ROB BELL

RAISED

HELL

as a topic to

ponder.

Yes, I have read Rob Bell’s Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. I wrote on my FaceBook page that I agree with 85% of the book and I am seriously troubled by 15% of the book. A friend of my wants to hold me to those percentages, but I confess they came off the top of my head the moment I closed the book.

SOME GOOD THINGS

First, the book is vintage Rob Bell. He’s creative in his style and isn’t given to well-reasoned paragraphs of theological writing. He snippets his way through the book. That’s OK by me. Second, I think the opening chapters (1-3) in which Rob expresses the serious concerns of his generation ought to be read in every church and home. Whether we want to face them or not, these are the questions being asked and the impressions (about God) being given. Third, I am with Rob on Jesus’ mentoring prayer in which we pray, “May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Christianity isn’t a ticket out of this world to heaven, but God’s way of bringing heaven to earth now, today.  Michael Wittmer, Professor of Systematic Theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary has a book that carefully expands this concept of heaven: Heaven is a Place on Earth. With that book include N. T. Wright’s Surprised By Hope. They are well worth your time to read. Fourth, I am behind any efforts initiated and accomplished in Jesus’ name to eradicate horrible injustices and sufferings in this world. Rob and Mars Hill Bible Church stand for making things right. That is very commendable. Finally, I like Rob’s presentation of the Luke 15 prodigal son story where the Father’s Story re-interprets, re-visions the prodigal’s story and, yes, the older brother’s story. I think Rob is indebted to Tim Keller for some thoughts here.

MY CONCERN

To say that I am troubled by 15% of the book is not to diminish my concern. If 15% of my otherwise healthy body has cancer, my whole body takes alert notice.  I won’t rant about Rob’s cavalier use of Bible texts (others have done that). The reason I don’t is because whatever standard we use on Rob, we have to apply to the New Testament authors’ use of the Old Testament. It seems the New Testament authors did not read our best books on hermeneutics and exegesis. However, Rob’s startling “use” (I won’t even call it an interpretation) of the 1 Corinthians 10: 3-4  is indefensible: “They all ate the same spiritual food  and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ” (emphasis mine). From this text Rob unwisely moves from the particulars in a story regarding Israel to some bizarre universal that Christ is the rock everywhere in all times for all people (pages 158-159). Rob should know better than to handle a biblical text in this way. It’s not only bad exegesis, it opens the door to a radical inclusivism that guts the missional nature of the Grand Story of the Bible, the particulars of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, and the passion for missional work of the Christ-following community that heralds the exclusivity of salvation only by acknowledging Jesus the Christ as LORD.  I think it is sadly misguided and dangerous to the very billions about whom Rob seems so concerned. For Rob to write that others are actually meeting Jesus, but they don’t know and don’t even need to know his name seems a sad departure from the evangelical way.

I had a friend write recently that we as Christians should read Rob Bell’s book even if we are adamantly opposed to its message(s). Rob Bell has risked opening the “hell” conversation up for all of us to engage…in this day…in this generation. I am so tired of those who think that orthodoxy simply means parroting John Calvin and Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards and J. Gresham Machen. Those thinkers had their day in the sun. We need fresh thought and expression of enduring biblical realities. Yes, for the sake of God’s glory, for the health of the church, and for the eternal destinies of billions. Rob has knocked over a big domino to get us thinking.

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD –

and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears… (NIV)

Professor Bryan E. Beyer in his Encountering the Book of Isaiah summaries these verses, “His [the Messiah's] wisdom and discernment enabled him to get beyond what he saw and heard to the heart of the matter and to rule with true justice, righteousness, and faithfulness (11:3-5)” p 90. One of the essential traits of the Messiah was discernment. Other leaders in the Davidic line ruled for power or selfish ends, but the “shoot from the stump of Jesse” would be saturated with the Spirit of God and rule righteously. Discernment was a major player in his rule.

