The Heretic
February 2, 2019 7:57 PM Subscribe
After his book Love Wins, former megachurch pastor Rob Bell [tumblr] "went from “being the coolest Christian in America” to “the biggest heretic in America”," along with a sympathetic New Yoker profile. Now a new documentary about him has been released called The Heretic "Explores Increasingly Disaffiliated Expressions of Faith"
Is Rob Bell Really "The Heretic"?
A Brother To Embrace or A Wolf To Avoid?
What Does The Word 'Evangelical' Really Mean?
ROB BELL, FUNDAMENTALIST: 5 IRONIES FROM THE NEW BELL FILM
4 Things I Learned When I Had Lunch with Rob Bell
Is Rob Bell Really "The Heretic"?
A Brother To Embrace or A Wolf To Avoid?
What Does The Word 'Evangelical' Really Mean?
ROB BELL, FUNDAMENTALIST: 5 IRONIES FROM THE NEW BELL FILM
4 Things I Learned When I Had Lunch with Rob Bell
From a traditionalist perspective, though, to take away hell is to leave the church without its most powerful sanction. If heaven, however defined, is everyone's ultimate destination in any event, then what's the incentive to confess Jesus as Lord in this life?
Really, now? They can't think of any other reason to love Christ? That is truly sad.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 8:18 PM on February 2, 2019 [45 favorites]
Really, now? They can't think of any other reason to love Christ? That is truly sad.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 8:18 PM on February 2, 2019 [45 favorites]
Rob Bell is an interesting man to know of, especially in the way that his interpretation of Christianity - that love, for your fellow humans and for Jesus - is simultaneously not particularly groundbreaking and deeply infuriating to a certain strain of Christianity. I think the reaction to him was the thing that pushed me over the edge to considering evangelicals as not Christian, or at least heretical Christians.
posted by Merus at 8:26 PM on February 2, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by Merus at 8:26 PM on February 2, 2019 [12 favorites]
Rob Bell makes me deeply uncomfortable. I moved into a house my sophomore year of college in Grand Rapids, MI, where the three others living in the house were rabid fans of his Mars Hill church. They held bible studies separated by gender every week and copies of Blue Like Jazz were everywhere. It seemed like every other car in GR had a “LOVE WINS” sticker on it when I lived there.
It seemed too good to be true. Friendly Christians who went to a hip church with cool branding? A feel good bumper sticker with a minimalist, Apple-esque design to make you feel part of something big? Maybe this was what I was missing out on after leaving the Catholic Church during my early teen years, when the women and gay hating teachings didn’t square with reality for me. Yeah, I finally saw underneath that Mars Hill and Bell bullshit when I was getting a ride with my long-haired, sensitive roommate dude who loved to talk about how Jesus was about love, and who didn’t understand why I was so upset at finding a Mars Hill pamphlet in his car for a gay conversion group that he was volunteering with at Bell’s church.
Oh sure, it didn’t call itself gay conversion. But it was a group for youth where a hip group of college aged kids (like my housemate) would share how they could use Jesus’ love for them to overcome their urges.
Rob Bell is charismatic and that terrifies me. I think he’s evolved his beliefs about LGBTQIA folks but I don’t trust it at all. He scares me more than outright bigots do. I don’t know how to explain it, but I just remember reading his books and the excitement of my housemates that I would come around to their point of view after I did. Or the way that the person checking me out at the library when I was getting those books laid her hand on top of mine to tell me how much I would love them. The same woman who I saw weekly as I checked out books from the women’s studies or gay and lesbian section and who never smiled at me was now peering deep in my eyes and beaming at me. This is what Bell does to people. He insists he’s not like other Christians and wants everyone feel like they’re coconspirators with him, wants us all to feel like we’re part of this super enlightened club with him. Reading the linked interviews here with him about The Heretic gives me the same creeped out feeling as I do with Scientologist propaganda.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 8:45 PM on February 2, 2019 [62 favorites]
It seemed too good to be true. Friendly Christians who went to a hip church with cool branding? A feel good bumper sticker with a minimalist, Apple-esque design to make you feel part of something big? Maybe this was what I was missing out on after leaving the Catholic Church during my early teen years, when the women and gay hating teachings didn’t square with reality for me. Yeah, I finally saw underneath that Mars Hill and Bell bullshit when I was getting a ride with my long-haired, sensitive roommate dude who loved to talk about how Jesus was about love, and who didn’t understand why I was so upset at finding a Mars Hill pamphlet in his car for a gay conversion group that he was volunteering with at Bell’s church.
