Rob Bell, founder of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan\u2014once hailed as one of the fastest growing churches in America\u2014has never been shy about offering his own, sometimes idiosyncratic, spin on some of the most important issues in Christian theology and practice. To understand where Bell is coming from when he does so, it\u2019s essential to understand his views on the Bible and on God\u2014and how we should relate to them.<\/p>\n
The key point, Bell says in one of his best-selling books, What We Talk about When We Talk about God, <\/em>is that the Bible must<\/em> be interpreted and has been <\/em>interpreted throughout history many different ways, with scholars considering the historical context as well as the etymology of the words being used in the original languages of the Bible, in order to get to the heart of what Scripture really means\u2014important context that can get lost in translation. \u201cI want us all to have faith big enough to handle whatever challenges come our way and open enough to celebrate whatever new discoveries we make in this world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n That idea of openness\u2014of being planted firmly in faith, like a tree with deep roots that is able to bend instead of break when new information arises\u2014is at the heart of his understanding of who God is. God, Bell says, is not, \u201cbehind [us], back there, in the past, endlessly trying to get us to return to how it used to be.\u201d Instead, God \u201cis ahead<\/em> of us, pulling us forward\u2026 with a better, more inspiring vision for our future than we could ever imagine.\u201d <\/p>\n In his latest book, The Zimzum of Love<\/em>, written together with his wife Kristen, Bell applies this approach to a topic of much discussion in some parts of the Christian evangelical world today: specifically, the question of whether the Bible demands that wives submit to their husbands.<\/p>\n Though many evangelical Christians today take what is known as a \u201ccomplementarian\u201d view of marriage\u2014that women exist as complements to their husbands and therefore should be submissive\u2014the Bells take an egalitarian approach, inviting couples to \u201ctranscend those binaries, becoming aware of the divine presence in all life.\u201d<\/p>\n To drive home the point that marriage ought to be an equal partnership, the Bells write The Zimzum<\/em> like a conversation between the two of them, like dialogue in a play, with both of them responding to the topics each chapter addresses. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have heard that there\u2019s a world of people still discussing how the woman submits to the man, which, to us, just seems completely insane. It\u2019s 2014! What are you talking about?\u201d Bell tells Guideposts.org. \u201cSo if this in any way can breathe fresh air to people who have known that\u2019s an insane tale, that would be great.\u201d<\/p>\n That the idea of women submitting to their husbands is even in question is relatively new, however. The Apostle Paul suggests in Ephesians that this is the norm, and Christian historian Mark Noll, Ph.D., explains to Guideposts.org that \u201cfemale submission\u201d was something taken for granted in Western (and non-Western) society until recently. <\/p>\n \u201cAs many have pointed out, the really radical thing about the New Testament is Paul’s urging that men actually love their wives, rather than treating them as reproduction machines,\u201d Noll says. \u201cIn the context of the first century, the Ephesians 5 passages about women submitting to their husbands as the church to Christ would have been barely noticed; the injunctions moving the other way, with greater respect for women and the institution of marriage, were the unusual statements.\u201d<\/p>\n It was not until the rise of the modern women\u2019s rights movements that submission became an issue of interest, Dr. Noll explains.<\/p>\n But Bell breaks down the Ephesians 5 passage even further, saying, \u201cThe passage begins, \u2018Submit to one another.\u2019 It begins with a command for everyone. It means to put first the well-being of someone else. Then it says, \u2018Wives, to your husbands, submit.\u2019 Paul simply repeats himself, and \u2018Husbands, love your wives like Christ,\u2019 which means lay down your life for your wife. So to take the part about the woman\u2019s duty and to extract it from the overall passage does such violence to the biblical text.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you actually love each other like [Paul commands], the last thing you\u2019re going to be doing is arguing about who\u2019s in control. If you\u2019re arguing about that, you have so lost the point of marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n Christian historian Kate Bowler, Ph.D., tells Guideposts.org that what the Bells appear to be doing in their rejection of submission in The Zimzum<\/em> is interesting, considering that even those proponents of submission in the evangelical community don\u2019t often get specific about what submission should look like in individual marriages. And even as more women become church leaders and even co-pastors, they still often stand to the side of their husbands, the traditional \u201cpriests\u201d of the household and of the church.<\/p>\n The Bells, on the contrary, champion marriages to be partnerships between equals, mirrored off of the zimzum<\/em>, which is a Hebrew word that represents the space God created outside of Himself in order to make room for the universe. Their philosophy is that both partners should make a conscious decision to create space outside of themselves in order to make room for the other and to prioritize their life together.<\/p>\n In essence: You shrink yourself so that something greater than you\u2014your marriage\u2014can grow and thrive.<\/p>\n But while both partners must shrink, the Bells emphasize the importance of neither partner disappearing in the marriage and both being allowed to be individuals with their own God-given purposes, traveling and enjoying<\/em> life as a team.<\/p>\n \u201cI really hope that [this book] sets people free to find the joy in marriage,\u201d says Mrs. Bell. \u201cMarriage can be hard because the things that matter most in life take effort, but it can also be this joyful adventure that you\u2019re on together. The two of you are creating something together.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bells\u2019 marriage manual, complete with discussion questions and further reading suggestions and activities, aims to help couples recognize that what they\u2019re creating together is something energetic, light-filled and unknowably deep. When couples understand the profundity of marriage, that\u2019s when \u201cthe love can flow all the more freely between you.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s the zimzum<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rob Bell, founder of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan\u2014once hailed as one of the fastest growing churches in America\u2014has never been shy about offering his own, sometimes idiosyncratic, spin on some of the most important issues in Christian theology and practice. To understand where Bell is coming from when he does so, it\u2019s essential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":28856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[189,203,258,51,14,72,80],"ppma_author":[482],"class_list":["post-20374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marriage","tag-church","tag-community","tag-goals","tag-inspirational-stories","tag-spiritual-growth","tag-stories-of-faith","tag-stories-of-hope"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n