Conversation With Rob Bell, Part Two

Luke has posted Part Two of our conversation with Rob Bell over at his site Newsworthy with Norsworthy. If you missed it, Part One of the conversation is here.

In Part Two the topics shift to the theological notion of zimzum, which Rob and his wife Kristen used in their most recent book, Eucharistic theology and practice, and toward the end reflections on creativity and failure.

Again, it was a blast being with both Rob and Luke. Hope you enjoy the conversation.

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13 thoughts on “Conversation With Rob Bell, Part Two”

  1. The 10-15 minutes on the Eucharist was worth the rest of both episodes.

  2. Heads up, the link to Part One is actually linked to Part Two.

  3. It's grating to see "zimzum." It's not spelled with a zayin, but rather with a tzaddi, and not making that distinction turns the meaning into something resembling "evil-licentiousness." Umm ... I don't think that's what he had in mind. Even if his thesis is otherwise wonderful, it makes him look like an idiot to anyone at all Hebrew literate.

  4. I have to admit that my favorite part is Rob's riff on why I'm so successful:

    "If I ask Richard, 'Tell me how you got into this?' and he's like, 'Well, I was pretty sweet. Then I kicked some more ass. And then from there it was all up and to the right. Then there was some dominance. I had some serious game. Everyone knew it. I took it to the next level.'"

    Rob nailed it. That's been the secret to my blogging success. In a nutshell.

  5. Agreed. I was surprised with just how well Rob knew your career, but give the man his props because he was completely right.

  6. We need to get that riff printed up on a t-shirt. Some Newsworhy with Norsworthy swag:

    "I was pretty sweet. Then I kicked some more ass."

  7. I thought that was going to be the title of the Lifetime movie based off the life of Richard Beck?

  8. Yes! The word is tzimtzum, meaning contraction, specifically referring to God's contraction of divinity to make room for Creation. The problem is that we don't have the tz/ts sound in English. I suspect he's defaulted to the z of Italian - as in pizza - which is a correct pronunciation *in Italian.* Another way to express the pronunciation would have been to put a dot underneath the z ... but he didn't. It shows poor editing and/or shallow scholarship. The concept as applied to marriage or any other relationship is a valid metaphor. But the mis-transliteration ... grates. (I recommend reading anything by Danny Matt, especially "God and the Big Bang." Avoid everything by Philip Berg! Shallow pop magic.)

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