The tendency of evangelical leaders (pastors and teachers) to pronounce endless moralisms and offer a smorgasbord of holiness hints and rules smells bad. The odor is the absence of the Spirit. We create a distasteful atmosphere driven by what we hear and what we see. Very few take the time to contemplate why this endless litany of “Bible based” principles, guidelines, steps and how-to’s is not producing a holy church. These holiness helps pile up and begin to get musty and after a while they begin to stink. In our sincere desire to urge holy living, we think we are smarter than the Holy Spirit. The Spirit just cannot do without our holy two cents’ worth. What does it tell us if evangelical leaders do not trust that the Holy Spirit of the Living God can lead teenagers into holy living? We actually believe hormones trump the Holy Spirit. And we do this in all good conscience. It smells really bad, and condescendingly disrespects teenagers.

I don’t think we even give a compelling enough vision to the church for which holy living even matters. The Spirit-empowered Messiah (of Isaiah 11) was on a mission from God (with all due respect to the Blues Brothers). How much holiness is required to be part of the average local church? Does holiness even come up? We are so busy reacting to the sometimes turbulent obvious that we miss the weightier, unseen matters of  hearts and souls. We harp about external issues–what our eyes see and hears hear–until people can’t stand it anymore and give up. We are long past “the tyranny of the urgent.” We are in the mediocrity of the minutia. “Directions! Give the people more and more holy directions! Discernment? We don’t have time for it.” Well, we better make time.  Jesus did.

Holiness is about being long before it is about behavior(s). God urges us to “be holy, for I am holy.” God does not say “Do holy things because I do holy things.” We try to get people to tie holy behaviors on lives driven by ill-equipped, disinterested hearts. As if I would tie apples to a dead apple tree and say, “Look! It’s an apple tree.” Not long. Soon it will begin to smell. The Spirit works, always works from the inside out. That is the beauty of the Spirit. Discernment is an inside job. Any hack can give directions.

Discernment,  the Scriptures  and the Spirit are happy allies. Discernment presupposes that Jesus is in the process of making all things new. Discernment is newness directed to a specific situation or person, to a specific community or missional venture. Discernment is much more like a compass in a wilderness than like a GPS on a busy urban freeway. Discernment provides space to maneuver and learn and does not scream, “Take this exit!” Discernment is not frantic. Discernment is not judgmental, though it will lead sometimes to tough moral decisions. Discernment will never violate Scripture or the character of Jesus Christ. To the contrary, discernment will always honor Scripture and express the presence of Jesus. Discernment will rarely feel like a law. It will feel like a strong, loving arm around the shoulder of someone confused or questioning.  Because discernment cares more about the heart and maturity, it will often ask more questions than it gives answers. Discernment will not get antsy when someone suggests something new or something never tried before. Discernment, moving in the strong currents of the Spirit, will often carve new paths in old ground. The “rivers of living water” that the Spirit is will not be bottled and sold for profit. Discernment is not for sale like so many of the packaged holy moralisms of our day. Discernment will never be a commercial template on sale at the local Christian bookstore. Discernment is ferociously local and specific, communal and situational. Discernment is the Spirit guiding a surrendered community who are fascinated with the person and mission of Jesus Christ.

I sense some will bristle up with the old barb: “This discernment stuff will lead to unholy living, you just wait and see. People need rules. They need direction.” My response is “Where have all the unceasing holy rules and directions gotten the church?” Not very far.  Christians in the U.S.A. are living by the same prevailing values as the secular culture. Data confirm it. Come, Holy Spirit, come. The time for discernment is now.

A Pertinent, Pressing Issue: Money

Having read Jeff Weddle’s book, I will offer three stimulating benefits and three pastoral concerns. Because Jeff addresses a pressing issue–money–that seems inescapable in American culture’s and its churches’  awareness, it is critical that we, as Christian leaders, offer wise counsel. With our nation’s economic downturn, the pervasive joblessness, sky-rocketing debt and a fragile global economy, we need voices of hope speaking in the Name of Jesus Christ. Enter The Gospel-Filled Wallet: What the Bible Really Says About Money.