Oh sure, it didn’t call itself gay conversion. But it was a group for youth where a hip group of college aged kids (like my housemate) would share how they could use Jesus’ love for them to overcome their urges.
Rob Bell is charismatic and that terrifies me. I think he’s evolved his beliefs about LGBTQIA folks but I don’t trust it at all. He scares me more than outright bigots do. I don’t know how to explain it, but I just remember reading his books and the excitement of my housemates that I would come around to their point of view after I did. Or the way that the person checking me out at the library when I was getting those books laid her hand on top of mine to tell me how much I would love them. The same woman who I saw weekly as I checked out books from the women’s studies or gay and lesbian section and who never smiled at me was now peering deep in my eyes and beaming at me. This is what Bell does to people. He insists he’s not like other Christians and wants everyone feel like they’re coconspirators with him, wants us all to feel like we’re part of this super enlightened club with him. Reading the linked interviews here with him about The Heretic gives me the same creeped out feeling as I do with Scientologist propaganda.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 8:45 PM on February 2, 2019 [62 favorites]
@ the thorn bushes have 🌹 🌹 — from here, it sounds like you sensed a first order change and not a second order change: the mantra is now “love wins” and not “sinners burn”, but it’s still the embrace of a mantra of an elite and exclusive club. It’s still a circling of wagons, and a rather aggressive assertion of Us versus Not Us. Way different than a group of people who get together to figure out how their ingrained ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong impede their ability to engage authentically and with less bias with people who see the world differently. I imagine I’d have a similar reaction.
posted by Silvery Fish at 9:14 PM on February 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Silvery Fish at 9:14 PM on February 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'm glad you posted at least a couple of links that are not from the christian or theological world. The other ones are seemingly written for a christian audience and they went right over my head. They seem aghast that this guy has questioned the virgin birth, or the resurrection, or that Jesus was the literal son of a literal god. To me that just seems like, if not common sense, then a healthy skepticism? I'm not a fan of anyone who feels the need to dispense sage advice to large crowds, like Teal Swan, or Tony Robbins, but I'm having a hard time grasping what's so objectionable about this flim-flam man in particular. Is he taking advantage of people in some way? That doesn't seem to be described in any of the links.
Also it's just weird to think that I live in a country (the US) where some large percentage of the population finds these things (heresies?) objectionable, or startling. When people start calling other people, or I guess themselves, heretics, I feel like I've been transported back in time 1000 years. Like I'm living that one weird christian fever dream PK Dick had.
I'm really not trying to come off like a smug atheist here. My mother really tried instill in me christian values, sent me to Sunday school and stuff, but it never stuck. I'm even trying somewhat tangentially to engage with the bible by listening to Apocrypals, which discusses the bible and apocrypha in a fairly non-snarky manner. Anyway, I guess that's just a long-winded way to say that I find living in a more-or-less christian nation very weird, and this post really highlighted that feeling for me.
posted by runcibleshaw at 9:59 PM on February 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
Also it's just weird to think that I live in a country (the US) where some large percentage of the population finds these things (heresies?) objectionable, or startling. When people start calling other people, or I guess themselves, heretics, I feel like I've been transported back in time 1000 years. Like I'm living that one weird christian fever dream PK Dick had.
I'm really not trying to come off like a smug atheist here. My mother really tried instill in me christian values, sent me to Sunday school and stuff, but it never stuck. I'm even trying somewhat tangentially to engage with the bible by listening to Apocrypals, which discusses the bible and apocrypha in a fairly non-snarky manner. Anyway, I guess that's just a long-winded way to say that I find living in a more-or-less christian nation very weird, and this post really highlighted that feeling for me.
posted by runcibleshaw at 9:59 PM on February 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
Funnily enough, "Heretic" was what my Evangelical/Fundamental Southern Baptist mother called my Presbyterian minister uncle. There's a long long story in there that ends up with the punchline: "ant that's how I got my username". This is all just too hilarious and I could get better just by going home where I'm pretty sure I have the "Heretic" designation. The fringes gonna fringe.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:44 PM on February 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by zengargoyle at 10:44 PM on February 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yeah, as a lifelong mainline Protestant and progressive Christian, my personal reaction to Rob Bell's big conversion has ranged from a yawn to the thorn bushes have roses creeped out feeling. I don't get evangelicalism or Evangelicalism. I find it completely unappealing. And his bragging about how he doesn't hate people as much as he used to that then leads directly into "Join my special cult of people who don't hate people as much as they used to because we are the only people on earth not driven by hate" just seems so lacking in any self or societal awareness, actual humility, or desire to help other people. He's still made Christianity all about him.
