Super Soul Special: Rob Bell: Let's Talk About God

0:00I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. Rob Bell is many things, a best-selling author, a dynamic public speaker, and founder of a Midwestern megachurch. He's been called a central figure for his generation. Bell stands out as a pastor who embraces the big questions that many people have about faith and religion. And Bell says he has been aware of his spirituality since he was a child.

0:47At 22, Rob entered seminary in Pasadena. Six years later, founded his first church back home in Michigan. He called it Mars Hill Bible Church, and it was different. There was no dress code, there was no choir, and no pulpit. The response was overwhelming. The congregation became one of the fastest growing churches in the country. In 2005, Rob published his first book called Velvet Elvis, Repainting the Christian Faith, and three more provocatively titled books soon followed. His intention to provide a fresh and personal perspective on God and matters of Christianity. Then in 2011, Rob released the book that would be the game changer, Love Wins, pondered the questions that are often considered taboo in traditional Christianity.

1:39What if heaven is open to all rather than a select few? And what if hell doesn't exist at all. For hundreds of thousands of readers, Rob's teachings were a revelation. Now, in his latest book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Rob explores our relationship with a higher power through his characteristically untraditional lens. I was thrilled to finally meet Rob after reading his books, so as the clouds began to roll down the Maui mountainside, we gathered on my front porch for a super soul chat. So you say we're in the midst of a massive rethink when it comes to God with the end of one era and the beginning of another.

2:22Let's talk about that. What does that mean, Pastor Bell? I think there are moments when a word has got so much stuff attached to it that you have to just brush all that off and go, what do we really mean? And for many people, like I talk about in the book, God is against us. God doesn't want human flourishing. God is the one waiting to punish or torment or torture or something. Judgment and wrath. Yeah. Because when you say to people, God is love, there's a whole other group of people say, yeah, he may be loved, but God is also judgment and wrath and punishing. Yeah. Whatever that discussion is, people immediately take that to mean whatever struggle I'm going through whatever life is really like for me god is against me i'm on my own and maybe i have a couple of friends and so there is this extraordinary thing that you and i and others have tapped into where you are not alone and there is help and there is guidance and i love the way that you speak first of all it speaks just like you're talking right now it sounds like i'm reading the book i'm talking to you you say god is kind of like an oldsmobile was that yeah yeah you know You know, I grew up in the center of Michigan, and Oldsmobiles were made down the road, and that was the thing.

3:37Like, Thanksgiving, after the meal, the uncles and every grandpa's all went in the garage. My dad had one, 1958. Green Oldsmobile. Yeah, see, everybody... Big old, long thing. And people can do, like, was that a Delta 88 or a 98? Yeah. And that was, like, the moment. And if you'd made it, or if you'd done something, I mean, you got an Oldsmobile. Yes. But they've shut those factories down. They're not making them anymore. And my experience is interacting with lots of very educated, intelligent people who have traveled and have a thousand songs in their pocket with their iPhone. I mean, they live in this modern, gleaming, shimmering world and are like, seriously, God, come on.

4:15Really? It's a giant step backwards. So I was in the book trying to look for, like, what's the image or the metaphor that sort of summarizes to me the lots of people I've interacted with when you talk about God? You know what I mean? It's like, oh, yeah, that was nice. That worked for my parents. Or they grow up in a religious home, then they go to university, and they take a bunch of classes, whether it's biology or comparative religions, and they're like, the idea of the divine then gets firmly placed. That was back when I was a kid. That was my adolescence. That was summer camp. That was my parents.

4:47But I've moved past that. Look at all the things. Seriously, we need a God now? Look at us. We're going to start traveling to space here pretty soon if Richard Branson or somebody can, you know, arrange that in time. And yet the same people would say to you, like, seriously, church, come on, will also talk about a sunset or a glass of wine and talk about, oh, it was amazing. It was like transcendent. Talk about that, though, for people who haven't read the book yet. In the book, I sort of talk about, there's a very popular voice that says this is all there is. Yeah. We're simply just a complex arrangement of neurons and synapses, and you're the sum of your biology.

