What We Talk About When We Talk About God {VIDEO}

Earlier tonight I tuned into a live speaking engagement from Rob Bell, discussing his newest book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God.  It's brilliant and refreshing and much needed in a faithless landscape, filled with boxes and black and white thought - both inside and outside of anything resembling "church."

I encourage you to take the time and watch this!


Video streaming by Ustream

Peace,
Ross

You Can Love God Only As Much As You Love ____________.

**I'm RE-POSTING this today, because I believe it needs to be said.  In light of demonizing politics and demonizing prayers (gun control, the election, the fiscal cliff, and yesterday's inauguration), its timely - for ME and for you.  I first need to admit that I did not come up with this thought.

You can love God only as
much as you love ______________.

(fill in the blank w/ terrorists, antagonists to your faith, your boss, George W. Bush, President Obama, or Mark Driscoll; whoever you cannot stand, and wished ill)
 *I can thank Katie Schultz for that nugget of inspiration.

Nor can I claim this statement as my own:
"I believe in the Trinity, so I believe God exists as a community of ecstatic love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God names not merely a thing but a relation. God is a relational God bound together by love. Before God is anything else, God is love. It’s not that first God exists and then God decides to love. It is love which constitutes God’s very existence. Moreover, God’s love is not self contained, but it extends to all creation. God’s mission is to love creation. That’s straight up missional theology...If we want to know God (and if we want to be able to say something substantive about God), we have to participate in the mission of God. Without engaging in mission we can possess knowledge about God, but we can never truly know God. To know God is to participate in God’s mission."
*That was written by Tim Suttle, and it sums up a lot of background text.

In Matthew 5 & 25, we read that how we love our enemies and the least of these, is also how we love God.

Consider that the next time you post a nasty (or backhanded) Twitter or Facebook comment regarding your disdain for the President (or potential candidate), political party affiliation, or laws passed.  Because how you love, determines how you love...

Peace,
Ross 

Art Speaks When Words Cannot.

Over the past week I have been fortunate to connect with some of the most brilliant and artistic minds, that have helped shape me into who I am.

I think part of being an artist is searching for what art is and does.

Both Erwin McManus and Rob Bell have shown me that

   art speaks 
         when words 
                  cannot.

Peace,
Ross

Rediscovering Wonder (NEW Rob Bell Video)

Rob Bell surfaced from LA, as he's writing an upcoming television series, to release this brand new (and quite refreshing) video.  Enjoy!



Peace,
Ross

LOVE WINS. (Chapter 5)

Chapter 5 - Dying to Live

Bell does a fantastic job highlighting scripture's reflection of Jesus' death and resurrection. He shows the fullness of what the bible says about the power of the cross. The cross served to completely transform, renew, and restore social constructs, practices, and beliefs; such as:

cancel the sacrificial system - turning religion upside-down (Hebrews)
reconcile relationships and create peace/shalom - turning injustice upside-down (Colossians)
justify oneself - turning the legal system upside-down (Romans)
claim victory and destroy death - turning the military model upside-down (2 Timothy)
redeem - turning the economic system upside-down (Ephesians)

I like this because it adds so much to how I was personally brought up in the church. The cross saved Christians, you got baptized, then you went to heaven when you died. That was the totality of the faith. But seeing the fullness of the cross makes us participatory in this salvation - not just heavenly, but worldly, practically, currently, and urgently!

I liked what Bell wrote on page 134: that when we reduce the cross to saving us (humans) only, we reduce the totality of what God was doing, and what scripture shows us to be true about the cross. God stripped the world of its perceived power (military, government, economic, etc) and shows a new way...a better way.

Again, we see in Romans the "universal" nature of God's saving and restoring, "just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for ALL, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for ALL" (Romans 5).

In recent conversations, some say that a god who justifies and saves all is a small god that can't be served, because justice isn't served. I say that a god that ignores his creation and turns on his own words is small. And if God is to be trusted, then we must trust ALL of what God says, not simply the parts that work out best for us in the end.

I hope you'll chime in...

Peace,
Ross

LOVE WINS. (Chapter 4)

Chapter 4 - Does God Get What God Wants?

As we enter into the chapter 4 discussion of Love Wins, I think its appropriate once again for us to hold back from personal attack, or even attacking the entire essence of Bell's book and Bell himself, but to keep criticism focused on chapter 4. I think we should look at what Bell proposes in this chapter and determine if its founded, true, or if its just an agenda of his and he's twisting reality to fit that agenda.

The title of the chapter (Does God Get What God Wants?) really says it all. Bell spends the bulk of the chapter going through scripture after scripture that tells of God's desire(s). He uses scriptures, such as:

"All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God" (Isaiah 52).

