NOTE: I wrote the following as a potential magazine article, but it wasn't ever published so I'm reposting it here (because I like it.) I have, however, changed my feelings about some of the included ideas... I would HIGHLY recommend you watch "The gods aren't angry" DVD when it comes out in June (or a bootleg version online) and let me know what you think.
I recently paid $22.50 to see a pastor give a sermon. It sounds little absurd, so I prefer to think of it as watching ten back-to-back Nooma videos, normally about $11 each, I got a sweet bargain. Everything about Rob Bell's recent "the gods aren't angry tour" screamed rock star; From the website to the tickets to the hip midtown theater where he spoke, he truly is the first postmodern rock star preacher. Except he wasn't really preaching.
Instead, he did pretty much exactly what the tour website would lead you to believe. He stood up and spoke for an hour and a half about "how humans invented religion to make themselves feel better." Rob's still on tour, and I don't want to give away the details of his masterfully constructed narrative. But I did feel like a serious issue was never resolved; he never said anything that even so much as hinted at an actual belief in God.
The stage was empty except for a large stone altar in the center, which he occasionally used as he talked about the methods and reasons and origins of sacrifices. He spent the first 45 minutes or so explaining how over time people developed their superstitious ideas of the "gods" into intricate systems for sacrifice. But he never divorced the made-up acts of religion from the made-up realm of the gods. Even when his story arrived at the life of Christ, he described Jesus as "a radical, progressive Rabbi guy from Galilee" and then went on to tell us that much of what Jesus did was a profound exhibition of performance art. I was literally on the edge of my seat waiting for the resurrection, but it never came. If Rob Bell was going to reverse thousands of years of people inventing stuff about imaginary gods, I thought for sure he would find that redemption in the resurrection. But I was disappointed. Rob mentioned the resurrection twice, and both times only as a fleeting footnote to the rebellion-crushing efforts in the crucifixion. Rob seemed to think that the resurrection was a rumor spread among early disciples, but not something relevant to us today. And how could he? A Rabbi from Galilee rising from the dead would prove that humans didn't invent God.
The night concluded with some very moving stories of compassion. Rob showed us how Jesus' death changed the way we relate to our concept of ultimate reality, and he beautifully illustrated how love and peace and justice are more important then any ritual or pious act. He seemed to be trying to leave any decision of objective truth up to the audience; trying not to alienate anyone with language of "one true God." But as the music faded in and he gave his trademark "so may you…" benediction, he left me inexplicably thirsty for an actual encounter with the God he almost talked about.
