I love Rob Bell. I think his sermons/books/short movies are creative, intelligent, and hopeful. A couple years ago, Rob released Sex God, a book that explores the “connections” between God and human sexuality. I find the discussion about “sex and theology” quite interesting. And Rob’s book certainly brought a great deal of “content” to the conversation.
Recently, I had the opportunity to ask Rob a few questions (via email) about God, sex, and Song of Solomon. I hope you enjoy.
MATTHEW: Rob, in Sex God, you write, “For many people, sex is brief moments when everything is OK with the world, even if it isn’t. It’s escape from the pain and suffering and brokenness of life. It’s a short time when all is right, even if lots of things around us are falling apart… in Revelation, God announces ‘I am making everything new!’ Isn’t that the longing of every embrace, every act of sex itself? To start again, to give yourself away again, to try again for hope and healing and restoration? We find sex so powerful because it provides people with glimpses into the world we all desperately desire but can’t seem to create on our own…”
In your opinion, does sex (or the build to climax) offer us a glimpse of Heaven?
ROB: One of the things the scriptures speak to again and again is the inter-connectivity of all things, of God being “all in all.” Jesus displays this intuitive awareness that everything is related to everything else when he again and again finds commonality and connection with people his culture had clearly decided were “other.” It’s that moment when the spirit in us resonates with the spirit in them and we’re reminded that we have much more in common [with each other] than we do different. Perhaps we could say it another way: community isn’t created, it’s discovered. This is why when people have shipwreck or trapped-in-an-elevator experiences with strangers, they later talk about how they all bonded during the hardship. they often seem surprised that they could connect with people “nothing like me.” What happened is they became aware of bonds we all share that we miss most moments of most days. The renewed, restored, and reconciled earth that the biblical writers insisted is coming would of course be a place where we are all deeply connected with another because the “death of divisions” is no more. And so, sex is a picture of that.
(I bet you were wondering–like I was–how that monster of a paragraph was going to make its way back to actually trying to answer the question. Haha!)
ROB: Well, to begin with, [“Song of Songs”] is Hebrew chiastic poetry, so it turns and twists and repeats and circles back around again and again, giving us pictures and images and ideas much more than practical, step by step sort of advice. Take for instance, “I am beloved and my beloved is mine.” It’s cryptic and oblique and yet a powerful way to talk about the mutual self-giving in marriage, that mystery in which you’ve given yourself to someone and they’ve given themselves to you AT THE SAME TIME. You both jumped into each others’ arms at the same time so neither of you is on stable ground. Some call this “more than literal truth”-the fact that some truths have to be stated in poetry because literal language simply can’t contain them.
MATTHEW: If humanity is made in the image of God then what does sexuality say about our Creator? What part of God might it represent?
ROB: I’m compelled and fascinated with Trinitarian theology, which insists that God is
MATTHEW: OK, so I have a 1-year-old son. Any advice on how a parent can teach sexuality to his or her child without instilling fear, shame, and a negative view of sex that might potentially haunt them as adults (whether single or married)?
ROB: I’m about to have “the talk” with my oldest, so in twenty years I’ll tell you how it went and then maybe I’ll have something to say…
What do you believe: Does sex show us anything about God?
To learn more about Rob, visit the following sites:
Mars Hill Church
Rob’s website
Rob’s bio
Rob’s videos
Rob’s latest book, Drops Like Stars
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Rob Bell is so stinking brilliant. Not as brilliant as you Matthew but very close.
Great post!
Landing Rob Bell for your #SexWeek interview guest…bam! Very nice. That dude has so much wisdom.
I read and enjoyed Sex God as I do all his books. Me and a couple buddies are actually making the trek up to Michigan this weekend to visit Mars Hill and hear Rob speak.
I’m loving the posts in the series this week.
okay, sex week has been REALLY, REALLY GOOD.
And getting Rob Bell for sex week, its just amazing.
I love Sex God as well, I actually always give a copy to the young couple I am doing marriage counseling with.
I know you have a great name in the Christian circle, so how do you go about e-mailing Rob Bell and hearing back? lol because i would poop my pants if Rob Bell e-mailed me back.
Great reading Bell’s thoughts here.
Growing up heaven sounded boring to me – harps and singing forever, why would I want to go there?
Reading “SexGod” and learning that an orgasm might be a glimpse of the glory of Heaven – yea I want to go!