5:16Yeah. And it's very articulate, and it can be very funny and very compelling, and it can explain why there have been bad wars and the Crusades and such. And so people go, yeah, yeah, great. That's, yeah, I'm with that. but it still leaves people with this giant. Then how do I explain when my first kid was born or when my partner embraces me or when I sit with my favorite friends on the deck having a meal and something within me, we use the word like that meal is transcendent. What do we mean? We mean it was both here and yet it sort of pointed beyond itself. It seems to be a reference. The great German theologian Jürgen Moltmann talks about it's like an echo.

5:53this thing here was like an echo of a larger sound. Well, so many people, you're talking about science and logic, but so many people have no proof. And because there's no proof, they say, you know, how could you believe in something that you can't prove? Because you can't see God. Except you can. Yeah, that's the thing about the modern world is what it did is it took truth for many people and it put it through this unbelievably narrow filter of rational scientific analysis. But then explain why do you love that person? Well, I just do. Some of the things that we're most convinced are true, we can't jam through that filter.

6:30But I love that you say that for many people, faith and doubt are opposites, but they really are excellent dance partners. Even though Rob has always been a man of great faith, after turning 30, he started to question what he'd been taught his whole life, to accept the Bible word for word. He immersed himself in biblical history, drawing inspiration from Jewish rabbinical scholars whose faith was actually strengthened by questioning. Rob felt empowered to embrace his doubts head on, and he gained the confidence he needed to make a leap of faith. Everybody's really leaping. Everybody's really taking sort of fragments and the shrapnel you have of your experiences, and you're leaping into this story or this story.

7:17I'm going to make the leap that what I do matters. that I'm not an accident, that there is some call on my life. That in itself is actually a leap. And other people go, mm-mm, this is all there is. At some point, you're going to die, and they're going to bury you, and you're going to be eaten by the worms. I mean, everybody ultimately is leaping. And I think the people in the modern world with the most sort of, this is the rational scientific evidence why there is no God, that's just as much a leap. So that is what you mean by God being a reality. known and felt, but difficult to analyze. Yeah, yeah.

7:55And there's really a German word for it. What is that word I couldn't pronounce in the book? One of the versions is Grenzenbegriff, which I love these, I just love strange words. Yeah. But I love that there's this word of that which is real, but beyond analysis. It's even like a category. It's that which, I don't know why I love that song. And I could try to explain to you that album and how it touched me and moved me and how I crank it up in my car when I'm all alone and I get all like, ah, when I'm singing. and it's so real to me what that collection of songs does and yet if I had to like you know put it out on paper a b c d I don't I don't know and yet you say there's this lethal division of the science and the sacred yeah lethal well I think it cuts people off from celebrating you know to me the only kind of faith worth having is faith that can celebrate the good and the true and the beautiful and the wherever you find it it's a big buoyant sort of expansive embrace of every everywhere you find.

8:50Well, you think you also, you know, my definition of God is the all, the all in the all, through the all, above the all, in the all. And then you on page 18 basically say the same thing. I understand God to be the, these are your words, the energy, the glue, the force, the life, the power, the source of all we know to be the depth, the fullness, vitality of life from the highest of the highs to the lowest of the lows and everything in between. I think that's the all. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So let's begin with where you began in the book. We first need to open. And I seriously, first and foremost, to all the really smart, studied people who've been to the TED conference and have iPhones, it's not crazy to acknowledge that there's a God.

9:40it may actually be the most rational move, is simply to say, I come to the end of my own logical powers and acknowledge there's too much that's beyond what we can sort through using these little brains that we have. And for 300 years, the water we've been swimming in, that we've been handed by the Enlightenment tradition, which has brought us medicines and hospitals and all such wonderful things, has also brought us, ultimately, if you cannot explain it, I don't know. And yet we're fascinated as humans. We're wired for the mysterious. We love it. We're drawn to it. You can't stifle it. So you're saying just open to that.