Three Stimulating Benefits

First, I like honesty in writing. Jeff Weddle, a minister, writes honestly about his own struggles with money and what the Bible says about it. Jeff’s opening salvo regarding the stringent words of Jesus that we cannot both love God and Money catches our attention. This is both stimulating and a concern. In down to earth, no nonsense writing, Weddle challenges the readers with real, heart-felt questions. Throughout the book we sense the heart of a person who honestly wants to do the right thing. Weddle admits in the conclusion that he is “not perfect” when it comes to getting it right about money (65). Yet, we sense a person who is moving in the right direction and wants to help others to do the same.

Secondly, Weddle keeps the Bible in the center of the discussion. The subtitle does the book justice. The teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Paul are brought to the reader’s attention along with pertinent Old Testament teachings.  In the chapter titled “What They Lived,” another biblical aspect is presented: biblical characters, both honorable and faulty, who interface with the issue of wealth and riches or who trusted God in the face of deep human need. “The best way to tell if someone believes something is to look at how they live” (40).  Just two examples: Abraham–”Should he leave the security of his home, his family, and his stuff to follow God, or should he remain in his comfortable life and carry on” (41)? And Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, “is the ultimate example of loving money and hating God” (46-47). The Scriptures inform and shape the book’s content.

Thirdly, the practical application of the money regarding money is “Spend it.” Weddle believes that this is an obvious way to show that we love God and hate money rather than the other way around. For Weddle, it is “totally awesome” that the best way to handle money is to get rid of it quickly (62). How should we spend it? Jeff offers some very plain and work-ready direction on how to spend money wisely, beginning with “spend it on the poor” (56-57).

The book is short (75 pages of content including a postscript of questions and answers) and very readable. As a fellow minister, I do have some concerns with the book.

Three Pastoral Concerns

First, While the opening salvo of “You cannot love both God and Mammon/Money” (see Matthew 6: 24) is an attention-getting declaration of Jesus, I think Jeff Weddle presses it too an unwise either/or reality for the reader. Jeff admits that as Jesus’ statement stands, Jeff must conclude that he (Jeff) “hates God.” I believe that Jeff is trying to take Jesus very seriously, as we all should, but Jeff is tripping over a characteristic debate/teaching device of 1st century Judaism. That language device is the aligning of fierce polar opposites to make a point. I don’t believe Jesus ever intended for Jeff to conclude that Jeff “hates God” because Jeff earns, spends and even enjoys money as part of his life. Jesus’ point is to press us to seriously reflect upon and readjust our use of money if money, indeed, leads us to be disloyal to God. I do not hate my mother and father, my wife and my children, my brothers and sisters in order to follow Jesus and be a loyal disciple (Luke 14:26-27). However, if any family member comes between me and obedience to Jesus, then I need to realign my relationship with God and that family member. People with very sensitive spirits and tender consciences can get extremely distraught navel-gazing, asking, “Do I really love God or money? Do I really love God or money?” Recognizing the difference in language expressions (rhetorical devices) between 1st century Judaism and 21st century America does not lessen the serious intent of Jesus’ teachings, but this recognition will deliver us from things like “If you love money, you hate God…It’s a straight up dichotomy. The two things don’t mix…” (3). I don’t think Jeff would say to me, “If you love Julie [my wife], you hate God. If you love your daughters, you hate God. If you love your mother, you hate God.” But I could use Luke 14:26 to conclude just these things if I used it the way Jeff used Matthew 6:24. I don’t even think God wants us to “hate” money (53). This is a genuine concern of mine.

