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Rob Bell Wants You to Read the Bible

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In the fifteen years I’ve spent writing about media online, only three things have earned me digital (and real-life) tongue-lashings.

  1. My proposal that Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice is better than Captain America: Civil War.
  2. My belief that The Shack explains spiritual truths in a real and powerful way.
  3. My admiration for the sometimes bespectacled Rob Bell, former pastor, podcaster, speaker, and author.

Momentarily ignoring the first, I must admit that the complaints against the second and third seem to spawn from the emphasis of Paul Young and Rob Bell on the grace of God versus his judgment. [Others, even their detractors, have questioned whether jealousy plays a role in the way that the evangelical religious community has received Young and Bell, but that’s for another day.]

And then Bell released What is the Bible? How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything as a follow-up to How to Be Here.

“Oh my goodness, he wants us to read the Bible differently? Who is this guy?”

The short answer: Bell is a very intelligent man with a lot to tell us about what it means to be human, to be faithful, and to read the Bible.

So he starts with a lesson about the Hebrew word used in Deuteronomy 34:7 about the state of Moses’ body when he died. Again, the short version: Bell says Moses was still fertile, that he could still “get it up.” And from that point forward, he launches into a series of stories and explorations about how we read the Bible, what we filter out and ignore, what we accept and include, how we allow ourselves to acknowledge the history, experience, and process around the books that make up the Bible.

Bell implores us to learn the historical context, to consider the things that seem strange or weird in the story (a left-handed assassin, a talking donkey, a practice of sacrifice that ends differently than it ever had before) as the most important or significant. Bell wants us to use our brains to consider the works in the Bible in the way they were meant to be received and to apply them to the life we live today. And it’s beautiful.

On page 116, Bell writes this (in response to another pastor, a pastor intent on emphasizing the judgment and anger of God):

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., endlessly leading you to the barbaric and violent and random nature of life–and God. I read it looking for what the story is doing, what’s happening within it. What new perspective is emerging? What sense is being heightened? The stories in the Bible –and the Bible itself –have an arc, a trajectory, a movement and momentum like all great stories have. There are earlier parts in the story, and there are later parts in the story. The story is headed somewhere. 

Here at ScreenFish, we have made it our business to consider the way that the gospel, the good news of God, is breaking through the world we live in. We are focused on interpreting and examining and re-imagining what the storytellers meant and what we see or feel in response to our own experience. But the truth is that one person’s joy (remember BvS?) is another person’s tragedy (or at least, their most panned movie). Ask our staff, and we’re mostly still arguing about the beauty or stupidity of Mad Max: Fury Road.

But Bell isn’t just concerned with interpretation. He wants us to recognize that we’re supposed to be applying and living out the truths contained in Scripture. It’s not just ‘wisdom’ or ‘colloquial’ but alive.

Read that again: Rob Bell clearly states that the Bible – words of God – are alive, and in motion.

He doesn’t lay out a definitive creed.

He doesn’t spend time on articles of faith by which a person can join a church, denomination, or movement.

He doesn’t answer all of the questions that his most famous book – Love Wins – raised in the minds (and hearts) of his critics.

But what he does do is demand we think, and pray, and apply. He does ask that we view the Bible and the world we live in critically. And he believes that when we do that, we can grow in our faith toward God.

And for that, What is the Bible? becomes beautiful, and approachable, and mind-blowing.

You just have to actually read it – like the Bible – to get it.

David Ortiz’ Papi on Baseball, Patriots Day, & Boston Strong

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Tom Brady might be New England but David Ortiz is Boston.

While the three-time World Series champion might have been “just” a talented designated hitter on an American League team fighting decades of failure to the world before Patriot’s Day 2013, afterward, he was the galvanizing face of a city that stood against terrorism, fear, and violence.

Sure, New York had the New York Yankees and the NY Giants after 9/11. But with one ad-libbed speech in Fenway Park, just days after two brothers had rocked Boston with homemade bombs, Ortiz announced that Boston would be broken:

“This is our $^&@#$% city. And nobody is going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong.”

While this is one of many stories that Ortiz tells with Boston-based writer Michael Holley in Papi, My Story, it is the one which will bring Ortiz to mind for years after his baseball feats have been forgotten. But that’s a long while from now, because Papi’s rise coincided (are there ever coincidences?) with the ascension of the Red Sox from late-night punchline to World Champions.

In his autobiography, Ortiz recounts his childhood, and the beauty of his parents’ efforts to raise him right; his marriage, with its ups and downs to his wife, Tiffany; his experience as a minor leaguer with the Seattle Mariners and Minnesota Twins; his challenges and successes with the Boston Red Sox. Peppered throughout are reminders that Ortiz sees how God has seen him through, how hard work achieves results, and wisdom from the journey.

Entertaining, funny, poignant, and always straightforward, Ortiz’s story reflects the same man who showed up for interviews and told it like he saw it. Sure, that created some friction with management, but all of the great ones have been willing to tell what they thought. Now, Ortiz does the same, looking back, not with regret but with respect and humility for twenty years in the majors.

Boston fans will find this a must-read, but any aspiring athlete, or someone seeking a reminder that there’s more to life than being knocked down, will appreciate the rise of one of Boston’s greatest.

Papi: My Story is available now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The Sons of Solomon: Pulp Fiction at Its Finest

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In the debut our new page, “OtherFish,” where we’ll cover the various pieces of media that catch our attention that aren’t movies or television, I am proud to present the work of one of our own ScreenFishers, Jason Norton. After years of slaving away over writing, editing, and journaling his own stories, Norton has proudly release in printed form The Sons of Solomon. Here, in an epic genre that recalls A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Indiana Jones, Norton spins a pair of stories that call to mind the work of Richard Connell, “A Most Dangerous Game,” with humor to spare.

Brothers Danny and Jake Solomon have been passed down legendary rings from their ancestors, dating all the way back to King Solomon. With apologies to Allan Quatermain, their exploits are significantly more intense than hobnobbing with some natives who are blown away by the Solomon Bros.’ intense skill and wit. Instead, they find themselves blowing past natives, Nazis, femme fatales, and the like, until their moral compass finds them fighting for some genetically engineered wildebeasts. While the action is always intense, Norton’s prose keeps us guessing as to how all this will play out – just like the short story included afterward, “Shocking Tales of the Eel: All’s Fare.”

While we’re able to see that this is the first in a set of adventures – John Carter of Mars, anyone? – we can see the background we’re dying to know more about and see that the stones that give the Solomons power must one day be united a la the Infinity Gauntlet. While the book is in written form – with a comic artist’s cover by Chris Burke – the cinematic, episodic value can’t be oversold. This may be the first you’ve heard of Norton’s own fictional work, but it won’t be your last. 

From Pro Se Productions, you can buy Norton’s book here.