"Every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2).

And the list continues (almost exhaustively)...

So the real question becomes, why do we gravitate to the scripture references that suit our beliefs, denominations, etc the most closely? Why do we accept some, and neglect the others? This is true for Bell too...

But the point (for me) isn't in proving one scripture over the other, or one theology over another, but in relishing the grey! Why, if God says that every knee will bow and tongue confess Jesus is Lord, do we argue contrary to that; that indeed hell will be filled with the unrepentant? Do we know better than God? Is God not trustworthy? Is our doctrine and dogma more solid than God's words?

Because that's exactly what we're saying (without so many words) when we neglect and forget these texts.

And just like we sometimes focus on John 3:16 as our single way to gain salvation - through belief, we neglect the countless other biblical examples for how salvation takes root.

I suppose to sum up this chapter, I would say that Bell once again does a great job of giving us a scriptural basis for what seems to be the polar opposite of most evangelical teaching (in the West). I do not see him making wild claims or identifying words and phrases incorrectly. He shows through scriprure that God's mission has been restoring, renewing, and saving creation, and that in the end, God DOES get what God wants!

What say you?

Peace,
Ross

Friday the 13th = Love Wins [continued]

As we continue the Love Wins dialogue, here's a great (civil & educated) debate between Rob Bell and Adrian Warnock. I've only posted a short clip, but you can watch the entire debate HERE.



Much love & peace,
Ross

Love Wins - a response to the death of OBL

Last night as I hovered over my iPhone, receiving tweet after tweet in anticipation of Obama's speech, it became apparent that the military had killed Osama Bin Laden. The responses were varied, but the majority were overly celebratory. After Obama's speech the floodgates opened. Apparently fireworks went off as groups gathered across the country to celebrate the death.

The tweets were joyous. You'd think everyone's home team had just won the World Series. Rather, we were a nation celebrating death. And though the death was of a vile man, an evil man, a man that brought about death and destruction, he was still a man - made in God's image; and a man worth Christ dying on a tree.

I understand everyone will not agree with me. And my intent isn't to persuade you of your reaction(s) or stance(s), rather its just to voice where I am at in all of this.

In my opinion, a Christ follower's response on death is initial sadness, because I believe that God is the giver of life. And life is good.

The notion that America brought about God's will and justice seems a bit presumptuous to me as well. Assuming God did want OBL dead, couldn't God have willed OBL to catch pneumonia or fall into a crevasse and die? Why involve the Navy SEALS? Are we assuming that God's will and America's will are the same? Is God's justice and America's justice the same?

I surely hope not.

I seem to remember scripture warning us of placing our hopes and futures in the hands of governments, militaries, and men.

And if I'm correct, just after that warning, crowds gathered to celebrate the killing of men. (Good Friday was not even 2 weeks ago - I haven't forgotten the story just yet)

So how do we respond?

That's for you to wrestle with.

I will continue to wrestle with you.

My wants and desires are much like the populace. I will surely sleep better knowing a bad guy is gone. Then again, I can tend to be a bad guy from time to time. I'm glad my will is not God's and that my judgement isn't His either.

I'm glad that judgement doesn't define me and my life (today and into the future), but that the grace bought through the cross does. And I believe that the grace of the cross is mystically rooted in a type of unconditional love that we'll never quite understand. Its a type of grace that bought the sins of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, Atheists and Polytheists. This type of grace seeks out all and destroys the trappings of sin!

So in the end, does justice win?

Does love win?

Or perhaps, in God's infinite wisdom and "being love" do the 2 intermingle in a way that we cannot fathom?

Discuss...


Peace,
Ross

A note on reading Love Wins (by C.S. Lewis)

As many of you know we've been going through Rob Bell's most recent book, Love Wins, with a chapter-by-chapter approach to discuss, debate, and continue the conversation. And though today's post isn't on Chapter 4, it is something I think we should all digest and consider as we continue the dialogue. Its a great piece from C. S. Lewis on how we read and understand. It will hopefully make the future of these posts more civil and grace-filled.

"Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook – even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united – united with each other and against earlier and later ages – by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century – the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?” – lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement" -C.S. Lewis

[you can read the entire piece here]

Peace,
Ross

LOVE WINS - great PARODY video

I found this great LOVE WINS parody video and needed to share it.

Robbed Hell - C.A.S.T. Pearls Presents from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Laughter is medicine!

Peace,
Ross

LOVE WINS. (Chapter 3)

Chapter 3 - HELL

Chapter 3 is much like chapter 2. Its full of definitions, translations, scriptural references, and stories. Again, to properly dissect this chapter, I think the reader must first determine if what Bell is defining and translating is correct. If so, then lets move forward and discuss the concepts he proposes.