Secondly, Jeff’s book came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. I was led to believe that Jeff would offer some new, prophetically-fiery teaching on money that has never been offered before (editor’s preface). Yet, after I got through the Scriptures (both texts and characters) and moved into Jeff’s practical applications, I felt like I was (re)reading stuff from others who have taught on money and Christian living. Jeff assumes that Christians “don’t hear much about this (annoying) topic” (53). That is not the case. I’ve heard/read others who offer:  “There is nothing wrong with having money, unless you depend on it and trust in what you have” (55). The places that Jeff lists to spend money (56-61) are the same places others have suggested through the years. Pretty tame stuff. After offering the content in the book, Jeff leaves it up to the reader and Spirit on how to use money since Jeff is not the judge. I was expecting some cutting-edge applications. Because Jeff has set up a fierce divide between money and God based supposedly on Jesus’ teaching, he even wonders why the Bible suggests that parents save up to give an inheritance for their children. If money is so evil, why would God want us to give money to our kids? Jeff says he doesn’t have an answer to that one (61). At the point of that question, we need a voice. Jeff goes silent, not because there are no answers, but because Jeff has raised a needless dilemma based on his tripping over the first century use of language.

Thirdly, and similar to the last point about inheritance to children, in the questions and answers ending to the book, Jeff anticipates an objector’s question, “Aren’t you a hypocrite for charging money for this book?” Jeff answers, “Yup” (75). Again, this is a needless and, in my opinion, navel-gazing scenario. I would offer that since the book is an extension of Jeff’s labor as a minister, he should be paid for his teaching (in book form). Jesus said that the laborer is worthy of his hire and Paul quotes this saying of Jesus. This applies even when that laborer is an author.

I enjoyed The Gospel-Filled Wallet and I believe the book will provoke many redeeming discussions about the Christian life and money.  It is my opinion that Jeff Weddle is really addressing greed and not money in his book. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and needs often to be addressed. Jeff unwisely mixes money and greed together, and while related even Jeff knows that money in itself “is a just a thing, like a rock or a dog…”(55).  Jeff’s book may also provoke numerous needless, rabbit-trail discussions that could be detrimental to the healthy spirituality of some.

Dr. John W. Frye, Pastor

Fellowship Evangelical Covenant Church

Shouldn’t this create an urgent if not meaningful pause in our “use” of the Bible? Isn’t deception the Serpent’s primal strategy to lead to the fall of mankind? Paul reports that Eve was deceived (1 Timothy 2:14). The more exposure one has to the Bible and its teaching without a complementary and intentional passion to do what the Bible says is on the slipperiest slope of all. As a pastor I am forever hearing about the slippery slope of this or that or this cultural trend or that theological position. Rarely do I hear Christians admitting that they are in danger of the most horrific slippery slope. Rather, they prance around as if because they’ve read a verse or two and read some moralistic story that accompanies the verse(s) and as an result experience their fuzzy, warm devotional feeling, they are obeying the Word. The last concept that would ever enter their dutiful minds is “deception.” Some read the Bible so they can adroitly debate those who are not Christians or who are “those kind” of Christians; some read the Bible so they can be good, moral, sweet people; some read the Bible to feel delightfully comforted by it–all these are using the Bible for themselves. Could deception be reigning supreme? Because someone faithfully and diligently uses the Bible does not mean he or she is actually encountering the living, flame-throwing, love-lavishing God.

James gets to the nitty of the gritty. “You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?…so faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:20, 26). Foolish. Useless. Dead. Bummer. James even says, “…a person is justified by what he does, and not by faith alone” (2:24). A Christian who has no engagement with the marginalized of our world (the widows and the orphans in James’ day, 1:27) is living an unjustified life, a kind of faith without deeds. It is not a saving faith. Deception run rampant and because it is deception, we laughingly slide down the slippery slope. Isn’t this fun! And, no, I don’t think James is contradicting Paul at all. At the level of authentic Christian formation, James and Paul are on the exact same page.

What am I trying to say? The very Word we approach and read with ourselves primarily in mind so we can be fed, informed and comforted is the very energizing reality that can deceive. For every degree of knowledge without a corresponding degree of obedience propels us farther into the darkness of deception. The letter kills, the Spirit gives life (see 2 Corinthians 3:6). The Spirit was not given to give us Bible-reading goosebumps, but to expel us into the world of people wandering in the darkness of the fall and sin, the world of anti-Christ values and ways of relating (which the church absorbs in an attempt to be “relevant”), the world of naked, famine-ridden children crying over slaughtered parents, a world of oppressed women beaten to submission in the name of God, the world of people anesthetized to any meaning and purpose by things, things and more things. The Spirit was never given to work for us so we could live a comfortable, American life.

