and aggression is not the same as being tough.  An angry child can swing a fist.  Self-sacrifice, now for that you need to be tough.  Opening yourself up to constant hurt by trying to heal the messiness of humanity, that takes courage.  Cage fighting doesn’t scare me, caring for the helpless does.



*To be fair, I have never attended either one of these churches.  I have heard sermons from both and I have seen plenty of video from both so I’m fairly certain I can offer my opinion fairly here.
** A term that had a completely different meaning in the Coliseum in 1 AD methinks…

A few good men

It’s easy to focus on the negative, especially when it comes to Christianity. The world would be excused for thinking of Christianity as a faulty product that fails to live up to its promises. Face facts, we fail a lot and we fail spectacularly sometimes. From the high profile failures that make all the papers to the grass roots pettiness in your local congregation there is a lot of things not to be proud of. However I don’t think those failures define us. Even though there are a lot of failures there is also a lot of success, people who do follow Jesus and who do it well. They aren’t always as vocal as the bad examples and they rarely make any sort of splash in the media but they are there and they are being the salt and light that Jesus commanded us to be. I know that I have focused on a lot of the ugliness of Christianity in this blog and I think it’s high time I look at some of the good.

There are a lot of people out there that prove that Christianity is not a failed product. There are people who follow the example and teachings of Jesus and in doing so make this world a more pleasant place to live in. These are the people who actually care for the poor, the hungry and the abandoned. These are the people who, when you spend time with them, make you realize that Jesus would have hung out with you and liked you too. These people are everywhere. They keep me from giving up on Christianity because their lives show practically that following Jesus can make a real difference for the better. Now most of these really great people aren’t well known, in fact you will never hear about the vast majority of them. (Thanks to the blogosphere however it has become possible to meet more really intelligent, cool and interesting people who are also Christians, people who can discuss their faith in a way that makes you want to be a part of it – Gumby, Plucky you guys are a credit to the faith!) As much as I would like to include every good Christian I have ever come across that would be virtually impossible so I have chosen just 3 people who have had an enormous positive influence on my faith. None of these guys are perfect and if you are looking for reasons to dislike them I’m sure you could find plenty. But that doesn’t change the fact that these guys have been a significant force for good not only in the world but also in my life.

Firstly there is Billy Graham. His life has made a significant impact on mine for the simple reason that he shows that it can be done, you can be a Christian without screwing it all up. A lot of high profile Christians has fallen from grace in spectacular ways but Billy Graham has never even been close to being one of those. Right at the start of his ministry he made some decisions to keep himself honest, for instance he made all the ministry finances completely transparent and he never let himself be alone in a room with a woman that he wasn’t related to. Now this may seem like overkill but it sure has been effective. I can’t help but respect his commitment to keeping himself and his ministry above reproach. That’s not the only reasons that I like him though. I like him because he includes people. Many have used the Gospel as a reason to exclude people but he was nothing like that, he used the Gospel to include and welcome people. He was against racial segregation and inter-denominational (and inter-faith) dialogue long before it was cool. He started removing the “whites only” and “blacks only” demarcations from his meetings back when the rest of the church was still giving vocal support to racial segregation. He has reached out to other denominations, Catholics and Jews despite the fact that other Church leaders labeled him the anti-Christ for doing it. I’m not so fond of his political side, he always seems to be hanging out with the president of the US and I’m not a big fan of Christianity mixing with politics. However there is one thing here that did greatly increase my respect for the man. When Richard Nixon fell from grace Billy Graham was shocked and hurt BUT he didn’t abandon the man. He was a friend to the president before the Watergate scandal and he remained friends with him afterward even though he could have gotten a lot of cheers for dumping Nixon in public. I may not be a great supporter of faith and politics mixing but I think that by refusing to abandon an unpopular friend, Billy Graham showed that he was nothing like a politician. Really the thing I like and respect most about this man is that he consistently chose doing what was right over doing what was popular.

Then there is Rob Bell. It is hard to put into words how much he has meant to me and how big an impact he has had on my faith. He pretty much saved my faith when I was ready to give up. His work reminded me that Christianity was real and good and true, despite all the damage that fundamentalism has done. Here was someone telling me to wrestle with the Scriptures, to question the Bible, to ask questions – things I’ve been dying to do for years but had been taught was wrong and evil. In doing this he reawakened my love for Jesus and the Scriptures. Now for saying things like “what would you do if you found out Jesus had an earthly father named Larry” the fundies hate Rob with a burning passion. Honestly I doubt if you could find any discussion of him without someone popping up to tell everyone what a heretic Rob Bell really is. Which is really sad because if these people ever bothered to actually listen to him they would have realized that he is far more serious about the Bible and the teachings in it than they are most of the time. I like Rob Bell because he is humble, because he loves God and it shows. His church is into doing real good in this world, making a real difference. I loved that he had a “doubt night” at his church where he just allowed everyone to voice their doubts about God and Christianity. I like that he is not afraid to question and to wrestle with his faith, I like that he is honest and I like that he is kind of a dork. I love the way he draws you in with love and goodness – he doesn’t scare people into believing by threatening them with hellfire, instead he makes you want to be a disciple of Jesus by showing you just how kind and good and welcoming Jesus really is.