10:13It's okay to be open. Okay. It's okay to be open. For many people in the modern world, God is somewhere else, generally with a long beard on a cloud. Right? And he was quite grumpy until Jesus came. Absolutely. And I, you know, when I was a kid, my version was he was, he was on a cloud, long beard, white robes, and had a big black book and it was like when he opened it it was like the pages even had like sort of yes and so this god is somewhere else and then from time to time like people say i think god showed up yeah so apparently comes here from time to time yeah by the way i don't think god shows up i think we do oh i do too high five um so this framework then however helpful it may be raises a thousand and questions because my friend just died of cancer.

11:04And what about the Holocaust? Because it would have been really nice to show up then. So you end up with a God, what it does in a far more subtle way is that this world can go on just fine. And that God becomes essentially optional. We then now have - Who drops in every now and then. Exactly. So then you have pamphlets and you have this whole thing called apologetics, which is I'm going to prove to you that that God even exists, even though life goes on just fine here. So what's fascinating is the ancient Hebrews had this word Ruah, which they spoke of the life force that surges through all things.

11:37So it's the word in the very beginning of Genesis 1, like this, the spirit hovering. But for many people in our world, spirit is that which is less real. You know what I mean? Oh, it's spiritual, which means there's sort of like jeans and shoes and plastic and porches. And then there's this other realm, sort of less real. We even do this up. Yeah. Right. There's this stuff here. Yeah. And then there's. And then there's. Yeah. Then the discussion becomes something far more different because we've all experienced that. I simply want to give the name God to that. So the person who says, oh, I don't know if I believe in God, but were you there in the hospital when your kid was born?

12:16Well, what else was that? Could the word life be another word for God? Yeah. Yeah. You could exchange the words. Yes, exactly. What I'm trying to do in the book is simply move a person's conception from somewhere out here, optional, to the very thing we're all plugged into. That we're experiencing the presence of in every single day, all the time. All the time, all around us. Yeah. And so then as a human, the art of it then is being awake and open and aware and sensitive to this presence right here and now in suffering and joy, in meeting a stranger and however it works. Okay. So that's what I mean by with.

12:54With us. Yes. And now for us. For us is about human flourishing. When you hear the word God, do you think God wants us to flourish, to get along, for there to be peace on earth, for there to be better art and more great food? And does God want us to take the best possible care of the earth? And I believe at the heart of the Christian story is the God who comes among us because this God wants us to flourish. wants us to shine. Jesus even talks about shining like stars in the universe. My experience has been as a pastor, lots of people, when they start talking about spiritual things, somewhere in there is the God who's against us, who's mad, angry, and I'm trying to recapture, no, for you.

13:41Wants you to thrive, wants you to work through all your stuff, wants you to be healed in the sense of like figuring out your past and figuring out your addictions and all the stuff we all sort of stumble through life carrying around. So God is for humans flourishing. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And on earth is where it matters. On earth. Like when Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray, God, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So when he's teaching them, he's not saying, okay, here's the deal. I'm going to tell you what you need to do so you can get out of here someday. He's telling them what it looks like for this place to be more and more the place God Yeah.

14:21The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Here. Right here. Now. Now. This place. This place. So this is not an evacuation theology that is about, I like that. Here's what you do to evacuate. Get out of here. To get out of here, to get beamed up. Yeah. And I think when it comes to spirituality, this is the, for many people, like the missing piece. I'm not talking about sort of esoteric ideas about maybe someday when you die, you can get the proper sort of Ferrari on gold streets. Yeah. I'm talking about what happens when you experience right here, right now, a quality of life that is earth and heaven coming together in this place right here.

15:00We even talk about heaven on earth. We sort of joke about that. But that's what he teaches us to do. Like when you forgive somebody, when you are generous, when you withhold judgment and you love, that's when you stand up for injustice. You are, in that moment, bringing heaven to earth. My understanding of God is the one who's way ahead, pulling us all forward into a better future. Peace, justice, beauty, love, equality. That God is actually ahead. And that a promise is essentially a statement about that which is not yet true. And so my experience has been for lots of people. this turns the whole discussion around.