“You can’t reduce this book [Bible] to what you can handle; you can’t domesticate this book to what you are comfortable with. You can’t make it your toy poodle, trained to respond to your commands” (Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book, p 66).

A sticking point in today’s emergent conversations is the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as both the only authentic revelation of the true God and the only access point to that God. Brian McLaren rightly questions the haranguing snootyness of some factions in Christianity who harp on “who’s in” and “who’s out” of authentic faith. What I think Brian misses, however, is that it is one thing to question the way Christ’s exclusivity is presented to a wrecked world, but it is a whole other thing to make Jesus just one of the many nice (and religious) ways to get to God. Christ’s exclusivity seems to bother McLaren and others a lot; it seems too intolerant; it seems religiously bigoted; it can be infuriating.

Here’s the skinny. Jesus Christ is an infuriating person. He was in his own day and he is in our day as well. Many are aware of the lexical slight of hand that McLaren uses in his interpretation of John 14:6. He seems to not like that verse, and he certainly doesn’t like the way that verse is used by some. On the second concern–the way the verse is used by some, McLaren has a valid point. To use the verse obnoxiously and intolerantly is way out of line. I don’t think Jesus spoke it as a blunt weapon to be put into our “witnessing kit.” Context is vital.

Yet, the statement is there: “…no one comes to the Father except through me.” That is exclusive on the face of it. Jesus spoke it to the Eleven in the Upper Room conversation. Yet, we must go deeper into this idea of exclusivity. Thankfully, again, Jesus helps us…this time in his prayer recorded in John 17.

Take off your shoes because we are on holy ground. The Son is addressing the Father in his last extended session of prayer with his friends. After this prayer, the dominoes tip quickly, tumbling toward the cross.  In this prayer Jesus says this, “I revealed you those you gave me…” (v. 6). There seems to be an echo to John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” Exactly who did Jesus make known and/or reveal? In John 17:3 we hear Jesus praying this: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (emphasis added).

We know that Jesus’ exclusive claim to make Israel’s exclusive God known infuriated the Pharisees and entertained the Sadducees. We know that Rome winked at this strange Jewish religion and gave Israel special permission to maintain their exclusive religious beliefs. Yet, when the early church began, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to spread into the religiously pluralistic world of the Roman Empire, the exclusive declaration “Jesus is Lord” (and Caesar is not) became dangerous to your Christ-following health. “Jesus is Lord” infuriated Rome.  As N. T. Wright has pointed out: the most advanced religion in the world and the most advanced political system in the world conspired together to stamp out the exclusivity of Jesus the Christ.

There is only one authentic God. Only Jesus has revealed that one authentic God. Only in relationship with Jesus Christ is that one true God known (experienced).  In fact, Jesus even explains that “eternal life” is only in that relationship. It is in no other relationship or religion.

There is no grand cosmic unity beneath the surface of all world religions including Christianity-viewed-as-a-religion. Both Old Testament and New Testament concur that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the God of the Lord Jesus Christ sits in judgment upon the religions of the world. I know this is hard to acknowledge. It’s more palatable to muddle. Muddling defuses the exclusivity and we can all be very nice, imagining the great vast unity just below this world’s volatile religious surface. But that fantasy just won’t work in the real world of the Jesus Way.

I’ve been ruminating again about Jesus’ life with the marginalized of 1st century Judaism. I’m going to ponder in print some of my thoughts.

We often think that Jesus left his surburban bungalow on the green hillside of Galilee and went into the big city and sought out the disadvantaged. How good of Jesus to condescend and go to the marginalized, the outcasts, the rejects, the down-trodden. What a model of servant-leadership. I wonder if my shiny Hummer can navigate the narrow inner city streets?

