The event itself was hosted by the Greenbelt Festival organizers (self described now as an 'Arts, Faith & Justice' festival) and at the Cheltenham racecourse it did feel just like one of the festival talks. In attendance was a hearty age spread; Teenagers to pensioners, which I thought was promising. It's encouraging to know that people still want to ask deep questions about religion, that they don't want to just believe what they're told, or concentrate entirely on practical church matters. Though at one point Rob spoke of an event in the past where a guy stood up and made a really long and difficult theological point and cited 'cosmological' as a word he used. The audience found it funny, I must confess I died a little bit. It was also, I noted, Greenbelt in Microcosm; rather a lot of beards floating about on gentlemen of a certain generation, and so. much. plaid. On gentlemen of another generation.
Anyway, I'll try and focus on the substance from here on in, and chart a few of my impressions. So. It was definitely an interesting night, but I was left questioning 'What is a Rob Bell?' and all I can think of in answer is to say that, insofar as what he does at these talks, that he is not presenting himself as a teacher, or a theologian, or a controversialist. He is a story teller. A story teller that lives the story he tells with a passion. That is, the gospel story, that Christ walks amongst the broken and the sick, the 'zeroes' as he called them, Christ lives and dies and lives and loves for such as these. Indeed this is what he talked about, not about his book at all. He wanted to talk about Jesus, and did so for twenty minutes uninterrupted. It was the sort of thing that if one has any familiarity with his writing,one would recognize easily enough- in fact he even used some material that I'm pretty sure came from his Velvet Elvis. The key theme I think rested on the newness of things following the work of Christ, the break with Jewish tradition in that God maintains an outsider/insider distinction in humanity (Jew/Gentile)- that 'the Party' is for everyone, all are invited, but it doesn't stop at the invite, quite often God is there pursuing you, relentlessly, like the Shepherd and the lost sheep, or the woman and the missing coin.
Following this there was a question and answer session, whereby I think the sort of basis of his ideas became more clear, both by what he said, and interestingly by what he didn't say. One of things that he certainly never said was a direct answer to the question, no matter how basic. What we'd get instead was more stories and anecdotes, things that always had a personal quality to them. For instance there was a question about praying for the dead, his answer involved talking about the emotional healing, of the coming of terms to grief and that praying for the dead can be an unhealthy way of 'holding on'. It's not about right or wrong, whether one should or shouldn't, it starts with the individual.
This seems unsurprising in context, the definite statements that the audience teased out of him include the firm conviction that God loves everyone (as opposed to the elect) and that this love is very clearly and strongly bound to freedom, choice, human decisions. Definitely no Calvinist, Rob Bell insists that one can refuse the invitation to the Party, that you have to want to participate in heaven, salvation, whatever. This sounds to me a bit like N. T. Wright and C. S. Lewis- the idea that 'hell is locked from the inside'. Grace is resistible- God forces no-one to accept him- in fact at one point he says that 'Love Wins' because people can reject it; that people can choose to be apart form God is the triumph of Love, because Love = giving freedom. (Though I wonder what that means in the case of freedom to cause intentional harm to people...?)
What seems to be the trajectory of this freedom for Rob though, is an emphasis diversity that inevitably springs from choice. In his talk he was quite eclectic in his sources; Kierkegaard, an 18th century Hasidic tale, Francis of Assisi and C. S. Lewis all were name-dropped. He considers Christianity to be a broad stream of thought, and noted that there is barely a question about God that someone hasn't already thought about- and usually within Christianity when one is wrestling with some aspect of the faith, one can find someone else who has something to say on it; doubtless a very affirming and validating experience for us, but why (or perhaps, if) we should feel validated by this, was not touched upon. At one point a question was raised about his critics who affirmed the idea of eternal suffering and punishment in hell, and he responded that maybe that works for other people, he wasn't interested in arguing with them because he wanted to address himself to the people who were struggling with this problem.
There are as many christianities as there are christians, and there is something of an 'apophatic awareness' within his teaching, that God is not fully comprehensible to the human mind, his ways are mysterious and that to make a bold claim that one particular doctrine over all others is 'the truth' is something that cannot be said with certainty. This is where postmodernism seems to rear its head most clearly- that universal applicability and the perfect system are simply mirages. Faced with an overwhelming amount of data humans receive through improved communications infrastructure, the suggestion that there is one answer that works for everybody, everywhere, in all cultures and situations seems a notion that is somewhere between bold and incredibly foolish. Which is why he says 'Jesus is bigger than one religion', because the being that holds the whole earth together in its cacophonous, multifaceted form surely cannot be boiled down to one creed, or confession or statement.
So we don't get dogmatic lectures, we get the stories and anecdotes, we have to discover our own way, find how God communicates best with us, because things have to be context-specific. He has an aversion to systems- as he put it at one point, Jesus says he is bread of life...and you can't build a theology out of 'bread' it's just, 'bread', what is that meant to mean? But then, he says, when you're hungry, you know exactly what it means. So important does this avoidance of systematizing and generalizing seem to be, that when asked 'who influenced your thinking about this?' the answer went on for quite a few minutes but my notes state quite baldly: 'did not mention a single name'. Is it the case that we can feel validated by older Christian writers, but Rob Bell's opinions are not apparently to be treated in the same way? He's acting, I suppose, as a catalyst for your own exploration, encouraging you on, gently reminding you that God is in the questioning as much as he is in the answer.
When he reflected on it after the event, Dad suggested it was still very much 'the Gospel message, but you don't have to accept everything else on top of that' - noting that that was very different from his experiences when he was younger, when lots of things were a necessary corollary of accepting Christ- ways of interpreting scripture, eschatology moral views and so on. Possibly one could say that for Rob, doubt has its own kind of holiness, that God is in that doubt as much as he is in what one is certain of. It reminds me of something Origen said; noting that Christ appears to people depending on their capacity to receive him- whether that's as bread, or a door a healer or a teacher...whether simply a great man or God incarnate.
Truth is not relative, it's just varied.
God is for everyone, but one size of christianity doesn't necessarily fit all in the same way.
Perhaps this is why he didn't want to give too much of what was personally driving him (though compassion for the suffering and enthusiasm gospel story I would say, are clearly up there on the list) because he doesn't want people to look to him for guidance. He wants them to ultimately look to Jesus, and Jesus will appear to them as they seem fit and work with them as they need, lead them as they can be lead. One of the questioners almost accidentally called Rob 'the Saviour', so perhaps this is, on reflection, a rather prudent decision of his.
I have also purchased the book (didn't bother to wait to get it signed though) once I've finished reading it, I may return to this topic again, possibly looking more at what he says on Heaven and hell specifically, though I will also see if I need to revise any of these statements.
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