Hezo Kittie

There was a hesitation the last time I was thinking about posting this, just because of it's length and my laziness more than anything even though I think it really hit home regarding what Kev was saying.
All of the following "in quotes" are excerpts taken from Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell, the rest is just my senseless conjecture. [Kevin: I tried to pick some of the sections and quotes structured around the points that you presented in the previous post.
Here is basically how I broke it down (loosely):

Springs. Jump.

Questions.

The Bible now + God is love.

two realms; eternal life and bringing heaven here

difficulty, suffering, and hope]

Bell presents the concept of a Trampoline ("the way" or his faith") where everyone is invited to jump. The springs of the trampoline are the doctrine, things that help you jump, but aren't the point or focus of belief, a means to an end. Then he introduces a man who presented a literal interpretation of the Bible, a concrete, immovable set of words; Bell compares the man's faith to a brick wall:

"It hit me while I was watching that for him faith isn't a trampoline; it's a wall of bricks. Each of the core doctrines for him is like an individual brick that stacks on top of the others. If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble. It appears quite strong and rigid, but if you begin to rethink or discuss even one brick, the whole thing is in danger. Like he said, no six-day creation equals no cross. Remove one, and the whole wall wobbles" (26).

He then brings up a scenario: "What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry..." (26)

"What if that spring was seriously questioned?
Could a person keep jumping? Could a person still love God? could you still be a Christian?
Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live?
Or does the whole thing fall apart?

I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth and the Trinity and the inspiration of the Bible and much more . I'm a part of it, and I want to pass it on to the next generation. I believe that God created everything and that Jesus is Lord and that God has plans to restore everything.

But if the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn't that strong in the first place, was it?

This is because a brick is fixed in size. It can't flex or change in size, because if it does, then it can't fit into the wall. What happens then is that the wall becomes the sum total of the beliefs, and God becomes as big as the wall. But God is bigger than any wall. God is bigger than any religion. God is bigger than any worldview. God is bigger than the Christian faith.

This truth clicked for me last Friday in a new way. Somebody showed me a letter from the president of a large seminary who is raising money to help him train leaders who will defend Christianity. The letter went on about the desperate need for defense of the true faith. What disturbed me was the defensive posture of the letter, which reflects one of the things that happens in brickworld: you spend a lot of time talking about how right you are. Which of course leads to how wrong everybody else is. Which then leads to defending the wall. It struck me reading the letter that you rarely defend a trampoline. You invite people to jump on it with you.

I am far more interested in jumping than I am in arguing about whose trampoline is better. You rarely defend the things you love. You enjoy them and tell others about them and invite others to enjoy them with you.

Have you ever seen someone pull a photo out of their wallet and argue about the supremacy of this particular loved one? Of course not. They show you the picture and give you the opportunity to see what they see.

The first Christians announced this way of Jesus as "the good news". That tells me that the invitation is for everybody. The problem with brickianity is that walls inevitably keep people out. Often it appears as though you have to agree with all of the bricks exactly as they are or you can't join. Maybe you have been outside the wall before. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

Jesus talks about this "in and out" a lot in his teachings. He keeps insisting that the people who assume they are in may may not be in and the ones who everybody thinks are out for whatever reason may in fact be in. In one parable, he has the Judge of Everything telling some religious people, "Depart from me, for I never knew you."Stunning. And in another parable, a man has a feast and none of his invited guests come, so he sends word to all the marginalized, disgusting, unclean people who are "out" that they are invited to come "in"and celebrate with him. Again, stunning.

Jesus invites everybody to jump.

And saying yes to the invitation doesn't mean we have to have it all figured out. This is an important thing to remember: I can jump and still have questions and doubts. I often meet people who are waiting to follow God until they have all their questions answered. They will be waiting a long time, because if we know everything, we'd be God. So the invitation to jump is an invitation to follow Jesus with all of our doubts and questions right there with us." (27-28)

"And what is the point, while we're at it, of a trampoline?

The point is our joy. That is when god is most pleased. They aren't two different things: God's joy over here and our joy over there. They are the same. God takes great pleasure in us living as we were made to live. He even commands it in the Psalms: "Take delight in the Lord." It's such an odd command, isn't it? You will be happy or else... But God is serious about this. Now this joy doesn't rule out suffering, difficulty, and struggle. In fact, taking Jesus seriously almost guarantees that our lives will be difficult. History proves it. And very few actually set out to live such a focused, beautiful life. Narrow is the way, and and only a few find it. But the kind of joy God speaks of transcends these struggles and difficulties. I love how one writer put it: "The peace of God, which transcends all understanding" (35)

"A Christian doesn't avoid questions; A Christian embraces them. In fact, to truly pursue the living God, we have to see the need for questions" (28).

