The Soul Of Rob Bell Analysis

“Justin Lee was a devout Southern Baptist teenager nicknamed “God boy,” and his coming-out followed a path familiar to many LGBTQ kids in conservative churches. He confessed his same sex attraction with trepidation…but in college, he reexamined the scriptures, investigated the context of the condemning verses, and discovered the two core themes of Jesus’s teachings: First, the spirit of the law trumps the letter of the law. Second, the Holy Spirit guides believers to live out God’s unconditional agape, or selfless, love.” At first glance, it appears things have improved for the LGBTQ community. Yet, with all that momentum, much of the church still fights on against them. I chose this article, The Soul of Rob Bell by Joey DiGuglielmo of The

I really appreciate his take on evangelicalism. Ironic, how something as positive as “good news”, morphs into something isolating and exclusive within our Western understanding. Rob Bell attempts to share how context really is the key to all interpretation. As he has continued to study scripture, he has come to the realization that there is lots of room for interpretation. Yet, it is the human condition that we need to address.

This ties back to the opening quote I reference from “Rescuing Jesus”. Justin Lee a gay student at Boila University, comes from a fundamentalist understanding that the Bible is the inherent word of God. Yet, just as Rob Bell began to discern, when upon further study, Justin discovers that if we are to take the new covenant that Jesus Christ provides to heart, than we are by no means to be judge and jury on someone’s existence let alone sexual orientation. “With these standards in mind, it became much easier to interpret Scripture’s difficult passages consistently”. Yes, there were slaves in Bible times, but doesn’t selfless agape love demand their freedom?” I believe Christ’s references about immorality and hypocrisy

These were people who had been conquered again and again and again and they believed at some point that their God would vindicate them. Often people have so divorced the reading of the text from what was happening at the time, which here, I think Jesus is giving these really pointed parables and I think giving them these images of do you want to participate in a new kind of world? ….They were part of an entire religious establishment that was part of the problem, exploiting the poor, dehumanizing people and I think he’s using very strong, very pointed hyperbolic language to say to them, “Turn your thinking around. Turn your actions around or you’re going to miss this fresh new thing that God is doing. So when people extract lines out of this and say people everywhere are going to burn forever, they have so warped the message, taken it out of context and distorted the story.…You can take things out of context and make them say anything”.

He is correct as to the damage that can be done when taking things out of context. Frankly, it is that very notion that has affected how women and those on the margins have been acknowledged or disavowed throughout history. I would add that by not getting to know someone, to know their story, things stay stagnant. Through connectivity,