Christian Religion in a Secular Academic Setting

This is the outline for a talk I'm going to give at Intervarsity's large group gathering sometime in October:

I'm struck by how anti-intellectual Christians try to be these days. Instead of engaging culture, we tend to huddle in our own protective bubbles, only reading books, listening to music, and debating issues within certified "Christian" atmospheres. Christians fear mixing with "secular" culture and are reluctant to engage in debates and discussions about Christian religion and philosophy. I think some of this attitude comes from two things: 1) a belief that "secular" things are tainted and therefore not useful for discovering truth, and 2) a fear that a smarter non-Christian academic "thinker" type will debunk our religion and lead us to question our faith.

These attitudes persist into the modern academic setting. College Christians are more than willing to go to universities and help out with on-campus groups, but many still try to enfore and build a sequestered existence. Even moreso, the academic setting angers many Christians to the point that the only message they can commiunicate is one of condemnation. This saddens me because the western, espeically American, university tradition, by definition, probably provides the Christian with the most freedom to express and spread their beliefs that they'll see in their lifetime. Many American workplaces have rules and by-laws that prohibit talking about religion, and they certainly don't appreciate respectful debates which take time away from productivity. The University, on the other hand, is built upon a respectful exchange of ideas. Although it may seem like these Universities tend to give emphasis to secular or "New Agey" type ideas and don't appreciate old world faiths like Christianity, and many college students may even mock or approach Christian spirituality with a negative predisposition, most people that participate in secular universities still appreciate those who express their ideas and aren't afraid to take flak for them. That's what these places are all about, anyway.

The Greek Scriptures speak of such areas of academic/philosophical exchange, and show an effective way of engaging the culture with Christian spirituality and religion:

"Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed. Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, "What does this babbler wish to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities"--because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean." Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.' Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, "We will hear you again about this." So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them."
(Act 17:15-34)

Athens was the ancient equivalent of modern Boston, Minneapolis, or San Francisco. It was the center of Academia, where new and old ideas were exchanged and debated. One could get away with believing just about anything, and this was seen as a good thing. Wealthy families from all over the known world sent their children to Athens to be educated, and the Romans considered the Greek academic tradition to be a prerequisite for engaging in high Roman culture. Essentially, Paul was entering the ultimate College Town. In the downtown area was a marketplace and a civic forum where people bought and sold goods, including idols of their favorite gods.

The first point of interest in that passage is Paul's reaction to his surrounding. The Greek writer uses "παροξύνω" (paroxuno) to describe Paul's spirit being "stirred" or "rubbed the wrong way" when seeing all the idols in the town. Instead of declaring himself "not of this world", Paul does the snobby academic thing and enters the synagogue to engage in debate ("διαλέγομαι" or dialegomai, to discuss, reason with, or speak to) with the local Jewish Rabbis. Despite Paul's frustration with the idolatry of the city, and the local Jews' probable offense at his take on Jewish relgion, the debate remained civil.

What's more, is that "secular" philosophers were interested in hearing what Paul had to say. The Stoics and Epicureans were very real religio-philisophical groups that existed througout the Roman Empire. These were the guys with beards and togas you'd imagine when you think about "Greek Philosophers". In ancient Athens these philosophers engaged daily in exchanging ideas and prided themselves in their willingness to hear and reason with various ways of thinking. Their reaction to Paul was mixed: some blew him off, yet others wanted to hear him out.

I find this true for the modern academic institution. Speaking your mind on any idea will bring mixed reactions. Some will close their ears completely--and that's their God-given choice--while others will listen simply for the sake of hearing someone speak with conviction. In my experience, most of the people who attend or teach at colleges will at least respectfully hear out someone who pretends to speak with a conviction, as long as they abide by the academic norm and do it with respect and a willingness to hear a response.

The Stoics and Epicureans had such a reaction: "He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities...May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean." Although Christianity isn't really a strange or foreign idea to many college kids and academics these days, the same spirit of inquiry still exists on campus. People go there to "expand their minds" and "try new things".

The philosophers took Paul to the local civic center, the "Areopagus", which might have got its name from Aries + pagus (meaning hill or large rock, having nothing to do with winged horses) and is regarded today as "Mars Hill". In the day it was a local equivalent of a city council and court building, where all the haughty, important men of Athens might hang out. There Paul gave his famous sermon:

"Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious...."

Ah, Paul starts out with a compliment! He zeroes in on a positive aspect of Athenian culture, because Paul knows that this very aspect is what is allowing him to preach to the city's elite. He also recognizes that being religious is a positive attribute. Who would have thought of complimenting Pagans?

"...For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you."

