Email-Robatnooma
From Virtue
[edit] Email from rob@nooma.com
- See Puzzles/Endnotes
(line breaks retained)
From: rob@nooma.com (Rob Bell)
- A student at a Christian college recently told me
- that his theology professor's answers to his
- questions about God and Jesus and the Bible
- actually turned him away from the Christian faith...
- I find this fascinating. How is it that people
- who really do want to speak for God can end
- up leading people to be less interested in
- their god...Jesus referred to some of the
- religious leaders of his day as "hypocrites,"
- which was actually a Greek theatre term.
- (How did Jesus know so much about the
- theatre? Did he attend plays?) The word is a
- reference to an actor who would take the
- stake holding a mask to his face, pretending
- to be somebody he's not. Jesus was very
- aware of the dark side of religion—that
- lamentable scene you find yourselves
- in when the Spirit, like Elvis, has left
- the building.
- I think this truth about the dark side of
- religion is alive and well today, specifically
- in regards to a group like "Citizens of Virtue."
- I'd say they got the first part right. They're citizens,
- which means they have a responsibility to behave morally.
- But the last part—the Virtue part—that's where
- things get dodgy. They embrace words like Kindness and
- Charity and Temperance, but every move they make
- reinforces the corresponding cardinal sin. They have a
- new campaign called the Seven Virtual Virtues. They're
- Virtual, all right—"Virtual," as in, "not quite real."
- They don't act—they play-act. Jesus talked about this.
- From what I've been told, there are seven people inside the Citizens
- of Virtue that desperately want to get out. They only know
- each other as The Seven. Each has contacted me in some way,
- but I'm not able to help them directly for fear of causing
- them harm. I need your help to get them out, and together
- we can carefully undermine the Citizens' efforts. I don't
- know them by name, except for one. The Citizens of Virtue
- have been listening and watching and throwing stones
- at me for a while now, but they aren't watching you. Not yet, anyway.
- At http://www.jesuswantstosavechristians.com, there's a way in.
- It's a small way, but sometimes the biggest help comes from
- the smallest of moves, doesn't it?
- You can help The Seven.
- You can stop the Citizens of Virtue.
- You can save someone today.
- And in the process,
- you just might save yourself.
- rob