Rob Bell - poet, prophet or pest?

There’s something about poetic language that draws me in.

Take this poetry:
“Many have these questions.
Christians,
people who aren’t Christians,
people who were Christians,
but can’t do it anymore because of questions about these very topics,
people who think Christians are delusional and profoundly misguided,
pastors,
leaders,
preachers – these questions are everywhere.”

There’s something about the way the poetic weaves together groups of people who would not normally go together.
The poetic finds way through a phrase even a word that pulls the unusual into community.

Take this poetic phrase:

“Honest business,
redemptive art,
honorable law,
sustainable living,
medicine,
education,
making a home,
tending a garden – they’re all sacred tasks to be done in partnership with God now, because they will all go on in the age to come.
In heaven,
on earth."

Poetry.

Putting together words that on earth don’t go together.
Merging what’s normally unmerged.

There’s something about poetic language that draws me in.
For some the movement of poetry appeals, for others it raises questions.
For me the rhythm evolves poetic license; for other its vagueness confuses or denies.
For me it draws me to think and consider possibilities; for others it causes them to think that the poet is considerably wrong.

Chesterton once wrote: “it’s the mathematician that goes mad not the poet”.

The mathematician is trying to get heaven, God, faith, truth into his head, the poet is just trying to get his head into heaven.

The poet can hold vagueness; the mathematician can’t.
The poet can write something unconcluded; the mathematician must see the conclusion. The poet in this case is the pastor and author Rob Bell.
The mathematicians in this case are the pastors and Christian leaders lining up to shoot the poet.
The topic is Rob Bell’s latest book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, And The Fate Of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

The poetry written above comes from this book.

I loved the book, in all it inconclusiveness, vagueness and poetry!
Excellent.

Like everything else Rob Bell has written he weaves new thought alongside orthodox thought and invites you to be shocked and stirred and intrigued and scratched, question and disagree and agree and applaud, and want more and want less all at the same time.
As a poet he lets you swim in the sea not curtailing its vastness ignoring the ‘don’t swim here’ signs.

It’s the work of a poet not the work of a mathematician or a scholar or a theologian.

Is he really preaching universalism as some charge him with?
Is he really presenting a false God as others charge him with?
Is he really denying the atonement?
Should he really be burned at the stake for heresy?

He’s a poet.

Another poet Eugene Peterson endorsed the book indicating that while he doesn’t agree with all that Rob’s written, he’s my brother in Christ writing nothing new but continuing a worthwhile discussion.

To some extent it’s a classic modernity/postmodernity clash.
The clash of formulaic, propositional truth with narrative.

I live in the borderland between two cultures.

I can be the poet, but I can also be the mathematician.

There are times when the ‘modern’ in me wants better supporting evidence for the new definitions Rob gives.
There are times when the ‘postmodern’ in me wants him to pull back from wording that seem to be too deconstructive.

But I enjoy Rob Bell and his poetic exegesis.

For me, God is as much a poet as He is a mathematician.

The intricacy and preciseness of creation; the clarity and formulae of The Law He gave enable the mathematician to claim God as his friend.

But the mysteries left hanging; Jesus’ answers that were more questions; the both/and of His Being (three but one; fully God but fully human); the Psalms, the Revelation, the Book of Songs ……reveal a Divine Poet.

There’s room for both; and both should allow room for the other.

To a degree I need there to be a box – call it Orthodoxy.
I need there to be lines drawn and conclusions reached and The Faith handed down.
I need the Didache, the Creeds, the Confessions of Faith, the completed Canon.

But I’m nervous of a box with the lid fully closed. (In fact the only box I know of where the lid is fully closed is a coffin!)

I’m wary of theology that has systematized God into concluded theories.
I’m skeptical of faith built upon conclusions.

Does faith not require lines to sometimes bend or be dotted?
Does God not stand bigger than even the biggest box we can find?

I need perhaps not vagueness – what if we call it largeness.

I need space for more – more redefined, or more to be defined.

I need the poet.

“And to that,
that impulse,
craving,
yearning,
longing,
desire – God says yes.
Yes, there is water for that thirst,
food for that hunger,
light for that darkness.
If we want hell,
if we want heaven,
they are ours.
That’s how love works.
It can’t be forced,
manipulated,
or coerced.
It always leaves room for the other to decide.
God says yes,
we can have what we want,
because love wins.”

Poetry.

“Is the cross about the end of the sacrificial system
or a broken relationship that’s been reconciled
or a guilty defendant who’s been set free
or a battle that’s been won
or the redeeming of something that was lost?

Which perspective is the right one?
Which metaphor is correct?
Which explanation is true?

The answer, of course, is yes.”

To some it’s misleading, indecisive, confusing, heresy.
To me its poetic thought invites thinking, engagement, discussion.

For some, including a good friend of mine, the debate is irrelevant – God’s sovereignty answers it all.
For some, Rob Bell has struck his final nail in his own coffin.

But for others, myself included, Rob Bell has enabled us to keep largeness a big part of God; a largeness that allows us down here to discuss and disagree, but do so respecting our brothers and sisters rather than displaying both the arrogance of claiming to be right and the arrogance of stating the other is wrong.
It allows largeness in thought and worship that quickness my heartbeat, thrilled by the vastness of God and The Faith I’m a part of.

The poet never sets out to complete the box; the poet sets out to express their emotion and in that expression wonder if they’ve latched on to something divine.
If they have – the poem will deliver, it’s an outward journey.
If they haven’t - the poem is but an inward restlessness revealed.

For the poet while the former is best, the latter still holds meaning.
For the reader if they seek to critique it they will deduce one of either of the endings.
Or, if they can, they become the poet and the circle continues.
And continues.
And continues.
And continues.

Freaks some people out!
Helps some of us to breath.