Wait a minute. Jesus, himself, was born into and lived in the margins of his society. He was the ultimate outcast, the “sinner,” the man with disreputable beginnings and unholy (read illegal) practices.

Good news. Jesus changed the margins. He dared to draw new lines of acceptance with God the Father. Jesus paradoxically made being marginal central.

Imagine that I announce to my Northview neighborhood that teenagers on the verge of getting their driver’s licenses can meet me in a local school parking lot at a certain time. I will train them for free how to start a car, drive and park a car, learn to operate a manual shift, change a flat tire, check the oil, etc. I get approval from every authority interested and the area folk think, “How nice. That old, grey-bearded guy is helping our kids prepare to drive. And he’s doing it for free.”

One day, however, the teens come home, jumping for joy.

“Mom, Dad, I got my driver’s license today!”

“You what? Let me see that.”

“Yeah, the old guy who’s been training us issued our licenses today. Isn’t that wicked?!”

“Hey, settle down. This 3 X 5 card with a polaroid picture taped to it isn’t exactly a driver’s license.”

Word gets out and soon the Michigan Secretary of State sends some authorities to check out this unusual and illegal behavior. Teens are being arrested for driving with a lumpy 3 X 5 card as a valid license.

“Uh, Reverend Frye, you can’t just issue driver’s licenses like this. We appreciate your help getting the teens road ready and all that, but you can’t issue a license to any of them. That is the job of the State of Michigan.”

Jesus is famous for his meal-time habits. His eating habits are one of the most reliable and uncontested features of his life. Jesus ate with people in the margins. For a God-fearing Jew, he ate with the wrong people. But that in itself could be tolerated. “Birds of a feather flock together. He eats with ’sinners’ because he’s a ’sinner.’ “

What got Jesus in trouble was issuing licenses, so to speak. He said, “At my table, you are sitting right in the middle of the Kingdom of God. Eat up. Drink. Laugh. The kingdom is for you!!”

“Uh, Rabbi Jesus, we’re from the Temple…you know, the big one in Jerusalem. You just can’t go around telling people, especially these people, that they are in the kingdom of God. That’s the priests’ job.”

Jesus with a furious twinkle in his eye says, “Oh, no, my Temple friends, you’ve got it all wrong. It IS my job. And I’m doing it.”

At Jesus’ table Deborah, the prostitute, passes a bunch of grapes to Matthew, a tax-collector, and the cups of wine spark laughter (for Anne Lamott laughter is “carbonated holiness”). Deborah and Matthew wonder aloud what they will ask Abraham when they sit at the table with him. Jesus had said that they would eat with their ancestors in the faith.

“I never knew there was a place at this table for me,” Deborah says quietly. “I don’t look like a Pharisee. I don’t talk like one and I, for sure, don’t act like one. I never did learn to talk ‘Pharisee.’ “

“Nor I, ” says Matthew, “but here we are! In the middle of the Kingdom of God.”

Bread, fruit, lamb and wine. Laughter. Heaven and earth meet at the table.

Who’s marginalized?

By John W. Frye

[This review was posted on Jesus Creed hosted by Dr. Scot McKnight.]

Who would have imagined a 21^st century movie made about The King James Version of the Bible? Denzel Washington’s The Book of Eli puts the 1611 Bible dead center in the story. The tag line of the film: “Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.” This is a “battle for the Bible” like I have never seen. Having seen the film [spoiler alert], I am trying to find a way to synchronize its message with anything in the Bible.