Meanwhile, folks like Rev Barber who are doing actual, interesting, loving, selfless stuff with their Christianity can't get any purchase at all in the Evangelical world. I can't imagine why.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:31 AM on February 3, 2019 [31 favorites]
Meanwhile, folks like Rev Barber who are doing actual, interesting, loving, selfless stuff with their Christianity can't get any purchase at all in the Evangelical world. I can't imagine why.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:31 AM on February 3, 2019 [31 favorites]
a fave line from one of the archy and mehitabel poems:
"the dictionary says
heretic holder of an unorthodox opinion
do you know anyone who isnt a heretic
i dont"
posted by gorbichov at 4:45 AM on February 3, 2019 [13 favorites]
"the dictionary says
heretic holder of an unorthodox opinion
do you know anyone who isnt a heretic
i dont"
posted by gorbichov at 4:45 AM on February 3, 2019 [13 favorites]
While the Bell business is sort of interesting, I agree with hydropspsyche: this is no more remarkable than watching an everyday 12-year-old's spiritual journey from dogmatic evangelism to love-centered forms of belief, a journey people make everyday with a lot less PR. I mean in a world which has is example vs one that doesn't, I'm glad we have his example, but yes these ideas have been available all along in theologically liberal mainline faiths.
posted by Miko at 6:35 AM on February 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by Miko at 6:35 AM on February 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
Probably for reasons of being able to rent large commercial buildings relatively cheaply and being located near upscale bedroom communities, there are a bunch of those contemporary, well-branded churches within a few blocks of where I am living. I don't know if any are big enough to count as "mega churches," but they all have high-quality graphic design and catchphrases for their signs targeting an educated and culturally-aware clientele; change a few words and they could be hipster breweries.
If Bell is signalling a forthcoming change in the evangelical community towards being more accepting, that is only to the better and certainly closer to my reading of the New Testament, where I don't see much support for hate and bigotry. But I don't really see much signs of that shift actually happening, and someone improving on one issue doesn't erase their other problematic aspects.
Yeah, as a lifelong mainline Protestant and progressive Christian
This would describe millions and millions of people, but somehow has never turned into a political force like what happened on the conservative side.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:32 AM on February 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
If Bell is signalling a forthcoming change in the evangelical community towards being more accepting, that is only to the better and certainly closer to my reading of the New Testament, where I don't see much support for hate and bigotry. But I don't really see much signs of that shift actually happening, and someone improving on one issue doesn't erase their other problematic aspects.
Yeah, as a lifelong mainline Protestant and progressive Christian
This would describe millions and millions of people, but somehow has never turned into a political force like what happened on the conservative side.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:32 AM on February 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
The Civil Rights Movement.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:38 AM on February 3, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 7:38 AM on February 3, 2019 [8 favorites]
Bell’s story is similar Carlton Pearson’s, a Pentecostal preacher who was set to be Oral Roberts’s evangelical heir before he started preaching a hell-less theology in 2004. For some reason, Bell does not seem to have taken the complete fall and loss of status and influence that Pearson has. I don’t know enough about this arena to know why.
posted by little onion at 8:28 AM on February 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by little onion at 8:28 AM on February 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Christ's message was confrontational and deeply discomfiting. Not because of eternal hellfire, but because of the demands he made of his followers in the here and now. Christ made it achingly clear that his followers should spurn worldly gain, comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable, and show mercy to society's outcasts.
This poses two problems for any institutionalized Christian denomination. First, no one really likes to be challenged that much every Sunday morning. Sitting comfortably among the ranks of the saved is a lovely feeling, and you will lose congregants if you challenge that. Second, as soon as the church becomes a socially powerful institution, its bank account -- and the bank accounts of the powerful congregants who give it societal clout -- will be fundamentally at odds with the teachings of Christ. The rich and powerful do not like to be told that they are offending God and will not go to heaven (which is one of the reasons why Jesus got himself nailed onto a cross in the first place). And afflicting the comfortable doesn't work very well when your most comfortable congregants are the ones running your church. Case in point: did anyone else notice in the New Yorker article that Betsy DeVos was the president of the Mars Hill council of elders during Bell's tenure?
The upshot is that for many of the Christian congregations in America (and indeed for most organized religious bodies anywhere), contemplating and obeying the message of Christ is a secondary or tertiary function. The primary function is to reinforce and stabilize the social order -- neatly separate the ingroup from the outgroup. The secondary function might be to simply offer a meeting space for the community, a chance to socialize.