15:48This is when I knew you were a different kind of preacher. You were passing out Eckhart Tolle books in your church 10 years ago. So you're a fan of Eckhart Tolle and the power of now. What do you think is the connection between God and the present moment? That that's what we have. That's what we have. and that we burn an extraordinary amount of energies on our regrets of past or our stresses about where it's going to go. And what we really have is right now and this moment. Didn't you have a big moment about a big aha about present moment living after having a concussion? Yes. This was the summer of 2000, and I was really into water skiing and specifically trying to do a backflip.

16:39And I had done like 20 in a row, and I landed on my head each time. And I got in the boat, and I don't remember it from there on, but someone apparently asked me what day it was, and I was like, I have no idea. And so I had basically like a concussion, like a football player would have. But what it did is my brain could only do this moment. I'm talking to Oprah right now, and she's wearing a turquoise shirt. Yes. And I think she's cold from the wind and would like a shawl. But other than that... Yes, I would. Could I have a shawl, please? How'd you know? Just a feeling. Okay. But it was weird because the brain is only working that speed.

17:16Yeah. And, like, the past and the present... Thank you, shawl giver. Man. The choreography was outstanding. Asked it is given, let me tell you. And it's just the color I was looking for, too. Thank you. But I could, like... It sounds so funny to talk about, but, like, my kids would walk in the room and I would like tear up at how beautiful they are. Because I could see... This was because of the concussion? I could see... The brain could only handle exactly what was present. In the moment. The most simple things and the most simple gestures and it was literally like overwhelmingly beautiful. Now, isn't that interesting that we have to be...

17:50That you had to be... Disruption. And most of us have to be disrupted and literally hit over the head to get that. Yeah, yeah. And often, don't you think that's what crises and challenge and difficult... It's to focus you into the present moment so that you can live more fully with greater intention. Whenever I meet people who seem to be more wide awake than others, I always ask, when did you suffer? Just the other day I was in Denver and met this guy who's like 58, 60 and had this joy. And I asked one of the people who worked for him, what's his story? and they're like, oh, in his 30s he had a total meltdown and lost it all and, you know, ended up, like, by the side of the road.

18:34Like, literally just, I have nothing. Yeah. He knows how it can all pass in a moment. Yeah. There's nothing left but joy. That's how it works. And you know how to go to that joy place and you know how to live more with a greater sense of presence of mind and intention when you've been through something. Yeah. That's what all that something is to teach you. There was a line in here, and I made so many notes in the books that I might as well, I forgot where my most important notes were. But where it just struck me, it just struck me when you said a lot of people are always reaching for their spiritual life.

19:07They're always saying, oh, you know, when I'm working on my spirituality, I'm working on my spiritual life. And you said it so succinctly that there is no separation. What in the world? You're always. Yeah, everything is spiritual. Everything is spiritual. Yeah, yeah. And you're always living your spiritual life. Yeah. It's whether you observe it or not. It's what you were saying earlier about God. God's always there. And, you know, God's just waiting for us to wake up and see it. Hey, I'm here. They'll be like, well, I have my spiritual life. Then I have my work and I have my relationships and I have the things I do to sort of...

19:37Wait, wait, wait, wait. What about that? You say we live in a light world where so many things don't matter that it's easy to become numb. I think that's why so many people feel so disconnected. You know, I just met a guy who cleans houses for a living. and we're just chatting because we have like a mutual friend and I said well so you clean tell me more about that and he says people allow me into their homes to bring order and cleanliness and I was like wow you take this really seriously he's like oh the fact that people would allow me into their most intimate spaces so that I could help a family bring order and beauty and cleanliness to their home so that they could have this kind of place to come home to.

