Writing through Sex God, 3

Chapter Eight: Johnny and June

God is one. Man and woman are one. Same word in Hebrew (coincidentally in English as well), one. Therefore, we see the sharing and unity of God in a growing, beautiful marriage. And it is our purpose to bring more "oneness," more unity to our world.

It strikes me at this moment how much about Eden there is in this book. Rob draws greatly from the Creation poems/stories here and throughout.

Chapter Nine: Whoopee Forever

What more can I really say that the chapter title doesn't?

If marriage is a picture of the shared in the life of the Trinity, what becomes of sexuality and marriage when we are actually in His presence? Rob's view is that it is all sublimated into the Consummation of Relationship. I suppose it is what Peter and the fathers have in mind when they talk of theosis - of sharing in the Divine Life.

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Overall, I enjoyed reading Sex God, though not as much as Velvet Elvis. Rob is an engaging guy whose heart is transparent in its desire to live Christ in our world. I would encourage you to read the books. But also, listen to the MP3s from Mars Hill. They're cut of the same cloth. And in the sermons you get to hear and see this faith he speaks of put into action in Western Michigan and around the world. It's not just another mega-church. Exciting stuff.

Writing through Sex God, 2

Chapter Three: Angels and Animals

This chapter is an interesting chapter on living within the tension between our physicality and our spirituality (which is a tension that needs to be understood in more than simply the context of sexuality). We are not mere spirit (angels), sexuality is an important part of who we were created to be. On the other hand, we are not mere body (animals), sexuality is not all we were created to be, but should be mastered.

Now while Rob talks about the good of mastering our desires he doesn't give us any methods of doing so (the book isn't a book of methodology so much as meditation). The furthest he goes here is by saying that, yeah, lots of us struggle with being pure. Or the way I like to put it, "Good luck, suckah."

A good chapter, however, if only for us to be continually reminded that we are human not animal, not angel.

Chapter Four: Leather, Whips, and Fruit

This chapter deals with the issue of lust and its failure to deliver what it promises. A lot of Edenic references here. So if indulging our lusts doesn't satisfy, then, Rob contends, we must find our passion and let it.

Chapter Five: She Ran into the Girls' Bathroom

Rob gives this illustration from his own life of being 14 and crossing the empty dance floor to ask a girl to dance with him. In response ... the chapter's title. Now, what I want to know in the rest of this chapter, and what Rob never says, is how the hell do you get over something like that? I'd need serious counseling. Anyway, I don't even know what the rest of this chapter is about, I'm so shaken. Something to do with the riskiness of love - even for God.

Chapter Six: Worth Dying For

A good chapter on submission. And apparently it's not just for women either. (That's a joke at the ladies' expense. My apologies.)

Chapter Seven: Under the Chuppah

There is some good criticism by Scot McKnight about this book today. Some of which (concerning Rob's use of Rabbinic literature) I just am not qualified to give. And most of that scholarly criticism concerns this chapter.

Now I enjoyed this chapter, even taking into consideration Scot's criticism of it. While perhaps Rob should not have used the Rabbinic literature as he did, the point he makes is obviously valid. The chapter discusses what must take place under this controversial(?) prayer shawl (HOO-pah) and how it is a picture of our relationship with God. God and us, bridegroom and bride - that's the basic image here and will be more powerful for some and less for others depending on where we are on our faith journeys and what we're looking for in Bell's book.

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I'm going to finish writing through Sex God tomorrow. In the meantime, this book is Rob. Some people won't get it, perhaps, but this is him and his heart is evident in it. It is a poetic meditation on agape more than eros, after all is said and done. And I enjoyed it.

Writing Through Sex God, 1

Introduction: This Is Really About That

The introduction outlines the book: the powerful reality of symbols and how symbols are deeply and profoundly ingrained in our lives. And sex, because of its source, is ultimately a symbol of our desire to connect with God.

We've lost a proper understanding of what a symbol is. We've watered it down. We've weakened it. And while Rob doesn't ever use the word symbol, perhaps because we have bereft the word of its power, his illustrations of how moments connect with other moments in our lives clearly demonstrate the power of symbols in our lives.