This, by some modern american evangelical standards, would be heresy. Paul inserted Christianity into the ancient Greek Pantheon. This is called "adapting the Gospel to culture", and I'm surprised how many evangelical eyebrows raise at the sound of this despite dear ol' Paul's example.

"...The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'..."

Whoa, did Paul just quote a pagan? The last line is a quotation from the Greek Stoic philosopher Aratus, which Paul seems to think hints at God-given truth. This has interesting implications for the exclusivity some claim that christianity has on truth.

"...Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

The final point, about Christ's ressurection, seemed pretty far-fetched for some. Still, others remained interested and wanted to hear more from him. Even a member of the local council became a Christian.

In today's academic world, Christians need to be open to discussion and never shy from debate. In the ancient world, where things were far more strict than they are now regarding the preaching of one's religion, Paul used respectful words and careful syntax to engage the elites of the ancient world's academic center. Today's Christians will find a similarly tolerant reaction if they present their ideas respecfully and expect to recieve a reasoned response. Like Paul, if they engage the culture of academia, which includes books, music, politics, philosophy, and movies, they will increase the relevence of their ideas to the audience. This would, of course, require popping the protective bubble that surrounds us and listening to "secular" music, reading "secular" books, and hangning out in "dark" places like bars and parties. The Christian faith is compatible with all of these and will not be disproven or put down by any of them.

The Emergent Village and Doctrinal Statements

While I personally am a fan of very basic doctrinal statements, I thought this article from emergentvillage.com was an interesting take on the Postmodern view of such ideas. I often wonder if my desire for concrete doctrinal statements as a sort of "bar" over which people and organizations must clear is part of my own human nature, or more part of my brain functioning from a Modern context. I do know that as I've come more in touch with our Postmodern reality I've become less needy of long, strict doctrinal statements. I only need like three, maybe four roman numeraled points to feel comfortable now, as opposed to the ten to fifteen I used to like.

In any event, this article is also an interesting insight into the unique situation of the Emergent Village. While I'm becoming less and less inclined to consider myself among the ranks of "emergents" every day, I do admire the fact that they won't cave in to critical pressure to nail down a set of specific beliefs.

This article was originally taken from http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/blast-from-the-past-i :

“Doctrinal Statement(?)”

Originally posted, May 4, 2006

From Tony Jones, National Coordinator, Emergent Village

Yes, we have been inundated with requests for our statement of faith in Emergent, but some of us had an inclination that to formulate something would take us down a road that we don’t want to trod. So, imagine our joy when a leading theologian joined our ranks and said that such a statement would be disastrous. That’s what happened when we started talking to LeRon Shults, late of Bethel Seminary and now heading off to a university post in Norway. LeRon is the author of many books, all of which you should read, and now the author of a piece to guide us regarding statements of faith and doctrine. Read on…

From LeRon Shults:

The coordinators of Emergent have often been asked (usually by their critics) to proffer a doctrinal statement that lays out clearly what they believe. I am merely a participant in the conversation who delights in the ongoing reformation that occurs as we bring the Gospel into engagement with culture in ever new ways. But I have been asked to respond to this ongoing demand for clarity and closure. I believe there are several reasons why Emergent should not have a “statement of faith” to which its members are asked (or required) to subscribe. Such a move would be unnecessary, inappropriate and disastrous.

Why is such a move unnecessary? Jesus did not have a “statement of faith.” He called others into faithful relation to God through life in the Spirit. As with the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he was not concerned primarily with whether individuals gave cognitive assent to abstract propositions but with calling persons into trustworthy community through embodied and concrete acts of faithfulness. The writers of the New Testament were not obsessed with finding a final set of propositions the assent to which marks off true believers. Paul, Luke and John all talked much more about the mission to which we should commit ourselves than they did about the propositions to which we should assent. The very idea of a “statement of faith” is mired in modernist assumptions and driven by modernist anxieties – and this brings us to the next point.
Such a move would be inappropriate. Various communities throughout church history have often developed new creeds and confessions in order to express the Gospel in their cultural context, but the early modern use of linguistic formulations as “statements” that allegedly capture the truth about God with certainty for all cultures and contexts is deeply problematic for at least two reasons. First, such an approach presupposes a (Platonic or Cartesian) representationalist view of language, which has been undermined in late modernity by a variety of disciplines across the social and physical sciences (e.g., sociolinguistics and paleo-biology). Why would Emergent want to force the new wine of the Spirit’s powerful transformation of communities into old modernist wineskins? Second, and more importantly from a theological perspective, this fixation with propositions can easily lead to the attempt to use the finite tool of language on an absolute Presence that transcends and embraces all finite reality. Languages are culturally constructed symbol systems that enable humans to communicate by designating one finite reality in distinction from another. The truly infinite God of Christian faith is beyond all our linguistic grasping, as all the great theologians from Irenaeus to Calvin have insisted, and so the struggle to capture God in our finite propositional structures is nothing short of linguistic idolatry.