20:21This is somebody who's figured it out. I was like, they must be so lucky to have you cleaning their house. He's like, I'm the one who's blessed. Now, see, that's so interesting because I was just saying this to my hairdresser, Andre. You've seen him come out here many times already. Hi, Andre. Hi, Andre. Andre and I were talking about calling yesterday. And I said to Andre, Andre, what do you think your true calling is? And he goes, I don't know. Something like that. He didn't know what his true calling is. I go, of course you know what your true calling is. And he was saying, well, I don't know.

20:49Well, can you change callings? I say, it looks like you're a hairdresser, because he's done my hair now for 30 years. 30. 30 years. And I still have hair. That's a big compliment. So I said, no, it's not just doing hair. You are about the enhancement of beauty. That's what you do. You bring an enhancement of beauty, which you use the tools of the trade are your blow dryer and your curlers and all that stuff but so for that guy who cleans people's houses to say that i bring order and beauty and that's exactly right that's that's why people get so messed up with the calling they think the calling has to be some big i am called right moses in the burning bush and god is speaking to me and i must you know, do something with my life.

21:40Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Well said. What's going to be great is people think differently about what the physical job is versus what you really do. You know, like, for instance, I am on television. I have a job working on television and have had since I was 19 years old. But a long time ago, I got that it wasn't just about working on television. It was about using television to inspire people. Yeah. That's what I do. Yeah. There's a moment when they realize, hey, wait, this is TV, but it's more than TV. Yeah. This is cleaning houses. But it's more than cleaning houses. What we talk about when we talk about God, page 123, you say, you can be very religious and invoke the name of God and be able to quote lots of verses, be well-versed in complicated theological systems, and yet not be a person who sees.

22:30Yeah. It's one thing to have your head filled with all of the proper, whatever thinking, whatever you were told was the right doctrine, or whatever you told was orthodox, or whatever you told you're in and everybody else is out, whatever that. But it's another thing to be sitting there with somebody and you're listening to them, and you realize this person has more to teach me than every book I've read. Yeah. You know what I mean? Seeing is different. It's a different set of muscles. It's to, I mean, this environment here is, I mean, this is stunning and beautiful, and lots of people would go, wow.

23:04But it's in moments that are darker and in uglier environments to still see that little piece of light. Like, that's the task. Yeah. This is my favorite, actually. This is really the essence of what the book is talking about. You say, when we talk about God, page 121, we're talking about that sense you have, however stifled, faint, or repressed it is, that hope is real, that things are headed somewhere, and that that somewhere is good. Yeah. You believe that? Yeah. You believe we, as a culture, as a society, as a world, Right. are ultimately headed somewhere that is good? Okay, I went to the TED conference last year.

23:55Yeah. They had asked how many people are religious, and a friend of mine was a guest, was 2 % of the people raised their hands. A couple days later, a guy named Brian Stevenson talked. He's this lawyer. He works in the South with young men who have sort of been on the wrong end of the justice system. And he gave this talk about justice. At the end, he quoted Martin Luther King, who was quoting someone else. And he finishes with this, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. And they give him a standing ovation. Yeah. So this is sort of the nexus of technology and design and education and innovation.

24:24This is the crowd. Yes. And 2 % would say, yeah, I'm religious. and yet a guy talks about the moral arc of the universe and they go, yes, yes. It's almost like there's an intuitive, if I give up on the most basic impulse I have that there's some point, I kind of, what is left? So I just find it fascinating that you would have - Yes, people just don't call it religion. Yeah, exactly. You're talking about the moral arc of the universe bending towards justice. That is what your spiritual life, life, your life, is supposed to be about. It is this sense that, that don't tell me the best days. There, there is something within me that tells me there's a reason to keep going.