Alive Today +

"Let me get at this truth with a question: Is the greatest truth about Adam and Eve and the fruit that it happened, or that it happens? This story, one of the first in the Bible, is true for us because it is our story. We have all taken the fruit. We have all crossed boundaries. We have all made decisions to do things our way and then look back and said to ourselves, What was I thinking? The fruit looked so good to Adam and Eve for those brief moments, but the consequences were with them for the rest of their lives. Their story is our story. We see ourselves in them. The story is true for us because it happened and because it happens. It is an accurate description of how life is. The reason the stories in the Bible have resonated with so many people over the years is that they have seen themselves in these stories...

It happens.

Every day.

This is why the Bible is still so powerful: These ancient stories are our stories. These stories are reflective of how things are...

But the Bible is about today" (59-60).

"Why does God love the world?

The writers of the Bible, especially one named John, would answer this way: "Because God is Love" (33).

"Which leads to forgiveness. The point of the cross isn't forgiveness. Forgiveness leads to something much bigger: restoration. God isn't just interested in the covering of our sins; God wants to make us into the people we were originally created to be. It is not just removal of what's being held against us; it is God pulling us into the people he originally had in mind when he made us. This restoration is why Jesus always orients his message around becoming the kind of people who are generous and loving and compassionate. The goal here isn't simply to not sin. Our purpose is to increase the shalom in this world, which is why approaches to the Christian faith that deal solely with not sinning always fail. They aim at the wrong thing. It is not about what you don't do. The point is becoming more and more the kind of people God had in mind when we were first created.

It is one thing to be forgiven; it is another thing to become more and more and more and more the person God made you to be.

Let me take this further: If we only have a legal-transaction understanding of salvation in which we are forgiven of our sins so we can go to heaven, then salvation essentially becomes a ticket to somewhere else. In this understanding, eternity is something that kicks in when we die. But Jesus did not teach this. Jesus said that when we believe, we have crossed over from death to life. God always has been and always will be. And when I enter in a relationship with God through Christ, I am connected with God now and I will be connected with God forever. For Jesus, salvation is now.

I need God now.

I need healing now.

I need help now.

Yes, even greater things will happen someday.

But salvation is now...

The point is not me; it's God" (109-110)

The fact that we are loved and accepted and forgiven in spite of everything we have done is simply too good to be true. Our choice becomes this: We can trust his retelling of the story, o rwe can trust our telling of our story. It is a chioce we make every day about the reality we are going to live in.

And this reality extends beyond life.

Heaven is full of forgiven people.

Hell is full of forgiven people.

Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for.

Hell is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for.

The difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live in, whicvh version of reality we trust.

Our's or God's. [Kurt's note: I thought this part deserved some clarification. Our's or God's is referring to how we choose to live. "God's desire is for us to live in harmony with him-body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions--every inch of our being"(107). That is to say, living a "good" life and not strictly refined to a belief system.]

When we choose God's vision of who we are, we are living as God made us to live. We are living in the flow of how we are going to live forever. This is the life of heaven, here and now. And as we live this life, in harmony with God's intentions for us, the life of heaven becomes more and more present in our livves. Heaven comes to earth. This is why Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There is this place, this realm, heaven, where things are as God desires them to be. As we live this way, heaven comes here. To this place, this world, the one we're living in...

We can bring heaven to earth; we can bring hell to earth.

For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond this one because he understood that the life beyond this one is a continuation of the kinds of choices we make here and now.

For Jesus, the question wasn't, how do I get into heaven? but how do I bring heaven here?

The question wasnt', how do I get there? But how do I get there, here?" (146-147)

"It isn't their failure that's the problem; it's their greatness. They don't realize what they are capable of... I have been told that I need to have faith in God, which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that God has faith in me" (134).

Difficulty, Suffering, and Hope +

"To be this kind of person -- the kind who selflessly serves -- takes everything a person has. It is difficult. It is demanding. And we often find ourselves going against the flow of those around us. Which is why we are reclaiming the simple fact that Jesus said the way is narrow. We are honest about this, especially to our friends who wouldn't say they are Christians. Very few people in our world are offering anything worth dying for. Most of the messages we receive are about how to make life easier. The call of Jesus goes the other direction: It's about making our lives more difficult. It is going out of our way to be more generous and disciplined and loving and free. It is refusing to escape and become numb to and check out of this broken, fractured world" (168-169).

Whew, so I didn't proofread it, I just wanted to get it out there. The book has sooo much more too it and I recommend anyone who is interested in this sort of thing to check it out; really inspiring and honest stuff. Kevin, I think you would honestly love this book.