As the New Yorker article points out, the certainty of eternal torment in hell -- if and only if you do not accept Christ as your Messiah -- is actually quite comforting to some Christians. This single criterion neatly, unquestioningly separates the ingroup from the outgroup and tacitly condones the accumulation of wealth and power. Once you are Saved, you've made the cut! God won't kick you out for being a little too rich or ignoring the sick and the poor!
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 8:40 AM on February 3, 2019 [42 favorites]
This poses two problems for any institutionalized Christian denomination. First, no one really likes to be challenged that much every Sunday morning. Sitting comfortably among the ranks of the saved is a lovely feeling, and you will lose congregants if you challenge that. Second, as soon as the church becomes a socially powerful institution, its bank account -- and the bank accounts of the powerful congregants who give it societal clout -- will be fundamentally at odds with the teachings of Christ. The rich and powerful do not like to be told that they are offending God and will not go to heaven (which is one of the reasons why Jesus got himself nailed onto a cross in the first place). And afflicting the comfortable doesn't work very well when your most comfortable congregants are the ones running your church. Case in point: did anyone else notice in the New Yorker article that Betsy DeVos was the president of the Mars Hill council of elders during Bell's tenure?
The upshot is that for many of the Christian congregations in America (and indeed for most organized religious bodies anywhere), contemplating and obeying the message of Christ is a secondary or tertiary function. The primary function is to reinforce and stabilize the social order -- neatly separate the ingroup from the outgroup. The secondary function might be to simply offer a meeting space for the community, a chance to socialize.
As the New Yorker article points out, the certainty of eternal torment in hell -- if and only if you do not accept Christ as your Messiah -- is actually quite comforting to some Christians. This single criterion neatly, unquestioningly separates the ingroup from the outgroup and tacitly condones the accumulation of wealth and power. Once you are Saved, you've made the cut! God won't kick you out for being a little too rich or ignoring the sick and the poor!
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 8:40 AM on February 3, 2019 [42 favorites]
The Civil Rights Movement.
Agreed, and I'd add abolition, as well as other important historical examples. My point, which was poorly phrased, was more about the present, where conservative evangelicals have become an influential voting bloc in a way that others have not.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:44 AM on February 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
Agreed, and I'd add abolition, as well as other important historical examples. My point, which was poorly phrased, was more about the present, where conservative evangelicals have become an influential voting bloc in a way that others have not.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:44 AM on February 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
Yikes, also, if the entirety of your discomfort with evangelical Christianity is about their treatment of LGBT people, we are not ever gonna be friends.
Religious evangelism is a fundamentally immoral and supremacist act. It requires the beliefs: that one's own belief system is superior to others, that one's target's tradition is not as worthy of adherence or preservation as one's own, and that one is entitled to interfere with others' relationship with Gd. It's never gonna be admirable, the best they can accomplish is "annoying and gross."
That sense of dread others have mentioned might come from being raised in a culturally Christian context where this position is absent, and the evangelical Christian level of disrespect for others is normal.
posted by bagel at 10:07 AM on February 3, 2019 [11 favorites]
Religious evangelism is a fundamentally immoral and supremacist act. It requires the beliefs: that one's own belief system is superior to others, that one's target's tradition is not as worthy of adherence or preservation as one's own, and that one is entitled to interfere with others' relationship with Gd. It's never gonna be admirable, the best they can accomplish is "annoying and gross."
That sense of dread others have mentioned might come from being raised in a culturally Christian context where this position is absent, and the evangelical Christian level of disrespect for others is normal.
posted by bagel at 10:07 AM on February 3, 2019 [11 favorites]
I loathe evangelism, but it is very, very normal. It's more of a reach for believers to think that they have access to critical, life-changing information and they should keep it to themselves. This is especially true in mainstream Christianity, where you have New Testament passages like the Great Commission directly commanding disciples to evangelize, or the book of Acts depicting works of evangelism, also echoing Old Testament passages like Jonah being sent to prophesy to the wicked in Nineveh.