Should we be glad a man named Eli (means “my God”) risks his life and slaughters many people in order to get the only surviving Bible to a printing press so that others can have access to it? The story opens 30 years after a global, nuclear holocaust; a holocaust sparked by warring religions. Survivors are living in the grim, chaotic and violent remains of civilization. Values are altered so that KFC wet wipes are exchanged as currency and water is extremely scarce. Eli (played by Denzel Washington) is “a walker” who is commissioned by “a voice” to head west to deliver the literary treasure in his possession. In the story, Eli is the good, yet stunningly violent guy. The Christian Science Monitor review labels Eli “a pacifist warrior” meaning that Eli is a peaceful man unless provoked. Eli’s nemesis is Carnegie (played by Gary Oldman) who is collecting books in his desperate search of copy of the Bible. Carnegie, the bad guy, wants the Bible because he believes he can use it to keep ignorant, bewildered people in sheep-like submission to his power. Carnegie seeks to capture the Bible faithfully carried and zealously protected by Eli. With Carnegie and Eli, we are presented with a post-apocalyptic Satan and a very uncharacteristic, gun-slinging, knife-wielding Messiah. Is The Book of Eli a postmodern, cinematic Pilgrim’s Progress? I don’t think so.

As a viewer I got caught in the story, eager for Eli to fulfill his quest with “the book” and fearful that Carnegie would succeed in his evil pursuit to seize “the book.” Because this film is about the Bible, it is not like Frodo trying to get the (one) ring to the Cracks of Doom. Eli and Carnegie are human beings who, for different reasons, are obsessed with the Bible. If Eli is a metaphor for a committed person who is willing to die for the Bible, then I would rest easy. But Eli convincingly demonstrates that “he will kill to protect it.”

As a pastor, I have questions. Can a Christian person be a pacifist until provoked and then become a killing machine? Does walking by faith and not by sight have room to use keen hearing to kill the enemies of “the book”? Eli is blind. There is a telling line in the movie when Eli confesses that he spent his life protecting the Bible only to realize that he must live its message: to treat others as he wants to be treated. This confession comes after massive bloodshed from his killing expertise.

The Golden Rule? That’s it? Eli is protecting the Golden Rule? This is where I felt the let down. The passion for the story evaporated.  That, and the ending when the newly printed Alcatraz edition of the King James Version is placed next to the Koran. I wonder if Denzel, a professing committed Christian, really wanted this ending or was it the Hollywood, politically-correct thing to include? Or, is The Book of Eli sending a contemporary message to those who terrorize others in the name of Allah that they, too, will be terrorized by those who love the God of the KJV? I don’t know and I hope not.

The Bible is not about the Golden Rule. The Bible presents not a rule, but a Person—the Prince of Peace. The Bible does offer a love like no human love and that love has a name: Jesus the Christ. The closest the movie comes to any relationality about the God of the Christian faith is when Eli recites the opening verses from Psalm 23 to Solara, a young female devotee of Eli’s.

I wrote a novella titled Out of Print: A Novel. In this story, there are no Bibles except for what has been memorized by people. Scot McKnight wrote the Afterword for the book. Out of Print and The Book of Eli have a similar aim: to give the Bible its rightful place in the world. But the two stories are poles apart. For whatever reason if you like The Book of Eli, I invite you to read Out of Print. Eli’s line fits my story and the evangelical church’s story. Have we been so zealous to protect the Bible that we have failed to live its God-incarnate, God-inspired message? Out of Print suggests that the church not only has a Bible, the church is the Bible to a watching world one button away from the apocalypse.

Where does romantic love come in? Another slant on the Valentine-Claudius story is that Claudius wanted an army of single men, thinking that single men made better soldiers. The priest, Valentine, performed secret weddings for the young men who wanted to have wives. Claudius heard about these clandestine weddings and had Valentine arrested. While in jail, he healed the jailor’s daughter. As the story goes, on the eve of his execution Valentine wrote a “valentine” to his beloved, believed to be the young lady he healed. He wrote, “From your Valentine.”

As you can guess, stories like this snowball through history growing larger and more elaborate. Chaucer mentions Valentine’s Day as does Ophelia in Hamlet (Shakespeare).

In 1797 a British publisher began to publish verse for young men to give or read to their sweethearts. In the U.S.A., Esther Howland of Worchester, Massachusetts in 1847 began publishing lacey, decorated cards to be given on Valentine’s Day. Now only Christmas cards beat out the billions of Valentine’s Day cards bought and given sent each year.

