Throughout November and December of 2013, Rob Bell has been posting multiple articles in a blog series he is titling What is the Bible?. The posts were initially takes on Old Testament stories that most in modern culture have problems with. For example; he explains how when one is to look at some of the controversial or mythical aspects of Biblical stories and have that be what we focus on (whether they are true or merely mythological) we miss the beautiful message actually being taught. Most recently though, and what I will be analyzing, is his opinion that too many people view the Bible as a static report and think we need to view it all as what God is like now, rather than reading it as an evolving narrative that progresses with human consciousness. I whole-heartedly agree.
The specific passage I will be responding to in Rob Bell’s series is Part 16: Awkward. In this section, Bell starts off by talking about how after he released his controversial book Love Wins, a pastor contacted him to have a meeting because of some “concerns” he had. Bell stated that whenever he would try to state a positive characteristic of God “Jesus spoke of the renewal of all things”, this other pastor would immediately counter with something negative like in the book of Judges “God might decide to wipe out a whole village”. Bell explained to this other pastor why they weren’t understanding each other, he states: “I don’t read the Bible like a flat line. I don’t see all of the passages in the Bible sitting equally side by side so that you can pick one and then counter it with another and go back and forth endlessly, always leading you to the randomness of God. I read it as an unfolding story, with an arc, a trajectory, a movement and momentum like all great stories have” This is profound, this is what I will be responding to.
Have you ever read a book? I’m assuming (or hoping) that you have. While reading that book, was everything revealed to you in the first chapter? Or if this was a series, was everything revealed to you in the first book? Probably not, if so, it was probably a rather lackluster piece of literature and didn’t hang around for over 2,000 years... Stories evolve with the progression of time. The same is true with the Bible. The Bible is a story about civilization and God speaking to civilization where they are currently at. To paraphrase Bell, It is a story based around the evolving consciousness of those who the story is being told.
Over my four years of High School, I took multiple advanced placement English courses. I was introduced to a wide variety of ways and theories on how to interpret literature and also multiple pieces of literature to make what I learned applicable. The main concept that I took away from my studies, and probably the most important concept, is that stories are a work that is reliant on the whole but are also continually headed somewhere. Within the whole of a story there are multiple different themes, motifs, and ideas that unfold depending on where the reader currently is at in the book. Every story, or at least the ones worth mentioning, have a moment that everything previous becomes resolved and there seems to be some sort of peace within the tale.
I believe the same is true with the Bible, and I believe the resolution we find in it is Jesus. This doesn’t mean that everything else told previously in the Old Testament wasn’t God, it means that God has moved past the moments that seemed to be full of despair and resolved them with not just the death and resurrection of His son (obviously a largely important part) but also with the teachings of His son. Gods story, his “evolving narrative” as Bell says, has a beautiful and transforming resolution with Jesus. Obviously we are not perfect and the world is not perfect, but with Jesus, we see the potential and image of perfection. The image of perfection is not war, or the warped treatment of women, or other concepts that are found in the Old Testament that are seen as coming from God. Those images are images of the culture those people were in, the perfection or glory of God, is seen in the beauty of how He transforms those ideas into something else. A push forward in a sense, all leading to the character and teachings of Jesus.
The implications to approaching the Bible like this are incredible and transforming. This opens up the faith to a whole multitude of different people. No longer is God viewed as some primal destructor, God meets us where we are at, very literally. In Bells book What We Talk About When We Talk About God, he describes this process as God working in clicks, taking us from point a to point b. If He were to take us from point a to point f, we would be beyond confused and wouldn’t know how to react. When we look at the Bible like a piece of literature, a story, or an unfolding narrative, we see it to be the progression of God, not a story about a god who is confusing and seemingly inconsistent.
This does not deny ideas like scripture being God breathed. All it means (in my opinion because I don’t come close to knowing everything about God) is that God is speaking certain things in the Bible with the awareness of how the world is at its current state. Joseph Conrad didn’t wan’t you to be introduced to Kurtz initially in Heart of Darkness because the story wasn’t ready for that yet. God didn’t reveal Jesus to the world immediately in flesh because they too weren’t ready yet. I feel weird and slightly wrong drawing parallels between Kurtz and Jesus, but the truth that needs to be shown is there. When Kurtz is revealed, theres a major shift, and his death doesn’t satisfy everything, if anything it asks more questions (i.e the horror, the horror). Jesus’s death doesn’t satisfy all the questions either, but what does is his resurrection, that is the transforming part about the Bible, the idea that sets it apart.
Now to the big question as to why I decided to side with this argument and why I think it is important. When we focus on parts of God that were highlighted over and over again in the Old Testament and even parts of The New Testament, we continue to miss the picture of the God that is literally God... Jesus. If we look at the unfolding narrative of God and see where it is headed, we see that it is not about condemnation, war, the judgement of homosexuals, or social placement. What we find is that it is about the renewal of all things. When the story of God is a static report, it doesn’t lead to anywhere but back and forth bickering and frustration. When it is an unfolding and progressing story, slowly headed to a beautiful end because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, it becomes like a ride in an innertube down a lazy river. So enjoyable, refreshing, and beautiful that the little flaws we pass along the way are seemingly meaningless, because the river will take us where it needs to take us regardless.
Christianity has gone from a renewing, transforming, insightful, and beautiful faith found through Jesus, to a judgmental, hurtful, demeaning, and pompous faith found through the majority of its followers. Take each of those sets of four words, use them to describe the characteristics of two different people... which individual would you rather be friends with? This is exactly my point. The important aspects of Christianity aren't found in the arguments of what is right and what is wrong, that is all relative. The important part is that Jesus died for and loved all. And because of that, we are free. If we don’t take the static approach but take the unfolding approach that Bell has brought to light and that Jesus alludes to when He says He is “renewing all things”, we can begin to welcome more and more people into the faith with our openness and acceptance.