[I also will add that 3 weeks into this discussion, no one has argued that Bell's historical facts, translations, and scriptures have been faulty or stretch the truth. Most commentary has been more focused on the broader implications of him writing this book, being a universalist, etc. But in order for accurate and healthy debate to take place, I think the chapter-by-chapter approach is necessary and vital.]

So, lets answer my first questions...are Bell's definitions, translations, historical analysis, and scriptural references correct, or lies?

Next, he doesn't say what most thought he was going to say, that hell doesn't exist. In fact, Bell writes, "There is hell now, and there is hell later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously" (79).

He is of course referring to the biblical posturing(s) of hell, not necessarily the Left Behind (dispensationalist) versions.

Bell discusses the usage of "eternal," "forever," and "eternity," again; calling to question our Western/English understanding versus what "aion" and "olam" really meant. Foul?

This chapter is all about how we've been taught to read things and re-learning original meaning and intent..."So when we read "eternal punishment," its important that we don't read categories and concepts into a phrase that aren't there" (92).

Please discuss and debate, but please try and keep it focused on Chapter 3, hell.

Peace,
Ross

Love Wins. (Chapter 2)

CHAPTER 2 - Here is the New There

I really enjoyed Bell's parenting idea of teaching your kids in such a way that they don't have to unlearn concepts, information, facts, etc.

Shouldn't that be how it is? Shouldn't that be the goal?

I find that what I grew up hearing and understanding inside the church has dramatically changed now that I have access and information regarding translations, language, and history.

Its frustrating that I find myself continuing to unlearn things because I know full well that all of my pastors growing up have solid backgrounds that have taught them extensive history and language (Greek & Hebrew), yet only taught portions of the stories. I feel as though I've learned only a fraction of what the scriptures have said; and cherry-picking a theology or ideology or denominational stand on any given scripture is manipulation and perversion.

So here's the question that will test this book (in my opinion)...

It's not going to come down to Bell's ideas and questions, rather we must ask if what he presents through scripture, history, and language/translation is accurate?

If it is, its something to be considered, learned, consumed, and re-taught.
If not, then he's propping up a certain idea or stance and working the words to fit his end game.

Thus far, I do not find a single contradictory piece of scripture, definition, or history that speaks to the later. I also see much of the anti-Bell-bloggers attacking concept rather than his evidence. If the evidence stands, what are we arguing about?

Thus far, people may not like what they read because it differs from what they've been told, but to ignore historical and biblical truth is dangerous!

On we go...

Chapter 2 discusses Heaven and the implications surrounding it. It questions the notion that Heaven is elsewhere. That leads us to the question of "who's in and who's out?" It is the subject that divides and often leads to an escapist theology and living; all the while disregarding the here and now (people, earth, etc.)

We find ourselves in this conundrum based on how we define words. (words matter!) "Eternal" comes from the Greek word "Aion" which was always a temporal period, age, era, and intense experience. But unlike the English meaning, it was not meant to mean forever (as we understand it). This obviously comes as a shock to most readers and is excellent fodder for discussion and debate.

This word is used over and over throughout scripture (Isaiah 2, 11, 25; Ezekiel 36; Amos 9; and so on...)

Bell explains it eloquently, that what and how we read "eternal" was NOW, "but rescued, transformed, and renewed" (34)...that in the age to come, "justice and mercy hold hands" (39). That's beautiful!

And if his translation is truthful, then this is at least something to be considered as truth. Why would it mean one thing a few thousand years ago, and something else today?

Then comes Jesus...

The talk is about keeping the commandments; that abiding by the law is the natural outpouring of living as God's image bearers. Jesus recognizes though, that we are sinners and thus this is impossible.

Insert Cross.

The Cross changed everything. It was a paradox (maybe wrapped in a riddle)...

It covers, it renews, its hopeful, beautiful, and saves; and did so through brutality, death, and disgust.

This seems to be where much of the criticism comes from regarding Bell...that he's dethroning Jesus. I read it as exactly the opposite, that only through Jesus and the Cross, comes salvation (whether you're aware of it or not - that the Cross just might be that big and grace filled).

Finally, with regards to Heaven, Bell discusses that the word is often used as a substitute for God (42). Again, if this is based on truth, then its hard to read the Kingdom of God as not being here on earth (and the age to come). He utilizes the Lord's Prayer as evidence as well as Revelation 21; that God's dwelling place is now and among the people.