It's also mainstream to retain the concepts of damnation and salvation, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about a "heretic." And once you believe that you can save people from damnation, of course you can and should want to do that. The reason I don't like it is because I don't believe they have the ability to save people from damnation, but why would I try to apply my worldview onto their beliefs and actions?
posted by knuckle tattoos at 11:06 AM on February 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
It's also mainstream to retain the concepts of damnation and salvation, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about a "heretic." And once you believe that you can save people from damnation, of course you can and should want to do that. The reason I don't like it is because I don't believe they have the ability to save people from damnation, but why would I try to apply my worldview onto their beliefs and actions?
posted by knuckle tattoos at 11:06 AM on February 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
There are plenty of things that make me uncomfortable about evangelism, bagel. I’m not sure if you directed that comment to me or not, but conversion therapy “with love” was merely one of many things that helped me see that Mars Hill wasn’t a place for people who had been mistreated by religious people to find acceptance the way it seemed to someone like me, naive and lonely. I should note my story was during a time in my life when I had just moved in with strangers and hadn’t yet solidified friendships with other people in college so there was a temptation of being able to make friends for the first time in my life. And other than being raised Catholic (and never believing in god, and wondering if that made me defective), I didn’t know anything about megachurches or Christianity in all its forms at all. I wasn’t well-versed in evangelism or religion at all, being from a small town that ranked you socially by how good your family looked at Mass but didn’t care if you were actually interested in the teachings.
Despite being impressionable and aching for community, I never went to church with my housemates, never attended any of their bible studies and never made friends with their friends. I quickly went my own way and shrugged off their judgment. I did remain friends with two of my housemates and appreciated seeing them change their views and apologize to me a few years later about pressuring me to join Mars Hill.
In one of Bell’s books (I think Blue Like Jazz), he talks about a 10% tithe to the church at length. He gives anecdotes about how people might be down on their luck and unable to make the tithe, but did anyway and then some small or big miracle would happen to help them financially. If I remember correctly, it usually seemed to be a husband who convinced his wife they had to give the tithe, because what do Christian teachings love more than faithless women being shown the error or their ways by their men? That certainly was another red flag. And yes, the DeVos family presence are unavoidable for anyone living in West Michigan, and having built their wealth on a pyramid scheme their involvement with anything always disgusted me.
It’s obvious that Bell is a megalomaniac and that he relishes being called a heretic. I also found it notable but not surprising that the reviews from the Christian or theological world are not skeptical of him.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 11:33 AM on February 3, 2019 [13 favorites]
Despite being impressionable and aching for community, I never went to church with my housemates, never attended any of their bible studies and never made friends with their friends. I quickly went my own way and shrugged off their judgment. I did remain friends with two of my housemates and appreciated seeing them change their views and apologize to me a few years later about pressuring me to join Mars Hill.
In one of Bell’s books (I think Blue Like Jazz), he talks about a 10% tithe to the church at length. He gives anecdotes about how people might be down on their luck and unable to make the tithe, but did anyway and then some small or big miracle would happen to help them financially. If I remember correctly, it usually seemed to be a husband who convinced his wife they had to give the tithe, because what do Christian teachings love more than faithless women being shown the error or their ways by their men? That certainly was another red flag. And yes, the DeVos family presence are unavoidable for anyone living in West Michigan, and having built their wealth on a pyramid scheme their involvement with anything always disgusted me.
It’s obvious that Bell is a megalomaniac and that he relishes being called a heretic. I also found it notable but not surprising that the reviews from the Christian or theological world are not skeptical of him.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 11:33 AM on February 3, 2019 [13 favorites]
So look, I get a Cool Youth Pastor for Hipster Kids vibe from this guy. I just don't trust him on sight.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:35 AM on February 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:35 AM on February 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
I bought the guy's book years ago but found nothing in there I hadn't figured out already and/ or learned from my UU church.
It did confirm for me that I am not going back to being a Christian, that those tropes and rules don't work for me. Oddly enough, I feel more free to show Christlike love to others as an ex-Christian than I ever did inside the church.
Anyway, I do hope that, like C.S. Lewis did for me, this guy can at least act as a door out of the church's restrictions for some. Lewis is problematic as hell, too, but he was "safe" while giving me room to breathe outside evangelism. Eventually I grew past him
posted by emjaybee at 12:04 PM on February 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
It did confirm for me that I am not going back to being a Christian, that those tropes and rules don't work for me. Oddly enough, I feel more free to show Christlike love to others as an ex-Christian than I ever did inside the church.
Anyway, I do hope that, like C.S. Lewis did for me, this guy can at least act as a door out of the church's restrictions for some. Lewis is problematic as hell, too, but he was "safe" while giving me room to breathe outside evangelism. Eventually I grew past him
posted by emjaybee at 12:04 PM on February 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
I should note I'm cynical and bitter because I have heard "they're LGBT-friendly" as a defense of a lot of Christian ickiness and I, as a trans Jewish person, am not here for it.