Thanks for hosting this convo!
Great. Now I have a boner.
what a great read this morning! i really loved the idea that community is discovered. thanks for this post…great stuff!
i love your heart bro…you are an incredible encouragement and a bucket load of brilliant joy!
Blake
The book “Sex God” contains a lot of truth. Sex shows us that God is brilliantly creative and values connection. Sex also let’s us realize how we, like God, are trinitarian in a sense–body, soul, and spirit, together in one being.
Learning about the sexual parts of ourselves (in all three arenas) gives us many opportunities to explore things like love, sin, grace, patience, self-control, mercy, compassion, purpose, and freedom. Sex truly is an amazing gift from God! And most of us probably don’t say “Thank you” enough…
I so appreciate Rob’s holistic and systemic (as opposed to systematic) approach to scripture. He has such an eye for connection and nuance and such an aversion to canned answers. Always a breath of fresh air.
No wonder you wear those glasses to try to look like him 😉
AE
Yeah, so I suppose I’ll be the only voice of dissent here. This is exactly why I can’t stand Rob Bell’s writing/speaking, etc. (Let me clear, I don’t know him as a person.) He is the king of wishy-washy, feel-good answers. I don’t want canned answers, I want truth, and here he clearly avoided the whole subject of heaven, which is pretty consistent with the theology I’ve heard from him before. It’s good to look at scripture as a whole, but not while ignoring the parts.
That is all.
Woah did I step into a Rob Bell appreciation society blog.
I have to agree with MainlineMom. Did anyone notice how he didn’t actually straight out answer a single question that was put to him.
Don’t know the man of course personally. Am sure he is a nice guy but I also find his theology wishy washy and too New Age for my liking. He seems so intent on approaching scripture from a different angle, nothing wrong in that per se, but he seems to have forgotten the proverbial baby in the process!
The quote from Sex God reminds me of this quote by Ben Kingsley in the movie Elegy: “When you make love to a woman, you get revenge for all the things that defeated you in life.”
If I were to parse out Rob Bell’s answers, they would be:
1.Yes, sex offers us a glimpse of Heaven because in both those places we are no longer divided by differences but unified through worship.
2. Song of Songs is less a “how to” book of guidelines and more like sexual poetry or the give and take of dancing.
3. The coming together of sexuality represents God’s love of community and relationship.
4. I don’t feel quite qualifed to answer that question…yet.
How are those things NOT answers? Wow. I wish I could watch a political debate with MainlineMom and/or Andrew…I’ll confess here and now that I sometimes get a perverse kick out of watching detailed, black-and-white thinkers interact with the ” more butterfly” types. In my own life I’ve both wielded the net and been pinned to the board. ;^)
Good stuff Matt. I’m enjoying this series.
And SCORE on getting to interview Rob Bell!!
very cool. got a chance to meet Rob on the Everything is Spiritual tour. He is so insightful and the new book is amazingly artistic…
i like the image of a dance…my wife danced ballet for years…you can tell when one dancer is out of tune and missing steps…kinda like sex…there is beauty when they are bothing giving everything all of themselves over to each other…when there is not…you can tell…kinda like our relationship with God…
i think sex, to answer your question, shows us that God wants us to have pleasure, euphoria – perhaps and escape like bell suggested.
maybe its a feeling/sensation He Himself is familiar with and wants us to have it and this is the only way on this earth we can share that with Him.
that…and to make babies! =D
i dunno.
oh. but i will say…
Thank GOD for sex!
as you were…
Genesis tells us that the image of God is found in both woman and man. I believe that to mean both individually and mutually. I, alone, am created in God’s image. And yet there is something uniquely God-like when man and woman come together … and specifically I think in sex.
It’s a testament to the reality that I was not designed to do life alone (doesn’t mean one has to be married). But the fact that I have physical energy and desire that is best fulfilled by another person shows that God is all about community, the coming together.
I get a glimpse of Him and an orgasm to boot.
I like how Rob explains Trinitarian theology with “perichoresis” and I would like to add to the definition of this word, it also means: a “mutual indwelling” and (my favorite) “being-in-one-another.” (It amazes me at how many points we agree upon). During my Freshman ‘Topics in Theology’ class I wrote a paper on the Trinity and described it using “perichoresis” or as I like to refer: The Divine Dance. It is such a beautiful concept worth exploring.