Last but not least there is Donald Miller. I like him because he is a really good writer, because he is honest and real and doesn’t try to hide his flaws to make himself look good. I like that he sees the good and the interesting in people that most of us would probably avoid. I don’t know how well I would get along with him if I ever met him because I can’t help but get the impression that he can be kind of an ass at times. Then of course there is the fact that he is a smoker and I’m really not a fan of tobacco. Yet, of everyone mentioned here I can relate to him the most. We have so much in common – we both have a deep dislike for fundamentalist Christianity and the idea that gays, liberals and everyone different is “the enemy”. He freely admits to not being good at sharing his faith or making disciples and he is also candid about the fact that he doesn’t always find it easy to believe in God. He struggles with his self image and he is terrible at relationships and he likes beer. He grew up in the church, went through a lot of pendulum swings from rabid fundamentalism to near faithlessness. I can relate to all of that. When he talked about having a leadership position in the church and leading a regular Bible study and ending up feeling like a total phony I knew exactly what he was talking about. This is also why he gives me a lot of hope, because he ended up doing a lot of good and influencing a lot of people in a positive way. I can’t help but think that if someone that has so many of my faults can be a force for good then so can I. Obviously we are not the same person, we differ in a great many ways but I can’t help but be inspired by him. Maybe I won’t make a dent in a place like Reed University, but maybe I could still make a difference to someone, somewhere in my world. Just like Rob Bell he is often maligned for his views by the religious right but once again I can’t help but notice from his work that he takes the Bible a lot more seriously than most of them do.

The Mystery of Community

I have always been fascinated with the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. As a child I used to love the stories of the Jewish traditions and festivals but it wasn’t long before I realized that stories about “the Jews” and their traditions seemed to change regularly – it seemed that the “tradition” always managed to fit whatever point the pastor happened to be making. Recently, my interest in the matter was rekindled by the works of Rob Bell and this time I decided to do my own research and ordered myself a ton of books on the subject. So far I’ve read some fascinating books and I have also started watching some of the Jewish religious broadcasts on TV and I have to tell you, I’m learning a lot! However, in the midst of all this learning, there has also been a rather sad realization. I started to see that there is something important out there, something amazing, something beautiful and worst of all, something I have no part in. Family. Community.

See in Jewish thought the two are not really that separate. In the Hebrew, the word mishpahah means “family”, but it doesn’t simply refer to parents and children, it is a whole social unit that includes grandparents, uncles, aunts and even remote cousins. Furthermore each mishpahah sees itself as part of a single worldwide Jewish family. Honestly, it was the last thing I expected to find. For some reason I thought it would be something else, something different, something more ... I don’t know, more spiritual? Yet the more I look, the more I find that it is central to pretty much everything. To God, it seems, togetherness/family/community isn’t an important thing, it is the important thing. Once you start looking you see it everywhere.

You can start for instance by looking at God – what is the Trinity other than the most perfect and harmonious family unit? What is the first thing we find God doing? Creating people (after creating a home for them) so that He could spend time with them. Most of the Old Testament is just the story of God, having a relationship with different people. Look at the Ten Commandments – God doesn’t command you to honour Him, instead He commands people to honour their parents!

When Jesus comes to Earth, what does He do? He surrounds Himself with people! Also in this matter, where the disciples come from is important. The area in Galilee where almost all the disciples came from wasn’t a rich area or a famous one, it wasn’t a great centre of learning or culture. However they did have two things in that area that must have mattered to God because that is where he went to find the people he would build his Church with – a love of the Scripture and close-knit family units.

In fact, these close-knit family units play an integral part in the teachings of Jesus. Back then in Galilee, a family would live in something called an insula. Here the entire clan – the whole mishpahah lived together in combined living units around an open courtyard. Whenever Jesus used the word “household” this is what he was referring to. This is what He referred to when he said: “In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you”. See when the disciples heard this, they didn’t picture heaven as we do – each one in his own special mansion. No to them, heaven was living as a family together with Jesus in the same house, the house of His Father. When a boy of the family got engaged, he first spent time adding room for him and his bride-to-be on this insula – the house of his father. Then when it was ready and the father approved of the work his son had done, only then the son could go out and pick up his waiting bride, have a wedding and bring her home. Sound familiar?

