An excerpt from a beliefnet interview with “Velvet Elvis” author Rob Bell:
QUESTION: You talk in the book about the “big Jesus.” Tell me about the big Jesus that you know and how that differs from “small” or “smaller Jesus” or even “eentsy, beentsy, microscopic, teeny, weeny, little Jesus” out there.
ANSWER: For many people the message of Jesus was presented as an individual message of salvation for their own individual sin: “Jesus died for you.” I affirm that wholeheartedly, but in the scriptures, its scope goes in the opposite direction. It begins with the Jesus who dies on the cross and rises from the dead. But as the New Testament progresses, you have writers saying that “by his shed blood he is reconciling everything in heaven and on earth.” Peter says in Acts, “He will return to restore everything.”
So it is a giant thing that God is doing here and not just the forgiveness of individuals. It is the reconciliation of all things. It is the putting back together of the whole universe how God originally intended it to be. One way to look at it is that the message is an invitation into God’s giant, global universal purposes that “I” actually get to be a part of.
I’m trying to get the focus where the first Christians seem to have had the focus. It is easy for it to become a very selfish thing—"look what I’ve got"—as opposed to “by the grace of God look at this amazing thing that he’s been inviting people into for thousands of years.” And that is quite an awe-inspiring, amazing thing.
IN LIGHT OF THIS, A QUESTION FOR YOU, SHLOG READER: When someone first told you about this Jesus person and what he came to do, why He died on a cross, came to earth in the first place etc, how much of the focus was placed on YOU and how much was placed on ALL THINGS? How much emphasis was on YOUR decision and YOUR need and YOUR eternity and how much was EVERYTHING ELSE talked about, life here and now and everywhere? Have you mostly thought about “salvation” as a “personal relationship with Jesus” OR as a rescue for all of creation OR as a combination of the two OR as something totally different? How big is Jesus to you? Why do you think this way?
So my schedule was a little more full than I’d remembered this weekend. First I played Columbia, SC (Jammin Java), then Apex, NC (a benefit concert in a field beside a church - I played on a tractor trailer, yee haw), and then Sunday in Clinton, TN at Second Baptist Church (played in two morning services, taught College Sunday School, and then a show that night).
It was a long weekend. Between shows Brian drove well over 1000 miles while listening to the Astros lose two games of the World Series. Those losses, combined with very low attendance at our first two shows, made for two days of low morale. Expectations were set by promoters and by us and when they weren’t met, in spite of great people met along the way and beautiful scenery at every mile, we were disappointed. Expectations are dangerous that way.
But on the third day there were no expectations. I’d forgotten all about the Clinton, TN show on Sunday. And what I walked into were two packed, alive, smiling crowds on Sunday morning followed by eager listeners and great conversations in the College class I taught. And Sunday night’s show there was jammed to capacity with all ages, tons of college students, and more fun than I remember having making music in a long long time. No expectations made for one of the best days we’ve had in a while.
Thanks to everyone at Second Baptist in Clinton, TN - especially the leaders and students of Encounter. Your joy is contagious. Thanks for infecting me.
Story and pics after the show tonight In Columbia, SC:
Jammin Java -8 pm -$8 advance and $10 at the door
Tomorrow night I’m in Apex, NC at Salem Baptist Church at 6PM. The concert is for Hurricane Relief.
”The MIT Media Lab has launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world’s children. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has been created. The initiative was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte, Lab chairman and co-founder, at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005”
More here.
When a voluptuous blonde with extensions sauntered toward me after a show two years ago I had no idea I was about to learn something. Her breasts sat high enough to threaten air flow, her heels elevated her to over six feet, and her glittered nails stabbed out of long tight sleeves like diamond studded knives. She stretched out her slender hand, broke into a blinding bleached smile, wrapped her other arm around my shoulders and leaned in close for a picture. She smelled good. I signed her CD and answered her questions while something inside me radioed for help, “SOS, something’s not right here. Be afraid.” And I was.
She handed me her business card. “Stripper for Jesus” it said in large glittery letters that matched her nails and heels and belt. “Paul said that after you find Jesus you should go on with the way of life you were in before so you can spread the Good News to those people you hung out with before you got saved. If you’re a plumber you should keep being a plumber you know? Well, I was a stripper so I’m putting it to good use,” she explained.
I stood spellbound, my head aimed in her direction but my eyes occasionally casually searching the room for a hidden camera or a giggling friend peaking out from behind a fern in a corner, taking the whole awkward scene in with great pleasure.
Then there’s my Republican/NRA/"Growing Kids God’s Way"/Southern Baptist friend who, with equally admirable intentions, gets dressed in the dark so that she won’t tempt her husband needlessly. She listens only to the bible on CD, teaches her kids that other four year olds who hit do so because they need Jesus, has to find a way to interject “Jesus” blatantly into every conversation and situation and believes that if a conversation or situation cannot be Jesus-ed then it shouldn’t be participated in in the first place. If there is not an obvious and intended “Christian message” to a night of fun or a movie or a book she wants no part of it.
The stripper believes Jesus sets no limits for Christians because all things are pure to the pure. My Baptist friend seems to think that some things are plastered with bold faced “THIS IS A JESUS THING” labels and that only those things are safe and everything else is dangerous. If you can’t read the label just avoid it, better to be safe than sorry - she says. One lives in a world without walls, the other in a world without windows.
And I see the stripper and the Baptist both when I look back upon my life - or even back upon the last few days. We probably all do. And then, realizing I have both of these people taking turns at the wheel inside my psyche, I’m driven to decide which one to hand the keys to. Which one is good and which is bad? Which should I let take over?
Then I think about being naked. I think about men with pockets full of ones sitting at darkened tables masturbating to nakedness. I think about the fertilizer nakedness in that place douses onto the seeds of reckless infidelity and base self-centeredness in every human heart present. Then I think of my honeymoon, of any night of my married life for that matter, my wife able to stand unashamed and naked before me, me before her, of how sex in that place feels like holy communion, rapturous, selfless and soul intertwining.
Then I think about Halloween. Every year evangelicals fight about it on my message board and at my concerts. The question is inevitably asked, “Shaun, is Halloween bad?” And I think that’s a bit like asking if naked is bad. Depends why you’re naked doesn’t it? In the words of the great prophet Jerry Seinfeld “There’s good naked and there’s bad naked.” Isn’t that true?
We need walls sure, but we also need windows. The question I’m asking myself isn’t whether Halloween or anything else is good or bad, but rather I’m asking “Do I have enough windows in my life to keep my faith from growing mold and dying” and “Where did this wall come from exactly?”
