…and why you should read a book before you review it!

This past Friday night, I attended Rob Bell’s ‘The gods Aren’t Angry” Tour stop in Indianapolis. While I was tempted to write a blow-by-blow review of the presentation, I think that John over at Verum Serum has already done a pretty spot-on description of the basics of that Rob talked about.

I still would like to offer some thoughts on this, in light of the multiple arguments going on about what Rob left out and what the topic actually wasn’t about.

The Topic

The best way to describe the overall topic matter would be to say that Rob Bell was giving a narrative defense of how we are saved by faith in what God has done and not by works that we have to do. It is about God being at peace with us because of what HE sacrificed, and not an angry god that leaves us in limbo as to whether he loves us or not – requiring more and more sacrifices (works) to appease His anger.

The Audience

It was fairly apparent from the inside jokes and language chosen by Bell that his primary audience was one that already had a basic grasp of Christianity. While the aspects of the gospel message were included, this was designed to help individual Christians take the next step in understanding their relationship with and to God.

The Controversy

Most, if not almost all, of the controversy stems from the title and whether or not God is ‘angry’ with sin. To spend all of your time arguing about whether or not sin angers God is to argue about something that wasn’t the topic of Bell’s conversation, and is the equivalent of writing a review (positive or negative) of a book you haven’t read.

The Actual Message

Bell’s talk was divided into five basic parts:

Part I: The Basis of the Sacrificial System

Here, Rob talked about the origins of sacrifice, where man could see the things happening in the world that affected him, but he could not control – the sun, the stars, the moon, growing seasons, pregnancy, and on and on.  Out of this, man believed that each of these things had a ‘god’ which kept it going.  When things were not well (like with drought), it meant that gods were at conflict with each other – or that they were witholding their favor because of something man did.

So, man then created ways in which to sacrifice to the gods by making altars (Bell had a replica of the Temple altar as his only stage prop), and sacrificing things on those altars which were representative of that which they were trying to appease the gods.

The problem arose, though, in that they had no connection to these gods to know if they were angry with them or not.  If the crops did well, they wanted to make sure that they sacrificed more, lest the gods be angry over them not giving enough.  But how much was enough?  If the crops did poorly, then perhaps they hadn’t given enough, and they needed to give more.  Or they needed to give something more valuable to themselves (like their own sex organs or their own children).  This led to a vicious cycle where they needed to bless the gods and sacrifice to them more and more, and to find things more and more valuable to themselves to sacrifice to the gods.

Part II: Abraham

And so then along comes Abraham.  The One true God contacts him directly (something new) and tells him to leave his household (which means more than just physically leaving it, but to also leave all of its practices behind).  This was also something new.  Then, instead of God telling Abraham how to bless Him, God says that He will bless Abraham, and that Abraham will pass on those blessings to other people.  This was radically different.

Then, when Isaac was born, God tells Abraham to bring him up to Mount Moriah and to sacrifice him.  While much of the Christian emphasis has been on how faithful Abraham was in taking his own son to kill him (”flannelgraph that one”, Rob added), the end of the story comes when God provides the sacrifice – not Abraham.

Part III: Leviticus

When the children of Israel left Egypt, God gave them a sacrificial system.  In this, what was required for sacrifice was specified (which eliminated the need to guess how much God wanted), and instructed that the worshipper bring the sacrifice to the altar, to sacrifice it to God, and to then leave, knowing that he was at peace with God (which eliminated the need to guess whether or not God was at peace with you).  This was radically different than all of the surrounding nations and the pagans in the land, who were still following the old sacrificial systems (from Part I).

Within Leviticus, there was even an offering specifically for peace.  In this offering, the worshipper would take a part of his sacrifice to the altar, so that he could be at peace with God, and then he would take the remainder of the sacrifice back to his family and celebrate that they were at peace with God.

Part IV: Jesus 

When Jesus arrived on the scene, the sacrificial system had been taken over by the Sadducee party, which had turned it over to create their own source of wealth.  This system, they enforced with the occupying Roman forces (from the Antonia, right next to the Temple), who tortured and crucified many people who ran afoul of the system.  And so Jesus comes onto the scene and threatens this sytem in multiple ways, so he had to be killed, and was then resurrected.

In sacrificing the most precious part of Himself, Jesus, God did away with the Levitical sacrificial system and permanently made peace with those who would claim Jesus’ sacrifice as their own.

Part V: Us

In the Psalms, Micah, the gospels, Romans and Hebrews, we find out that the sacrifices are not for God – they are for us.  He desires obedience, not sacrifices.  So, in the ritual at the altar – sacrificing for your sins and then walking away from the altar, knowing you are at peace with God – the most important part for God is us being at peace with Him.

Repentence is not an act that we perform (or a sacrifice that we make) – this follows the old mode of sacrifice, where we try to give something to God so that He will make peace with us.  Rather, repentence is walking in a way that would not lead us to make this sacrifice in the first place – it is God’s gift to us.  Jesus paid a price that we don’t have to keep trying to pay, whether it is through the “right” rituals or observances or through sacrificing things He has given to us.  Rather, we are to be “living sacrifices” (an interesting contradiction/juxtaposition, Bell noted), where we give ourselves to God all of the time, knowing that we are at peace with Him.

It is during this part of the talk that Bell gives numerous personal examples that all tie into this theme.

In Short

“the gods are not angry” was an excellent presentation for any Christian, and a great way to start a conversation with an unbeliever.  For me, it put together the pieces of the sacrificial system and how this thread carried through the entire Bible.

What it didn’t do was tell everyone “you’re OK, so don’t worry because God’s not angry with you” – which is what some folks just want to believe he said.  There is an old adage that is so true:  “If you are searching for fault, you will always find what you are looking for.”  This seems to be the case with the critics of this particular tour.