What I’m Reading – Love Wins by Rob Bell

I’m often a bit behind the crowd, late to the party and uninformed.  Here I am, five months after the release of Rob Bell’s newest book, and 6 months or so after the heresy-furor began, only just now getting around to reading Love Wins. 

It’s not a difficult book to read.  Bell writes in short declarative sentences, and with very brief paragraphs.  He is the Ernest Hemmingway of theological writing.

But, as easy as it would be to breeze through the book, I am going to limit myself to reading one chapter a day. And I am going to share some of my thoughts on each chapter with those of you who read this blog.

Preface -Millions of Us

I always read the preface to books.  I know some people skip them, but I don’t.  The preface is a bit like a musical prelude. It establishes some of the motifs and melodies and rhythms that will be heard later.  And one of the motifs found in the preface of Love Wins is the Question.  This is going to be a book about questions.  Big Questions.  Ultimate, Life, the Universe, and Everything kinds of Questions.

Many have these questions.
Christians,
people who are Christians
people who were Christians,
but can’t do it anymore because of questions about
these very topics,
people who thing Christians are delusional and
profoundly misguided,
pastors, leaders, preachers -
these questions are everywhere. (pg. ix)

I believe in questions, so I’m excited to read this book.  Will I get all the answers I want? No.  Because I’d only have a dozen more questions for each answer I received.  But I ask and I read anyway.

But not everyone is as keen to ask questions.  Discussion is sometimes viewed with suspicion and distrust.  Many people would rather have an issue cut and dried, settled, and pinned down to the mat for permanent display.   But not me.  And not Bell.

I believe the discussion itself is divine. Abraham does his best to bargain with God, most of the book of Job consists of arguments by Job and his friends about the deepest questions of human suffering, God is practically on trial in the poems of Lamentations, and Jesus responds to almost every question he’s asked with… another question. (pg. ix - x)

This reminds me of a line from another book I read recently.

In the beginning was the Argument, and the Argument was with God and the Argument was: God. God was the subject of the Argument, and the Argument was a good one.

I like questions and I ask questions.

And the first chapter – What About the Flat Tire? – is all about questions.

While I was at music camp last week we watched one of Bell’s Nooma videos.  During the video devotional one of the camp leaders walked over to me and said, “This is okay so far, but this guy has some jacked up theology.”

I knew (or at least I thought I could guess) where he was leading with that statement, but I asked the question: “How so?”

Maybe the question caught my friend off-guard. Maybe he expected that I would just nod in agreement.  He fumbled for a response, “Well… in his new book.  I haven’t read it yet, but…” and he let it trail off with that.  I don’t know what “jacked up” theology my friend believed would be found in Love Wins.  But the question caught him surprised.

Questions can do that.  Surprise us. 
Questions can cause us – force us – to reconsider what we thought we knew

(Have you noticed how I am now writing like Bell?)

Socrates knew the power of the Question.
Jesus knew the power of the Question.
Jesus rarely answered a Question.  Instead he gave more questions.

And in the first chapter of his book, Bell asks a lot of questions about what it means to be saved, or to be converted, or to have a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”  We talk about these things all the time, but we rarely ask what they mean.

What is “being born again”?

What is Salvation?

Going further with these questions, Bell asks how salvation comes. 

Is there a specific prayer?
Is there a class?
Is it by baptism?
Is it what we say?
Is it what we do?
Is it what we say we’re going to do?

Is it who your friends are or what your friends do?

Is it who you’re married to?
Is it whether or not you give birth to children? (pg. 5, 15)

We don’t usually ask these questions.  Because asking all these questions makes it difficult. And we don’t want difficult.  We want it clean and simple.  We want a tract.  We want the 4 Spiritual Laws . We want Salvation in 7 simple steps. We want the ABCs of salvation.

But I am convinced – and have been for most of my life – that the simple answers aren’t really answers at all. 

The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.  -Soren Kierkegaard

We could go on,
verse after verse,
passage after passage,
question after question,
about heaven and hell and the afterlife
and salvation and believing and judgment
and who God is and what God is like
and how Jesus fits into any of it.

But this isn’t just a book of questions.
It’s a book of responses to those questions. (pg. 19)

I like that it’s not just a book of questions.  It’s important to start with questions, but I do want to move forward toward some answers – even if that involves asking more questions.

And I like that it’s a book of responses to those questions. Plural.  Responses.

I look forward to reading this book over the next several days and to asking questions, and to discovering (or re-discovering) some of those responses, and to (inevitably) asking more questions.

Any questions?