25:08Even if that's the, even if that's all you have, you have something that's, you have something pretty big there. Yeah. And that's overwhelming. So now you want to use your ministry, your life, your work, your next chapter to do specifically what? I want more people to have a sense that they are loved, that the grace of God is real and it's for them, and that when Jesus talked about eternal life, a certain kind of life that you can have in relationship with God now, that people would taste that and in response to that gift say, well what can I do and find their calling find the thing that gets them up in the morning find the work the task the art that leaves them saying man I could do this forever that's what I love I love to see that moment I love to see that moment isn't that our true calling isn't that our true calling is to find what the purpose is and then be about the work of doing that yeah yeah and when When you see someone who's had that experience, it's unbelievably inspiring.

26:21We have this crisis of wonder. We have the modern world. We have everything we ever needed, and yet people are more bored than ever. And sort of pulling back all those layers. I know. That's why when you said that, when you said that, I just interrupted. I didn't mean to. But when you said, I'm not worried about success. I'm not as worried about success. Yeah. I didn't ask for success. I asked for wonder. Asked for wonder. It just struck me because, wow. That's the thing. Isn't that what we all want? Yeah. A little bit of that going on. Yeah. It's waking up and going, guess what we get to do today?

26:52Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I do know what you mean. I feel good about today. And you celebrate all that, and it was thrilling, and it was great, and you got to be a part of that, and it's overwhelming that your life could be this amazing. Yeah. But you still have to wake up today, and if you don't have a sense of, all right, let's see what this brings. Yeah. Then what is it? Yeah, yeah. What are you doing? Yeah. What are you doing? Yeah. And that's what you want for people. Yeah. Yeah. What is the soul? it's the thing that keeps telling you there's more there's more there's more this isn't just a meal this isn't just a person isn't just an embrace this isn't just an interview there's more yeah there's more your definition of god like a song you hear another room and you think boy that sounds beautiful but i only can hear a little bit so you start opening doors and rearranging furniture because you have to get in that room to hear that song when you get in you find the knobs and you turn them all to the right because you're like, I got to hear more of that.

27:44And then you open the windows because you want the people in the next houses to hear it. What's the difference between religion and spirituality? Or is there a difference? Well, you know, some say that religion is people don't want to go to hell and spirituality is people who've been to hell already. Religion should be the structures, the prayer tables, the things that you do in the course. It should help you. It should cultivate. It should be the practices. It should be the symbols. It should be the rituals that cultivate your sense that there's more. What does prayer mean to you? Prayer to me is usually one word, which is yes.

28:23Yes. I'm open. What's next? That's what it is. What is the lesson it's taken you the longest to learn? That there's nothing to prove. Because you're young and you start out and you're like, look at me, I can work harder, I can work faster, I'm smarter, look at me, respect, everybody understand what I'm, and then later you realize there's nothing to prove anymore. All that's left to do is enjoy. What do you think happens when we die?

28:58I think there's a ton of... Oh. No. Because there's all these people that have gone before you. And some people say, well, then you meet God. I think, yeah, but I never met my grandpa on my dad's side. So actually, when I think of, like, dying, I think of I'll get to meet Preston. That's actually what I think of first. I don't think of sort of gold and a throne and, like, a hello, Rob, well done. You're strange, but I like you anyway. I don't think of that. I think of, like, my grandpa that I never met. To be honest. And, like, heritage and family bloodline. All of them who came before you? Yeah, I somehow think of flesh and blood.

29:42I think of, like... You think you're going to see them? People I've heard about. I do, actually. And will they be in flesh and blood? Maybe at some point we're known for our essence and whatever that looks like or feels like. What do you know for sure? That you can say yes to this moment and experience a joy that can't be put into words. That is actually possible. I know that for sure. The world needs... Finish that sentence. The world needs... All of us to wake up. I believe. That we're going to be fine. I really do. Heaven is? Here and now and then and there and at hand and among us and upon us and available and real.

30:39God is? Oh, love. Stick to that one. God is love. Yeah. My favorite thing to do on Sunday morning is? um my 13 year old son and i will often go surfing and we'll be sitting it will be sitting in the water and it's quiet and sometimes a dolphin will go by and we'll talk and it's perfect perfect yeah thank you oh so wonderful we did it I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation.

31:41Thank you for listening.