Rob Bell says the Gods aren't Angry

The night before Thanksgiving, we went to see Rob Bell speak at Raleigh's Meymandi Concert Hall on his God's Aren't Angry Tour. As most know, I'm a big fan of Bell and really enjoyed my front row seat for the talk. To set the record straight, I am not a stalker because I've only travelled to Michigan to see him once. The other two times I've seen him, he's travelled to North Carolina. Who looks like a stalker now?

He started off with a story imagining a pre-historic woman and how she interacted with nature and created religion. He continued on to talk about some pagan religions around the time of the Exodus and the nature of the sacrifices of these religions. The God of Abraham, he argued, illustrates a very progressive idea in the early books of the Bible, in comparison to these religion. With this God, there is an idea of a sufficient sacrifice, and that this sacrifice is actually for your benefit, not for God's. He went on to talk about how Jesus' death extends the idea further, saying that no religious sacrifice is needed to be right with God. He closes with examples of how we worship gods today that demand unlimited sacrifices: money, career, control, etc. and suggests that we can leave those gods behind.

Now, I've read and listened to a lot of Rob Bell and none of his talk caught me by surprise. I thought it was a solid and thoroughly entertaining lecture. From some reviews online, and from the picketers outside of the hall, it shocked some people. I've read several blogs online that complained that Bell skipped over the concept of hell, judgement, and sin. There were folks handing out tracts outside the event along with a guy wearing a sandwich board saying "God is Angry at your Wickedness." I have several answers for the critics.

First, that wasn't the topic of his talk. He talked for almost 2 hours, and if he wanted to cover hell, sin, and judgement in the depth he spoke, I would have demanded a bathroom break and maybe something to eat. They were picketing the title of the talk without even understanding the topic of the talk. His intent was not to refute the famous John Edwards sermon. He likes to give his talks and sermons thought provoking (sometimes like spiritual double entendres) titles. You just walked right into it.

Lastly, sometimes I feel concepts like sin and hell and judgement are so distorted by us (Christians) that those words don't even mean what they used to. So they may not belong in the public square. He talked about habits and thoughts and lifestyles that are detrimental to us and how a God who created us out of love wants us to leave these behind. "You don't have to live like this anymore." That sounds pretty Orthodox to me, even if he didn't overtly use certain words. To me, if you insist on making tracts, you could make it into a pretty good tract (I won't tell you where to stick it when you're done.)

His talk was much more interesting and had much more depth than how I described it. Anyway, Rock on Rev. Bell, and I hope to see you again next year.

Here's some friends thoughts on the talk:

Justin

Todd