And so it goes. Now, every time I read the Bible I can’t help but see that it is written in terms of family/community. Even at the end of days when the people are separated into the sheep and the goats we find that they aren’t separated on grounds of correct dogma or right belief system, amount of souls won or personal holiness. The final criteria for Jesus boils down to how well did you take care of your fellow human beings when they needed you?

Only it seems that this community message has gotten a little diluted through the years. Communion went from being a social meal round the table, where everyone talked and remembered Jesus while sharing a common cup and loaf of bread to something sanitized where we all get our little bit of communion to go “enjoy” privately. In fact most of our faith has all become a private thing – just me and God, no one else allowed in. But this was not always the case. Every aspect of the faith used to be a community affair. Everyone read the Scripture together, everyone from young to old got a chance to read out loud, everyone discussed it together – there was no private interpretation of the Bible. Prayer was done communally and it wasn’t always this me-and-my-needs thing either. In fact some Rabbi’s taught that a prayer that cannot be offered on behalf of all Israel is not a prayer worth praying at all. It is still a rule among devout Jews that a man must regularly pray together with a full quorum (at least 10) of other men. I once heard a young Jewish doctor tell of how he sometimes doesn’t feel like going out to the synagogue early in the morning for the prayers, instead tempted to take some “me-time” to replenish himself, but then he always chooses to go and he says that this is because this community prayer does exactly that – it replenishes him, more than an extra hour of sleep would. Community was everything to the early church – just look at the images Paul uses, a household, a building, a body. How much of that is still true of believers today? Many of us still use the Christian family vocabulary (brother, sister) but do we still mean it?

So I think we might have a problem. Correction, I can’t really speak for “us” so I shouldn’t even be using the word “we” – that’s part of the problem, I don’t have an “us” to speak for. Really, all I can say is that I think I have a problem. See there is this incredible mystery that seems to be at the heart of all that is important, this mystery of family, community, togetherness, being a part of something greater than yourself that makes you more than just an individual, makes you part of a greatness you cannot have by yourself. Problem is that I have no connection to this mystery. Like so many in this information age, I am connected but I am alone. I have friends in the UK, the USA and the UAE but I don’t know anyone in my own street. To be honest, I have no friends in the same suburb as me, no one within walking distance I can call on. I have family, but I see them about once a year. Maybe. I recently realized just how disconnected I have become when I filled in a form at the hospital and had trouble thinking of two numbers to put down as my “in case of emergency” contacts. No one in my family even knew I was going in for surgery. Somehow, I have managed to become incredibly disconnected from the world around me, but it was not always this way. While I was growing up, every day, every meal was family time. We always sat around the table, we ate together, we talked together, we would listen to the radio news together and my dad would quiz me on random things to see how well I understood them. I was an only child so even back then I was alone a lot of the time, but those times kept me connected. Later, when I went off to study I lived in a residence complex with a bunch of other guys and that was probably the most connected I have ever been. I was rarely alone, we were always hanging out, going out together, talking, visiting room to room, studying, living and eating together. It was an amazing time. But I guess after my parents died, things started changing.

Aloneness is like a disease. Its not loneliness, loneliness drives you to find others. Aloneness is different from singleness, I don’t think there is anything wrong with being single. Rather, aloneness is the opposite of togetherness, it is being disconnected from all around you, being separate from everything. I used to see that as strength, something to be proud of, but I’m starting to have second thoughts. I used to pride myself on being a One in a world full of Two’s but I’m starting to think that is not really something I should be proud of. I am part of nothing, I belong to nothing, I am building nothing, I am supporting nothing. This is not right. Not right at all.

See what I’m starting to realize is that community isn’t about losing your individuality, it’s not about becoming part of a “hive-mind”. I’m starting to think that instead it means living outward, giving out (not giving up) everything that makes you unique and special to benefit those around you. Maybe you are only really become fully human through your relationships with other humans – or as the Zulu’s say: umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, a person is a person through (other) persons.

Now realizing this is all good and well, but that still leaves me with the problem of what to do about it. I have been so happily alone for so long that I’m not really sure how to be a part of a community anymore. How do you start to connect when you have been so disconnected for so long? Reaching out to people feels foreign to me now, depending on others feels wrong somehow, having others depend on me feels frightening. Honestly, I don’t really know where to go from here.