Why would it be disastrous? Emergent aims to facilitate a conversation among persons committed to living out faithfully the call to participate in the reconciling mission of the biblical God. Whether it appears in the by-laws of a congregation or in the catalog of an educational institution, a “statement of faith” tends to stop conversation. Such statements can also easily become tools for manipulating or excluding people from the community. Too often they create an environment in which real conversation is avoided out of fear that critical reflection on one or more of the sacred propositions will lead to excommunication from the community. Emergent seeks to provide a milieu in which others are welcomed to join in the pursuit of life “in” the One who is true (1 John 5:20). Giving into the pressure to petrify the conversation in a “statement” would make Emergent easier to control; its critics could dissect it and then place it in a theological museum alongside other dead conceptual specimens the curators find opprobrious. But living, moving things do not belong in museums. Whatever else Emergent may be, it is a movement committed to encouraging the lively pursuit of God and to inviting others into a delightfully terrifying conversation along the way.

This does not mean, as some critics will assume, that Emergent does not care about belief or that there is no role at all for propositions. Any good conversation includes propositions, but they should serve the process of inquiry rather than shut it down. Emergent is dynamic rather than static, which means that its ongoing intentionality is (and may it ever be) shaped less by an anxiety about finalizing state-ments than it is by an eager attention to the dynamism of the Spirit’s disturbing and comforting presence, which is always reforming us by calling us into an ever-intensifying participation in the Son’s welcoming of others into the faithful embrace of God.

Urbana '06: A Radical Re-Shaping of My Worldview

I attended InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's huge, once-every-three-years conference in St. Louis in the last few days of December '06. This was my first time attending Urbana, and I can say that I'll make every effort to be at every Urbana that happens for the rest of my life.

"Urbana" is a huge missions conference that attracts a lot of attention in the evangelical world. It used to be held in Urbana, outside Chicago. This last time they outgrew the facilities in Chicago, so they moved it to St. Louis. This year it was attended by 22,500 people, the majority of which are college students. People from all the states and provinces of the U.S. and Canada were there, as well as representatives from over 50 countries. About 300 missions organizations and 25 seminaries sent representatives and recruiters.

Attendees stayed at various hotels all around downtown St. Louis, MO, basically taking over the downtown area. Our daily schedule was pretty intensive, but highly worth it. Every morning there was a bible study on the book of Ephesians, followed up by a morning session of worship, preaching, and an expository on Ephesians by Ajith Fernando, the director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka. The morning session was followed by lunch and two seminar sessions, where you could pick from a list of about 30 seminars to attend. After this was dinner and then the evening worship/testimony/preaching session. Good stuff.

My experience was really eye-opening. Since it was a missions conference, the focus was on the global church, and how christianity is "done" in other countries.

The biggest lesson I took away from it was a refreshed view of the global church. My whole life I've seen the U.S. as the center of Christendom, as the "city upon a hill" as far as world Christianity is concerned, regardless of whether or not we're officially a "Christian Nation". I was floored--humbled--to find that this, in fact, isn't the case anymore. America has about 100 million nominal evangelicals, and this number is decreasing annually. Africa has 360 million evangelicals--more than America--and China now has about 100 million christians. This last fact was really encouraging for me because I remember, about ten years ago, thinking how futile it was to send christian missionaries to china when they faced violent opposition from the government. Apparently it was worth it. The most flooring statistic I learned was that, on average, there were 36,000 new converts a day in Africa last year. On average, the "Western Church" lost 6,000 people a day. Africa is, or soon will be, the center of Christendom.

Check out this video to totally blow your mind on the global situation of the church (at least, it blew mine). It's long but it's worth it:

http://www.urbana.org/u2006.mediaplayer.pop.cfm?gotosession=3&clip=132

I was very amused by the way the guy refer's to what we might call the "Third World" as the "Two-Thirds World", totally mocking the condescending nature of the West's outlook towards so-called "underdeveloped" non-western nations. After all, they're the majority.

The focus of the conference was putting faith into action, combining gospel truth with virtuous acts. There was a huge focus on the AIDS crisis in Africa and how Christians can, and are, responding to it. There were great teachings on racial reconciliation and urban ministry. I'll post more when I have time to write on them individually. Until then, I suggest making plans for Urbana '09.

