Thomas meets Rob Bell

Thomas was able to meet Rob Bell this weekend during Bell’s Peacemaker tour of the UK.

Rob Bell was amazing. To get up in front of 500 people and speak for 90mins… and keep there attention… without digging out powerpoint or even some music… tremendous!
Audience participation was welcomed when Rob talked on non-violence – he focussed on the action Jesus spoke of in the beatitudes (Matthew). He spoke of the subversive, counter-revolutionary ideas Jesus had to help the downtrodden and humiliated.

It’s interesting that Bell spoke on non-violence and the B-attitudes. After reading about Gandhi’s fascination with the Sermon on the Mount we started talking about the B-attitudes in Matthew 5 and I think we’ll continue looking at the Sermon on the Mount during our Wednesday morning What-a-Breakfast at What-a-Burger in Red Oak.
We had some great discussion this last week just on the B-attitudes.
According to Thomas, Bell spoke of a two ways we tend to respond to violence – either retaliation or as a total pacifist.
But Jesus spoke of a third response:

The Third Way has two guiding principles that are founded in tremendous courage and creativity:
1) Do not cooperate with anything humiliating
2) Hold out any possibility that the aggressor may wish to change his/her mind.