Velvet Elvis - TheoBlog.de

Gestern lag wieder Werbung für den Jugendplus-Kongress 2011 mit Rob Bell im Briefkasten (Willow Creek Deutschland). In einer Rezension über Bells Velvet Elvis schreibt Greg Gilbert (9Marks):

For example, take Bell’s reconception of the idea of doctrine. Bell argues that the doctrines of Christianity should be thought of as the „springs“ that hold up the trampoline on which we jump and live in Christ. The springs are not the main point; they merely facilitate the greater goal of „us finding our lives in God“ (25). Now that analogy has some truth to it. But it’s also more dangerous than it might first appear. Conceiving of Christian doctrines as springs allows Bell to say that getting the doctrines right is not really that important. If you don’t like one or two of the springs, you can just take them out of the trampoline and keep on jumping.

Here is Bell’s take on the doctrine of the Trinity, for instance: „It is a spring, and people jumped for thousands of years without it. It was added later. We can take it out and examine it. Discuss it, probe it, question it. It flexes, and it stretches“ (22). And what about Christ’s birth to a virgin? Bell asks, „What if that spring was seriously questioned? Could a person keep jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian?“ (26).

Bell affirms his belief in both the Trinity and the Virgin Birth, but he also says he wants to carve out some room to „question“ those doctrines.

But what does he mean by that? Is he saying that one can study them, ask questions of them, learn from them? I wish he was. Yet why does Bell even pose the question? Why does he ask, „Could a person keep jumping?“ and then not answer it? I can only conclude that Bell is saying that it wouldn’t matter very much if someone stopped affirming them. „Yes, of course you can keep jumping, even if you stop believing in the Trinity or the Virgin Birth.“

Hier die vollständige Rezension: www.9marks.org.

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