Into the mystery

I consider myself a Christian Mystic. Now I’m willing to bet that the word “mystic” conjures up some very interesting images in your mind. I’m also willing to bet I won’t fit any of those. I don’t wear sandals – ever. I don’t say things that make me sound like Yoda after a few bong hits. I don’t use words like “chi”, “chakra” or “transcendental” unless I happen to be explaining why I don’t believe in such nonsense. I don’t fast, I don’t live in isolation in a desert cabin, I don’t have any desire whatsoever to walk on hot coals or sleep on nails, I don’t hear voices and I don’t see visions. I certainly don't go into trances. Well not unless I'm standing in a very long queue at a bank/post office/city department. Also, I can’t meditate – I've tried it and it turns out I fall asleep everytime I try. To most people to today, the term “Christian Mystic” refers to some kind of fusion between Hinduism, Buddhism and Jesus. That’s not what I’m referring to at all. I use the term in the original sense.

I first came across Christian Mysticism in an assignment I had to do on the different movements in church history. In the 14^th century a movement arose among Christians that moved away from the attempts of Scholasticism to reason out, figure out, quantify and understand God. Like I mentioned before, the term “mysticism” may conjure up many different images today, but the Christian mysticism of the middle ages had nothing to do with the occult or with the mystery religions of the east. Its followers thought of it as the "scholasticism of the heart”. Where scholasticism sought to understand God, mysticism sought to experience God. It was about adoring God, not analyzing Him, spiritual feelings rather than thought and intellect. The main focus of these mystics had been an intense desire to experience God and His ways. They were on a quest to draw closer to Him, simply for the sake of drawing closer to Him, not for the sake of figuring Him out.

Now for some reason this just resonated with me. This was a little surprising since at the time, I wasn’t very pro-mystery at all. I had studied engineering and the main complaint I had about Christian books was that they were nothing like physics books. I wanted things neatly laid out by subject with concise definitions for everything. Christian books, to me, were way too airy-fairy, full of anecdotes and they never really seemed to make a clear point. While I would never have admitted it out loud, I kind of thought the Bible had that very same problem! (Clearly I wasn’t the only one, the theologians of the world seem to wholeheartedly agree and that’s why we have Systematic Theology. ) Also, I thought the whole “spiritual feelings rather than thought and intellect” idea was exactly where Pentecostal Christianity (the movement I called home at the time) went wrong. After all, how could you expect people to take you serious when you spoke about ridiculous things like feelings over reason?

Yet at the same time I could not shake the feeling that of all the different church movements I studied, I would have felt most at home with the mystics. At the time however I didn’t see any place for it in my life – I was after all happy where I was – so I didn’t really think on it much. Yet at the same time, I could never really forget about it completely either. Which was a good thing as it turns out since I might have ended up agnostic without it.

As I explained in the previous topic on skepticism I soon became more and more conflicted about my faith. I grew up in church and as a result had a very strong, rigid faith. All my life I had been taught that only the church knew the truth and the only place you could find truth was in the church. I mean they usually said “Bible” but they usually meant “church” instead. Compromise was a swear word, the absolute worst thing a Christian could do. Basically, what the church said was right (because they heard from God) and everyone else was wrong (because they didn’t). Problem was that after spending time in the real world I started to see a disconnect from what the church was telling me on the one hand and reality on the other. I don’t know why that happened to me and not to everyone around me in church. Maybe it was because I didn’t just hang out with other Christians, didn’t only listen to Christian radio and Christian music, maybe it was because I didn’t shun all things worldly like books, movies and television. (OK, I get that from all of this I must sound like I was Amish. I wasn’t. But the Christian community can be pretty insulated. You just don’t always realise it from the inside. ) To give you an idea of why I felt the church was out of touch with reality, a leader once told us that “A Beautiful Mind” (the film) was nothing short of a diabolic deception since it suggested that people can overcome adversity without God’s help. It was as if the fact that it was a true story never even entered into the equation! I ran into another prime example of this line of thinking just recently in an online discussion on Noah’s Ark. Someone asked how they could claim that the flood happened 4400 years ago when we have the pyramids and other monuments that are far older than that without a trace of flood damage. His brilliant rebuttal? The flood happened 4400 years ago therefore the pyramids cannot be older. Those who claim they are older are wrong or lying. End of discussion. It was around this time I realised that the very people telling me that faith and reason go hand in hand were very disconnected from all reason and logic indeed!