...why would I try to apply my worldview onto their beliefs and actions?
Because they won't shut the fuck up about their worldview or keep it out of elections for any fifteen-second period? I'm not arguing for doing anything to stop this immoral act, except refusing to pretend it's okay and expressing disapproval. I feel like maybe evangelism should be safe, legal, and rare.
Lots of things are normal. I don't give a quantity of fucks measurable with conventional instruments.
posted by bagel at 12:29 PM on February 3, 2019 [9 favorites]
...why would I try to apply my worldview onto their beliefs and actions?
Because they won't shut the fuck up about their worldview or keep it out of elections for any fifteen-second period? I'm not arguing for doing anything to stop this immoral act, except refusing to pretend it's okay and expressing disapproval. I feel like maybe evangelism should be safe, legal, and rare.
Lots of things are normal. I don't give a quantity of fucks measurable with conventional instruments.
posted by bagel at 12:29 PM on February 3, 2019 [9 favorites]
That Hell isn't a place of eternal torment was one of Harold Camping's beliefs (a once popular radio/television evangelist, until the world didn't end on the day he predicted in 2011).
One thing that struck a chord with me, though, is this:
Trump’s election, he says, revealed what the gospel amounted to for many US Evangelicals. “It was never about the grace, compassion, solidarity, non-violence of the Jesus path. It was about protecting a particular 21st-century, free-market, capitalist vision for the world. And that thing had been masquerading as Jesus for a long time, and it revealed its corrupt, stained soul. . .
I have sometimes felt inadequate compared to some relatives and acquaintances who pursue religion more than I do, but then Trump comes along and they think he's so great, and it just exposes the big lie behind it all.
I wonder how many people are turning away from religion after being confronted with the very public and blatant hypocrisy of Trump's supposedly religious supporters.
posted by eye of newt at 1:31 PM on February 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
One thing that struck a chord with me, though, is this:
Trump’s election, he says, revealed what the gospel amounted to for many US Evangelicals. “It was never about the grace, compassion, solidarity, non-violence of the Jesus path. It was about protecting a particular 21st-century, free-market, capitalist vision for the world. And that thing had been masquerading as Jesus for a long time, and it revealed its corrupt, stained soul. . .
I have sometimes felt inadequate compared to some relatives and acquaintances who pursue religion more than I do, but then Trump comes along and they think he's so great, and it just exposes the big lie behind it all.
I wonder how many people are turning away from religion after being confronted with the very public and blatant hypocrisy of Trump's supposedly religious supporters.
posted by eye of newt at 1:31 PM on February 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
Anyway, I do hope that, like C.S. Lewis did for me, this guy can at least act as a door out of the church's restrictions for some.
I have loads of feelings and awful shit I could spend waaaaay too long writing about this guy and some of his contemporaries (Mars Hill, Imago Dei, the entire evangelical-but-with-hip-windowdressings movement) but there's media and figures in my life that helped move from an authoritarian conservative (even by typical evangelical standards) rearing in the church, to a liberal christian, to an agnostic, to an ardent humanist. Hopefully this dude is that for some poor evangelical kids who haven't known otherwise? It's markedly harder for folks within the fold to easily access this kind of information if it's been branded by leadership as 'heretical.'
I got called a heretic in middle school by church leadership, because I could fucking read and use a concordance and was able to awkwardly find contradictions in their texts. Asking about apocryphal texts probably didn't do me any favors. But there I was, the 12 year old heretic. My parents were sooooo proud.
I don't know if i've seen it referenced on the Blue, but the folks over at Recovering from Religion is a fairly good resource, and a good place to tele-volunteer if you're inclined.
posted by furnace.heart at 2:17 PM on February 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
I have loads of feelings and awful shit I could spend waaaaay too long writing about this guy and some of his contemporaries (Mars Hill, Imago Dei, the entire evangelical-but-with-hip-windowdressings movement) but there's media and figures in my life that helped move from an authoritarian conservative (even by typical evangelical standards) rearing in the church, to a liberal christian, to an agnostic, to an ardent humanist. Hopefully this dude is that for some poor evangelical kids who haven't known otherwise? It's markedly harder for folks within the fold to easily access this kind of information if it's been branded by leadership as 'heretical.'
I got called a heretic in middle school by church leadership, because I could fucking read and use a concordance and was able to awkwardly find contradictions in their texts. Asking about apocryphal texts probably didn't do me any favors. But there I was, the 12 year old heretic. My parents were sooooo proud.