He brings forth a great discussion (one I've never heard) in that Jesus spoke of transforming hearts so that we can handle heaven. He poses Rev. 20, 1 Cor. 3, Matt. 20 & 25 as evidence that the flames of heaven prepare us.

*I think there's probably a lot to discuss on this...again, its a fairly new concept to me.

The chapter ends wide open and beautifully and i'll end this post the same way.

There's heaven now, somewhere else.
There's heaven here, sometime else.
And then there's Jesus' invitation to heaven
here
and
now,
in this moment,
in this place.

---------------------------

Please feel free to comment, debate, and converse (in a grace-filled manner). That is the point of this blog!

Grace & peace,
Ross

p.s. you can scroll down and join in the Chapter 1 discussion too!

LOVE WINS. (a chapter-by-chapter discussion)

I thought it would be appropriate and fun to go chapter-by-chapter through Rob Bell's newest book, Love Wins, and discuss it with you guys. It's received a lot of criticism. For a lot of folks, what he's proposing and writing about is grounds for heresy.

What this is NOT, is a place to call and label people and ideas heretical. That's not what I'm going for. I'm also not just trying to build up Bell or this book. Rather, I want to critically analyze the ideas and questions being proposed.

Ok, onto chapter 1...

Chapter 1 - What About the Flat Tire?

Bell does what he does best in Chapter 1, ask questions! He asks tons as it pertains to salvation.

How is one saved?
Is it a free gift?

That's what most evangelicals say, that the gift of salvation is free (its what has uniquely set Christianity apart from other more works-based faiths). But then we typically follow that phrase up with, "then all you have to do is..."

And this list is usually part (or all) of the following:
be baptized
say the sinners prayer
repent
believe
follow the commandments
serve, give, live like Christ, etc.


Bell goes through lots of scriptural examples of people being "saved" via numerous means. Belief, child bearing, baptism, who you know, marriage...the list goes on and on.

So apparently its not just one, form-fit, check this box and your in, method.

And even when Jesus is asked directly by a rich young man, he doesn't give him a straight answer. Jesus answers with more questions.

So is it a mystery?
Is it (salvation) only for some to know & obtain?
Just how powerful was the Cross?

I assume we'll get into those questions as we proceed.

---------------------------------

That's what I gathered from Chapter 1. It lived up to Bell's preface - that it wasn't going to be anything new - that all of these ideas have been wrestled with and asked from the beginning of time.

I hope you'll engage and lets chat more about what's being said and the implications of its ideas and questions.

Peace,
Ross

What the Bell???

I'm once again not surprised by the poor behavior within the church, but this time its received much press and shows just how poor some of the leadership's discernment is.

I am of course speaking of the recent #robbell TWITTER war over his upcoming book, Love Wins.

From 1 tweet by a high profile leader/pastor in the church, the entire globe was brought into a nasty fight of divisions and exclusiveness.

So, I will not discuss the theological matters that were being fought. Rather, I will focus on the unfortunate effects of what happens when we forget to be grace-filled, and divide.

The Huffington Post said it best: "The fact that this controversy became the most dissected piece of news in the evangelical world at the same time the regime of Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi was escalating violent attacks on its own people this weekend offers a sobering commentary on the priorities (and irrelevance) of too-many evangelical leaders."

In fact their entire article hit the nail on the head.
YOU CAN READ IT HERE...

Once again the church is known for what it's against. In this case, opinion.

I'll read the book when it comes out, and make an educated post on its ideas and questions then (but regardless of what's written, I will not be threatened, or hurt, or feel the need to jump into character assassination on any camp). Until then, I'm not jumping to conclusions.

Peace,
Ross

p.s. here's Rob Bell's PROMO VIDEO for Love Wins.

Resurrection (by Rob Bell)

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

A Brief History of Everything

It's Friday, the wind is breezing bye, and the weather is beckoning a good read. I finished up The War of Art last week and I'm about 100 pages into a new one - A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilbur.

Its a fascinating read at a little over 500 pages, because its crammed with info and set in a Q&A style of writing.

If you've seen Rob Bell's, Everything is Spiritual, you'll truly be a fan!

Check it out and we'll discuss it later...

-Ross

Drops Like Huge Squirrels...

That's right folks, I said it...huge squirrels (that's with a very soft "h").

Last night Kate and I attended Rob Bell's, Drops Like Stars tour event at the Uptown Theatre in Kansas City. As always, he delivered amazingly and we were moved and inspired.

The setup was great too...dinner and conversation in Westport at Californio's with friends (hard to beat).

Earlier in the day, my best friend Brandon Schultz (BRS Photography) did a photoshoot with us. So be watching for those pics to surface! Fun times on the Nelson lawn!!!

That's all I have for now...

Peace,

Ross