Chapter One: God Wears Lipstick

Rob Bell talks about how humanity can be dehumanized (his example is excerpts about behavior in a concentration camp), and that that dehumanization is anti-human and, therefore, anti-God.

It is hell.

He then writes about how in the objectification, sexualization, of women by men, we dehumanize them. And not only do we dehumanize women, but we dehumanize ourselves. The same is true in a concentration camp. The same is true in torture. And war.

We humans can bring either heaven or hell into our worlds. And to be a Christian is to work for a new creation, a new humanity - to bring heaven to earth.

This chapter powerfully speaks of the connectivity we share with all humanity and the connectivity we share with God. And that those relationships demand this new humanity we have been given.

It's one of my favorite chapters, and the last illustration in the chapter brought me to tears.

Chapter Two: Sexy on the Inside

Chapter two is about all the ways we are disconnected: Things are not as they are supposed to be. We are disconnected from one another (think wars, hypocrisy, and argument). We are disconnected from creation (think living in tiny manufactured bubbles as opposed to sleeping under the stars). In this chapter, Rob explores where this disconnection comes from - the Garden - and then speaks about how sex may be related to the Latin secare, which means, "to sever, to amputate, to disconnect from the whole" (dissect, sect, section). Therefore, our sexuality is (1) an awareness (think Eden) of our disconnectedness, and (2) "all the ways" (Rob's words) we try to re-connect. And here he begins to blur/erase the line between sexuality and connectivity that I'm not altogether on board with. But if he leaves it at connectivity, I'm jibing with it.

In his discussion of sexuality as connectivity, he briefly discusses celibacy as a vow to "universal love," which he explores briefly here, and more later.

More Sex God

In Rob Bell's new book, Sex God, the thing that initially struck me is how much much of it reminded me of Papa Benedict's encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love). Benedict mixes it up with eros and agape - how each kind of love informs the other.

Anyway.

Rob Bell's writing style is, well, different. He breaks up single thoughts into multiple paragraphs until the entire book takes on a kind of

visual

poetic

rhetoric.

What he is indeed going for with this kind of departure from the normal rules of written expression, I have no idea. He's never discussed it with me.

His writing style aside, there is one other thing that Rob does with this book that rubs me the wrong way. He talks about how sexuality is about connectivity, which I totally agree with, but then he veers off into reversing this understanding, somehow, into connectivity being all about sexuality. So that music is about sexuality and our relationship with God is about sexuality (and while our sexuality may have much to do with both, it's putting the proof before the horse - or something like that), and how some of the most sexual people he knows are celibate. All of which, again, may be true. But the ordering of it all seems off somehow.

Which brings me to my next point: This book is less about sex than I had hoped, er, expected from the title. The book is about relationships. And while he covers sexuality and marriage and how they are icons of our relationship with God, he ultimately is concerned less with sex and more with relationship.

It's all rather postmodern. Which I like and dislike simultaneously (you can do that in postmodernism). It abandons linearity for something more circuitous and, in my opinion, less cohesive.

But these are all minor beefs. The book is good. I give it four stars. (Out of how many I'll never tell.)

I'm thinking about actually writing through this book, a couple chapters at a time, beginning on Monday. I've never done that before, but keep thinking it could be loads of fun. Or would that just ruin the book for all of you? Here are the chapter titles:

• Introduction | This Is Really About That
• Chapter One | God Wears Lipstick
• Chapter Two | Sexy on the Inside
• Chapter Three | Angels and Animals
• Chapter Four | Leather, Whips, and Fruit
• Chapter Five | She Ran into the Girls' Bathroom
• Chapter Six | Worth Dying For
• Chapter Seven | Under the Chuppah
• Chapter Eight | Johnny and June
• Chapter Nine | Whoopee Forever
• Epilogue | More Balloons Please

Let me know what you think.

Sex God

I read Sex God tonight, Rob Bell's new book. It was quite good and I plan on discussing it to some degree. But not tonight; I have a headache.

(I'm such a tease.)