If a kernel of truth is in the legend behind St. Valentine’s Day, we, as followers of Jesus, rejoice that St. Valentine did not surrender his faith as Emperor Claudius required. Instead, Valentine stayed courageously true, even trying to convince Claudius to become a Christian. For all its association with romantic love—with red roses and dark chocolates and sometimes profound, sometimes cheesy poetry—behind Valentine’s Day is a deep, committed love to Jesus Christ. God’s amazing love for us through his Son, Jesus Christ, gives meaning and endurance to any and all other loves in our lives.  This year in the flurry of over a billion Valentine’s Day cards, don’t forget the saint who refused to buckle to imperial power. At the cost of his life, he gave us St. Valentine’s Day. He laid down his life for Jesus. From the cross, Jesus asks, “Will you be my Valentine?”

*Note:  Some information collected from Wikipedia

¹⁶Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Some disciples worshipped. Some doubted. All were commissioned to make disciples.

Doubters have their place in announcing and practicing the unexpectedly loving reign of God. Old, stale thinking pitted doubt against faith (as Scot McKnight points out). More discerning thinking sees doubt as an ally to faith.

A skewed triumphalist Christianity erased doubt as a legitimate aspect of the Christian journey. In its heated sense of victory, it boiled doubt away as some sort of sin. As a matter of fact, a serious sin: unbelief. This only caused doubters to go underground and live with the agony in their souls. Who wants to be branded a pagan unbeliever in the tight-assed evangelical community? Those who live constipated Christian lives don’t want any uncertainty to be voiced at all…ever.  They don’t really trust in the Christ of the cross and resurrection; they trust a system of belief that keeps their tidy little self-centered worlds together.

This is the time for doubters to arise. Take your place in the Great Commission task of the church. Voice your doubts. Ask your questions. Carry your honest inquiries into the communities where you live.

For God’s sake, doubters, upset the apple cart!

Julie and I walked away from The Invention of Lying discussing the provocative premise of the film. Starring and written by Ricky Gervais, the film has creative British humor and a magnetic story. Human beings only tell the truth no matter how blunt and offensive (to us the viewers) it may seem. The truth-telling people simply take truth as it comes. With this in mind, the opening scenes of the movie jolt the viewers. Here’s an example later in the movie: a server walks up to the Ricky Gervais (Mark) and Jennifer Garner (Anna) as they sit down in a restaurant. The servers looks them over and says without prelude to Gervais, “She is way out of your league.” All TV and movies are straight presentations of facts, i.e., documentaries. In the film, there is not even a noun or verb for “lie” or “to lie”…until it happens. Up until this moment, there was no vocabulary for that which is not. There is no imagination or fantasy or fiction. But Mark’s lie–he says something that does not exist; has no being, and it changes everything.

Observing his mother dying, Mark (Gervais) responds to her saturated fears as she faces the emptiness and nothingness after death. Mark, knowing that he now can lie, creates for his mother the vision of a wonderful after-life with eternal love, mansions, and unending relationships with loved ones. A nurse overhears all this, tells a news reporter, and the story snowballs. How does Mark know all this about the after-life? He says that he hears from “the man in the sky.” People flock to his apartment complex courtyard to learn more about after-life experiences and “the man in the sky.” Mark must to deliver the goods. He writes down 10 statements on Pizza Hut boxes and comes out his door something like Moses coming down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments. It’s funny, and disturbing.

Here’s the point: the god of classical (Calvinistic) determinism comes in for a real drumming. I’ve often wondered if the double-predestinating God of Calvinism–the great unblinking Cosmic Stare–actually spawned the nihilism that swept the Western world. Remember Ernest Hemingway’s parody of the Lord’s Prayer in his very short story “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”? Our Nada who art in nada, nada be thy nada. Thus,  The Invention of Lying is a theological film to the core.

We did not like the caricature of truth-telling as blunt verbal stone-throwing. But even more, lying ends up being the compassionate paradigm of speech. This turns the tables ethically and needs to be deplored. Yet, for all that, this is one film that makes you think, no matter your spiritual or religious leanings.