Rob Bell seems to support Christian nonviolence! Since my "rebirth" in understanding my faith in light of nonviolence, I feel I’ve been fighting to proclaim Christ’s message all by myself. It helps the cause that Rob Bell is considered the #10 Most Influential Christians in America. (http://www.thecronline.com/mag_article.php?mid=875&mname=January). However, this list should be taken with a grain of salt considering the other people on the list.

I first learned about Rob Bell from Nooma videos at Bible study with Chris Shoemaker et al. Rob Bell is coming to campus this Thursday, Feb. 8th, 8pm, Power Center for a Q&A session about his new book "Sex God" and show a new Nooma video. I read the first chapter of this book called "God Wears Lipstick." As I read the book, I was amazed. Here are some excerpts. You can find this at sexgodtour.com.

"A concentration camp is designed to strip people of their humanity. It’s anti-human. And in the Scriptures, anything that’s anti-human is anti-God. Genesis begins with God creating the world and then creating people “in his own image.”"

"I just received an email asking if I would sign a petition protesting the use of torture to get information from enemy soldiers caught in battle. The email said this issue is being debated among politicians right now and that the public needs to speak up on the matter. There’s a debate about this? The issue isn’t just what torture does to the person being tortured, it’s what torturing does to the person doing it. We’re already in trouble when people debate the use of torture as if it’s only about what it does to the enemy. Our own humanity is at stake."

"When a human being is mistreated, objectified, or neglected, when they are treated as less than human, these actions are actions against God. Because how you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the Creator. To be a Christian is to work for the new humanity. Jesus commands his followers to feed and clothe and visit and take care of those who need it. They’re fellow image-bearers, they’re just like us, and when we love them, we’re loving God."

He is explaining the heart of the Greatest Commandment exactly. This is what I did not understand before understanding nonviolence. Basically, I did not understand the Gospel until my Junior year in college.

Since Rob Bell was saying all this, I started wondering if he supports nonviolence. Behold, on the Mars Hill website (http://www.marshill.org/teaching/index.php), he recently gave a three sermon series called "Calling All Peacemakers." The last sermon is "A Brief History of Non-Violence." He explains Matthew 5:38-42 in breath-taking detail. I recommend it to everyone (it is only available for a while; I downloaded it, so I have a copy if any needs one). I’ll be at the Q&A session on Thursday and will be sure to ask Rob Bell, "Do you support nonviolence? If you do support nonviolence, how do you reconcile nonviolence with violence in the Old Testament?" I want to know how deep his faith in nonviolence goes.

I feel like I finally understand the entire Bible message. The only consistent message I find in the entire Bible is the issue of scapegoating. Scapegoating starts from Adam/Eve, Cain/Abel, Joseph/his brothers, Noah/humanity, Isaac/Ishmael, Jonah/fishermen, etc and ends with Jesus and his disciples. Some may object, "Isn’t faith the overarching theme." Yes, faith is the overarching theme. It is the faith in the vast difference between us and God that saves us, because this difference causes us to repent from our violence. Every act of violence or preference (scapegoating) is a reflection of human, not divine, nature. Humans kill, God brings life. Christ died for our sins, not God’s sins because God does not sin. "Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death." Hebrews 11:19. Abraham believed that God’s desire to create would overpower all human power to destroy. This is the promise that Christ has overcome the world.

The entire Bible story is a gradual enlightenment about the holiness of God versus the depravity of humans. The climax comes when Jesus, the lamb of God (the scapegoat God uses to show us our own depravity in the greatest way), comes to earth and humans kill him. It is God’s way of saying Nietzsche’s phrase, "God is dead." It is obvious to God that humans are depraved, but humans cannot see this and need this revealed before we can change. Fortunately, God does not leave us with Nietzsche’s pessimistic view, and resurrects Christ to show God’s creative force and a hope that humans can overturn our culture of death.

It is a reflection of human, not divine, nature to kill an innocent person. When we all realize the innocence of each individual person and our own tendency to bring death, then we will know the Gospel message: peace through forgiving all.

Rob Bell, nonviolence and scapegoating

This entry was originally published at Interconnectedness by Mikhail (Misha) Lomize