I don't know if i've seen it referenced on the Blue, but the folks over at Recovering from Religion is a fairly good resource, and a good place to tele-volunteer if you're inclined.
posted by furnace.heart at 2:17 PM on February 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
Mars Hill Church, previously on MetaFilter [2].
It's worth noting that this wasn't a run-of-the-mill megachurch. It was a deeply creepy organization that spectacularly imploded in 2014 -- it sounds like Rob Bell is simply continuing his old church's work, minus a few of the more inflammatory figures associated with its leadership.
posted by schmod at 2:41 PM on February 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's worth noting that this wasn't a run-of-the-mill megachurch. It was a deeply creepy organization that spectacularly imploded in 2014 -- it sounds like Rob Bell is simply continuing his old church's work, minus a few of the more inflammatory figures associated with its leadership.
posted by schmod at 2:41 PM on February 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's easy to confuse the Mars Hill church in Seattle with the Mars Hill church in Grand Rapids. "The only relationship between the two Mars Hills is that they both became broadly well known around the same time."
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:50 PM on February 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:50 PM on February 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
Yes, I was confused when I moved from Grand Rapids to Seattle after I graduated and found out Mars Hill was there too, it was my old housemate who let me know they weren’t related. They’re super similar in how they were headed by a charismatic, photogenic dude.
Fuckers in Seattle took up all the parking near the new Trader Joe’s in Ballard.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 4:18 PM on February 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
Fuckers in Seattle took up all the parking near the new Trader Joe’s in Ballard.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 4:18 PM on February 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
and another thing - I am extremely not a fan of saying "religion" when one means Christianity, or occasionally Christianity-plus-some-stuff-that-strongly-resembles-Christianity.
Do you think pagans, Muslims, or Jews are "turning away from" their religion because the Religious Right is slightly more obviously garbage? I feel like a bunch of people have gotten more affiliated and/or observant, particularly after the Tree of Life shooting.
"Recovering from Religion" is a bit more forgivable, as it's likely about plausible deniability, but they're clearly not addressing traditions that consider personal belief kind of irrelevant.
posted by bagel at 6:39 AM on February 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
Do you think pagans, Muslims, or Jews are "turning away from" their religion because the Religious Right is slightly more obviously garbage? I feel like a bunch of people have gotten more affiliated and/or observant, particularly after the Tree of Life shooting.
"Recovering from Religion" is a bit more forgivable, as it's likely about plausible deniability, but they're clearly not addressing traditions that consider personal belief kind of irrelevant.
posted by bagel at 6:39 AM on February 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
I guess I'm a bit puzzled by the response here. There's at least a couple factual confusions. As has already been pointed out, Rob Bell's Mars Hill Church is not Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill Church, but also Rob Bell didn't write Blue Like Jazz (that was Donald Miller - who I don't think has ever had any association with Rob Bell).
I guess these guys are sort of connected in that they were all hipster evangelicals in the early aughts, but even then their theologies were going in pretty divergent directions. That diversity was characteristic of that style of hipster church. Sometimes it was used to reinforce patriarchal theologies and sometimes it led to a gradual opening to questions of justice that provided young evangelical and ex-evangelical Christians a path to act in ways that directly challenged those old theologies (e.g. in Seattle Eugene Cho's work is the obvious counterpoint to Driscoll's--especially since it's members of the church Cho founded who are now taking up all the parking near the TJs in Ballard on Sundays).
I guess for people from non-religious or mainline religious perspectives Bell's evolution can feel like a rediscovery of the obvious, but the journey is pretty important for what it does to self-conceptions of evangelicalism. Rob Bell was in some ways the hope of evangelicals that they could engage with contemporary culture in relevant and insightful ways. In a way that's always what distinguished evangelicalism from fundamentalism, and if Bell can't do it and remain evangelical, then evangelicals are faced with the prospect that the whole evangelical project is incoherent. That matters in the US (if not so much in other places), because the question of how to handle Rob Bell is a self-definitional one for the 20-30% of the population that identifies as evangelical.
posted by nangua at 6:43 AM on February 4, 2019 [6 favorites]
I guess these guys are sort of connected in that they were all hipster evangelicals in the early aughts, but even then their theologies were going in pretty divergent directions. That diversity was characteristic of that style of hipster church. Sometimes it was used to reinforce patriarchal theologies and sometimes it led to a gradual opening to questions of justice that provided young evangelical and ex-evangelical Christians a path to act in ways that directly challenged those old theologies (e.g. in Seattle Eugene Cho's work is the obvious counterpoint to Driscoll's--especially since it's members of the church Cho founded who are now taking up all the parking near the TJs in Ballard on Sundays).