The Second Most Important Day in the History of Mankind

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Every star, every tree, every animal, was created in a state of perfection and total order. All of it was good, and God dwelt among us.

Then it happened.

Mankind made a conscious decision not to live within this goodness. Because of this, we departed from Gods presence. Many words are used to describe this: sin, “the fall”, death. I’m going to go with Chaos. Or how about Entropy.

These general principles of physics entered the world at that point. From then on, creation was defined by an endless cycle of dying, rebuilding, and dying again. Death and decay are all around us, within nature, within our nature, and it’s pretty apparent. The universe is constantly reducing to disorder.

But God had other plans for His creation.

Redemption.

Redemption wasn’t just for us humans:

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” (Romans 8:18-22)

God isn’t trying to pull His children out of the world so we can all just sit on our nice fluffy cloud, with our harp, way up in the sky, and watch the world burn. No, He redeemed it all. The full realization of Christ will mean the return of the earth and the whole physical universe to a non-entropic state. The garden will be restored, and we will dwell in it forever with God. (Apocalypse 22:5)

And it all started on that one night, about two thousand years ago, the second most important day in the history of mankind.

If you can, for a second, imagine yourself in that pre-Christmas world. Death, decay, and destruction all spin out of control, with no end in sight. The earth struggles against itself, fighting, killing, falling apart. God, the creator, the only one that can overcome this, hasn’t been heard from in a few hundred years. If you’ve seen any rendition of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” then you can visualize this concept: a perpetual winter, an evil, despotic overseer, and no end in sight.

“And unto us a Child is born.” “And they shall call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’)”

What would you have thought? How would you have felt?

This is how one guy felt: “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32)

Another person, a woman who’d been widowed for about 60 years, lived her life in anticipation for that moment:

“And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour [that is, the hour when she saw baby Jesus] she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:36-38)

This event wasn’t just some famous dude being born for which a bunch of people were really delighted. This was the incarnation of God, and it shook the very foundations of the universe.

"Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." (Matthew 2:2)

The Magi, or “wise men”, were Persian astrologer-priests. They weren’t Jews or Christians, they were pagans. They weren’t spending their lives in anticipation for this moment, for the moment when God Himself would come down and redeem us.

They were just looking at the stars, and the stars “groaned”.

Close your eyes for a second (after you read this sentence, of course) and try to picture the clearest night you spent away from the city. Imagine the stars. Billions of them. The Milky Way.

When the Persian astrologer-priests looked up at the sky and started using their charts or horoscopes or whatever, it was very apparent to them that something huge was happening, something big enough to warrant their jumping on camels and traveling 500 miles to give presents that would cost the equivalent to a years’ salary to an infant in a cow’s trough.

The Advent of the Christ was just such an event; it was cataclysmic. It shook the very foundations of the infinite universe, from the Arabian desert to Alpha Centauri and beyond.

And the universe would never be the same.


This Christmas, amongst all the chaos of family, of food, and of presents, take a second to step outside and admire creation. Look at the trees. Look at the mountains. Look at the stars.

Remember what Christmas means not only to us, but to the whole universe.

Remember what that cataclysmic day must have been like, the second most important date in the history of mankind, second only to the day, about thirty years later, when the Christmas Mission was finally accomplished.

Kingdom Theology 101

The inquisitive mind is a gift from God, and I’m pretty sure he intended us to use it. I think sometimes we look down on the questioning of the Bible, or the questioning of “the Story” or of God or whatever, but we shouldn’t. God is all-powerful, right? No question can dupe him. Or prove Him wrong. Or put an end to His work here on earth.

So here’s a question that’s produced all sorts of cool growth in my bible study and in my spiritual life: What was God’s original intention for us here on the earth?

I think it’s highly unlikely that God intended for Adam and Eve to walk around the garden naked forever and not reproduce. So eventually, had everything gone as originally planned, there would have been a bunch of people in the garden. Eventually, there would have been a ton of people—millions, billions perhaps. So, what would God have done with us? He probably would have built a city for us to live in.

City building is something God is into. He likes it. Heaven itself—our final destination and the dwelling place of God—is a city. In the book of Revelations, after God has effectively removed wickedness from the world, what does He do? Does he take us into the clouds right before he blows up the planet? No. He actually renews the earth, His original creation, and He builds a city on it. In this city, all His people will live with Him forever, and He Himself will dwell within the city. It’s an amazing concept; heaven is not in some other dimension where there’s poofy clouds and lots of harps. It’s right here, on earth, after God makes all things new.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’" (Revelations 21:1-5)

This is the fully realized “Kingdom of Heaven” that’s mentioned throughout the Greek Scriptures. Revelations actually gives a pretty detailed description. Go read it for yourself.