And so then it was with the whole creation debate that things finally reached breaking point for me. Now from a very early age I was taught that everything in Genesis was literally true – the Earth was 6000 years old, everything was created in its present form and about 4400 years ago a great global flood killed everything in the world save for those who were on the Ark with Noah. This was true because the Bible said so and because all real science backed it up. Everyone who disagreed with that was wrong and deceived by the devil – or actually working for him to deceive the world. Basically it came down to this: Either you believed all of that was literally true OR you don’t believe in God, Jesus or anything else in the Bible since it is all firmly rooted in the book of Genesis. This put me in a rather awkward position. I mean I really and truly believed in God and Jesus but the more I looked the more I saw that science did not in fact back up any of that. Quite the contrary, science gave solid proof that the Earth was in fact older than 6000 years (much, MUCH older), there was no global flood and that all life on earth continually adapts to its environment and is therefore in a constant state of change. So when you are burdened with a black or white, right or wrong, on or off kind of outlook on your faith, this puts you in a very bad spot when you simultaneously refuse to believe that all scientists are devil worshiping liars. According to everything I had been taught up to that point I had only two choices: reject everything I knew to be scientific fact and continue believing or give up the faith and become agnostic.

Neither was really an option. There was no way I could become agnostic, I really did believe in God. At the same time I also, in the words of Galileo, did not “feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." Can you say crisis of faith? So one random day I was spending some vouchers in a bookstore and needing one more book to use up the full amount I decided on a whim to pick up a book I knew nothing about but I vaguely remembered a friend recommending I read it – Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. Funny how you sometimes run into the exact thing you didn’t realise you were looking for exactly when you need it.

Right from the introduction page, I was blown away. Here was a pastor I had never heard of who obviously loved God and the Bible deeply and yet spoke about the Scriptures in a way I have never heard done before. He wasn’t treating it as something rigid at all, he was talking about questioning it and wrestling with it. In the very first chapter he spoke about how there are two kinds of faith. On the one hand there was brick wall faith – every doctrine solidly built upon the other, rigid and unmovable. Take one piece out and the whole thing collapses. In other words, they faith I was brought up to have. On the other hand, he spoke of trampoline faith. Here the doctrines were more like springs. They could stretch, they could move and if they didn’t work you could remove it without destroying the entire trampoline. See the difference was that unlike with brick wall faith, the doctrines weren’t the point, they were only there to support the point (the trampoline) which was God. Doctrine should be our servant, never our master. Reading these words were like coming up for air for the first time.

Well, there is no way you go back to brick wall faith after tasting trampoline faith. Calling it “trampoline faith” was actually a fantastic analogy. It was liberating, it was welcoming, it was inviting and most of all it was fun. It was at this point that I grabbed a hold of mysticism like a drowning man grabs a hold of a life raft. I realised that there was a good reason that the Bible wasn’t written like a physics textbook. I don’t know how many Christians would agree with me but I think it’s because faith is supposed to be mystic, that’s why the Bible is instead full of stories, poetry, parables and allegory. It was like I saw the Bible for the first time and I realised just how deeply mystical the Christian faith really is! Just look at the trinity for instance, how does that work? Its not a term used in the Bible but we use it because it’s the only way that works. Yet no matter how many supposedly simple and “clear” explanations I have heard for it I have never actually run into anything that can actually define it in a way that makes sense. But then, why does it need to make sense? Why does there need to be a simple, concise definition? After all the term “mystic” comes from “mystery” and things like faith and God and spirituality are deeply mysterious things (whether you like to think so or not). We glibly talk about knowing God but how on earth can we begin to grasp Him? If even a fraction of what we believe about Him is true then He must be infinitely more than we can ever truly get our minds around. And why do we have this pathological need to make God fit our minds, our ideas, our definitions, our limitations? Why is it so terrifying to see Him as free of that?

I am a mystic because mysticism actually allows God to be just that – God. Unexplainable, mysterious, wild, scary, indefinable, indescribable and without a man made cage to keep him in our image. I am a mystic because I have found that it is not the scholars that feed my soul but the mystics (though I guess they won’t refer to themselves as such) – John Eldredge, Rob Bell, Donald Miller – these are just some of the men who have introduced me to the wild unfettered beauty of the God I’ve known since childhood. I am a mystic because once free from the burden of having to understand God I am finally free to search and seek and wrestle and learn and discover and explore the mystery that is God, Life, Faith, Love and Hope. It is amazing how much you start to learn when you no longer have the need to know all the answers. I am a mystic because – surprisingly – it was mysticism that allowed me to have and fully embrace both faith and reason. As Don Miller said in his book Blue like Jazz:

"Sooner or later you just figure out that there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove he does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care. I don't believe I will ever walk away from God for intellectual reasons."

I cannot begin to explain just how freeing this is. But then, I shouldn’t have to. It’s a really good mystery though. Wouldn’t you like to explore it too?