I guess for people from non-religious or mainline religious perspectives Bell's evolution can feel like a rediscovery of the obvious, but the journey is pretty important for what it does to self-conceptions of evangelicalism. Rob Bell was in some ways the hope of evangelicals that they could engage with contemporary culture in relevant and insightful ways. In a way that's always what distinguished evangelicalism from fundamentalism, and if Bell can't do it and remain evangelical, then evangelicals are faced with the prospect that the whole evangelical project is incoherent. That matters in the US (if not so much in other places), because the question of how to handle Rob Bell is a self-definitional one for the 20-30% of the population that identifies as evangelical.
posted by nangua at 6:43 AM on February 4, 2019 [6 favorites]
Oh fuck! Why is it in my head I have been conflating Bell’s Love Wins book as being Blue Like Jazz? I apologize to all and thank you so much to nangua, you were very diplomatic in pointing out my error but it makes my whole comment suspect. I have read both books (they both were prominent in the household I talked about above) and can’t say if I’m confusing content between Miller and Bell now. I know I read Bell’s Velvet Elvis at the same time as Love Wins; they were the two books the checkout desk woman at the library was excited for me to read.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 8:30 AM on February 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 8:30 AM on February 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
I guess for people from non-religious or mainline religious perspectives Bell's evolution can feel like a rediscovery of the obvious, but the journey is pretty important for what it does to self-conceptions of evangelicalism. Rob Bell was in some ways the hope of evangelicals that they could engage with contemporary culture in relevant and insightful ways. In a way that's always what distinguished evangelicalism from fundamentalism, and if Bell can't do it and remain evangelical, then evangelicals are faced with the prospect that the whole evangelical project is incoherent. That matters in the US (if not so much in other places), because the question of how to handle Rob Bell is a self-definitional one for the 20-30% of the population that identifies as evangelical.
I don’t mean to be dismissive, but Rob Bell or no Rob Bell, I think the mass embrace of Trump by evangelicals has proven that “the whole evangelical project is incoherent.” The good news/Good News is that contrary to what you’ve been told, there is so much more good stuff in the world than e/Evangelicalism.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:23 PM on February 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
I don’t mean to be dismissive, but Rob Bell or no Rob Bell, I think the mass embrace of Trump by evangelicals has proven that “the whole evangelical project is incoherent.” The good news/Good News is that contrary to what you’ve been told, there is so much more good stuff in the world than e/Evangelicalism.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:23 PM on February 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
Rob Bell was in some ways the hope of evangelicals that they could engage with contemporary culture in relevant and insightful ways. In a way that's always what distinguished evangelicalism from fundamentalism, and if Bell can't do it and remain evangelical, then evangelicals are faced with the prospect that the whole evangelical project is incoherent. That matters in the US (if not so much in other places), because the question of how to handle Rob Bell is a self-definitional one for the 20-30% of the population that identifies as evangelical.
What was interesting to me about the debate (at least back when I still cared to pay attention to the Evangelical world before they voted for Trump and I shook the dust from my feet) was the disconnect between traditional Evangelicals saying, "Bell is giving up on the doctrine of Hell because he's embarrassed by it, he's trying to water down Christian doctrine to make it cool and acceptable" vs. Bell saying, "I can't imagine a Heaven in which I could possibly be happy while people I've known are suffering in Hell. And I would recoil in horror from a God who offered to make me the sort of person who could be happy in those circumstances."
posted by straight at 11:09 AM on February 9, 2019 [2 favorites]
What was interesting to me about the debate (at least back when I still cared to pay attention to the Evangelical world before they voted for Trump and I shook the dust from my feet) was the disconnect between traditional Evangelicals saying, "Bell is giving up on the doctrine of Hell because he's embarrassed by it, he's trying to water down Christian doctrine to make it cool and acceptable" vs. Bell saying, "I can't imagine a Heaven in which I could possibly be happy while people I've known are suffering in Hell. And I would recoil in horror from a God who offered to make me the sort of person who could be happy in those circumstances."
posted by straight at 11:09 AM on February 9, 2019 [2 favorites]
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Outlaw pastor Rob Bell shakes up the Bible Belt, 2017
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:12 PM on February 2, 2019 [6 favorites]