So here’s the story: God created us in a garden, in which we were to grow and multiply and dwell with God personally. But things went wrong. You know the rest. Instead of building and expanding the relationship that we had with God in the garden, we rejected His plan and were cast out. But God, in His great desire to be with us, came down to earth and made things right. His death and resurrection made it possible for us to be with Him again, and now, provided we embrace His sacrifice and accept our unworthiness, we will live with Him forever in a really, really cool city.

So what happens between the original garden and that awesome city? This, I believe, is the most important question we can ask about our lives as Christians.

More to come...

Intervarsity under attack

It seems constitutional rights haven't been very popular lately. Now even college ministries like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of the oldest college ministries in the world, are being persecuted in America--the supposed bastion of Christianity.

They've been kicked off the University of Wisconsin-Superior campus because they require their leaders to sign a statement demanding they be christians. Go figure.

See the full story here:

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20061004/24973.htm

This seems pretty rediculous. Please pray for Justice.

Book Review: Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell

In 1999 Rob Bell launched his Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The very first Sunday they had 1000 people show up. By the end of six months they had 4,000; within 2 years they had 10,000. Bell is also known for his rapidly-gaining-popularity series of “spiritual short films” called Nooma. His ministry is, needless to say, “successful”.

So when Bell opens his mouth, people—especially Christian leaders—should at least listen.

His first book, Velvet Elvis, is a general glimpse into the Christian philosophy that he is known for. Bell argues that the shift from modern to postmodern requires not just a revamping of the way church is done, but that a “repainting” of Christian theology is needed too. Of course, this is bound to piss people off. But unlike other “emergents”, Bell doesn’t seem to want to make a point by either pushing extremes or embracing ambiguity. I’d recommend this book to both the most extreme Emergent as well as the hardcore Reformed thinker. It’s a challenge to both sides because Bell’s theology is unorthodox, but not liberal “wishy-washy”.

His justification for repainting the faith is based on a few ideas. First, he asserts the subjective nature of biblical interpretation. Bell argues that no matter how hard we try, we can’t be absolutely objective in interpreting the bible. We can adopt others’ interpretations, of course, but it’s an interpretation nonetheless. Bell humorously recounts the times people have made the comment “well, as long as you teach the bible you’re alright in my book.” They mean, as long as you teach their interpretation of the bible. Thus, Bell has problems with the idea of the absolute “infallibility” of the Scriptures. Say what you will, Bell’s assertion is not meant as an attack on the faith. His love for the Scriptures is blatantly stated throughout the book.

Second, he asserts that reinterpretation of the faith is something that God is not only OK with, but something He encourages. Citing the church in Acts, he argues that the Christian faith has been evolving since the very beginning, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t continue to do so.
The most interesting aspect of Bell’s thinking—and the most convincing—is his insistence on reading the Greek Scriptures in the light of their Hebrew origins. In looking at both Jesus’ teaching and the epistles, he pulls out all sorts of nuances that I’d never heard before. For instance, he claims that Jesus’ first three miracles were purposely done in opposition to three Roman cults popular in Asia Minor, the area to which John wrote the Gospel. Dionysus was the god of wine and could turn water into wine—Jesus’ first miracle (John 2). Asclepius was the god of healing (his staff with the snakes wrapped around it is still a symbol of medicine), hence Jesus’ healing of the invalid (John 5). Demeter was the god of agriculture—bread—hence Jesus’ third miracle (John 6). If this isn’t true, then it’s a crazy coincidence (Jesus…coincidence…I don’t think so).

He also talks about Jesus’ trip to Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was built on top of a huge cliff—a large rock if you will. On the side of the cliff on which the city was built there was a huge crevice, and near it was a temple to the Roman god Pan (the guy with goat legs and the flute), the god of fright. The crevice was thought to be the place where Pan’s terrors came into the world, and was known as the “Gates of Hell”. So when the Jesus and his disciples were in Caesarea Philippi and Jesus says “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” (Matthew 16:18 ESV) it takes on an entirely different meaning: “I’m going to build a community of believers up in that there town, and this Roman cult will not be able to stop me.” Interesting, to say the least.

Like it or not, Bell’s theology is rapidly gaining popularity. I’d advise anyone who wants to keep up on things to read this book. I would challenge anyone who wishes to converse with postmodern Christianity to read this book and try to keep an open mind. I found it both challenging and affirming. At the very least it will cause you to think and question, something that Bell himself encourages: “Test it. Probe it. Do that to this book. Don’t swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. Just because I’m a Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it nailed. I’m contributing to the discussion. God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?”