I loves me some Rob Bell. I've called him the modern-day Origen, kinda out there, but you know that this guy's got a tap into the Living God that very few people out there have.

His latest (in collaboration with fellow Mars Hill-er Don Golden) is called Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile.

Ballsy title, you say?

Wait till you read the book. And until then, here's a summary, in a style that Bell would, I hope, be proud of...

The Bible tells one story.

One

big

fat

story.

It's a story about Exodus. It's always been a story about Exodus, about God hearing the cry of his oppressed people and coming to set them free.

That's what God does...then and now. God saves.

And what does He save from? Well, all sort of things, of course, but the story we're told in the Bible speaks about a God who saves us from manifestations of our own human fallenness, the most glaring of which is Empire, the human tendency to erect systems that use power to preserve privilege at the expense of the weak.

Like Rome, circa Jesus.

Like the good ol' U S of A, circa now.

Bell and Golden spend a few chapters filtering the biblical story through this meta-perspective. In my opinion, sometimes a bit too much is forced through that lens, which is a danger endemic to those who rightly say that the Bible is one story, but then go on to reduce it to one specific story. It's a story, all right, but a complex, nuanced, many layered story, one with overarching and consistent themes, but not only one overarching, consistent theme.

But anyway.

After Egypt, there was Sinai. Sinai was, according to the authors, God saying,

"Don't forget what slavery was like."

"Don't forget who got you out of that mess."

And,

"Don't treat anyone else the way you were treated in Egypt."

Israel ends up doing all three. Which leads to Exile.

Requiring a new Exodus.

But this Exodus will be bigger than the first one. This Exodus will be global, because the enslaver is global:

"The kings of the Babylonians, the prophets concluded, wasn't the real problem any more than Pharaoh the king of the Egyptians was the real problem for their ancestors...The real problem, the ultimate oppressor, is something that resides deep in every human heat. The real reason for their oppression is the human slavery to violence, sin, and death."

The next few chapters chronicle how God dealt with that problem, and through Whom.

Good stuff here. I won't spoil it.

Some points to emphasize, though. Bell and Golden don't come off as anti-American. That's not their agenda. The point is that since most of the Bible was written by a people oppressed, and oppressed primarily by an empire, it is very, very difficult for citizens of the most powerful empire the world has ever known to read that book authentically.

I was particularly taken by how this issue plays out vis-a-vis the Book of Revelation. Here's a snippet:

"Were the people in John's church reading his letter for the first time, with Roman soldiers right outside their door, thinking, 'This is going to be really helpful for people two thousand years from now who don't want to get left behind.'?"

Ouch.

Anyway, I can go on and on. Like I said, I loves me some Rob Bell. He's a bit out there. So am I. I guess that's most of it.

Here's the gist of the whole endeavor, and explains the title:

"Jesus wants to save us from making the good news about another world and not this one. Jesus wants to save us from preaching a Gospel that is only about individuals and not about the systems that enslave them. Jesus wants to save us from shrinking the Gospel down to a transaction about the removal of sin and not about every single particle of creation being reconciled to its maker. Jesus wants to save us from religiously sanctioned despair, the kind that doesn't believe the world can be made better, the kind that either blatantly or subtly teaches people to just be quiet and behave and wait for something big to happen 'someday.'"

Happy reading.

Grace and Peace,
Raffi