Reinterpretation

I was listening yesterday to a podcast of a sermon from Rob Bell's church, Mars Hill in Michigan. I used to listen to these podcasts regularly but stopped after I made a conscious effort to move away from the emergent church movement, which I feel often misrepresents the Gospel.

However, after talking to one of the teens I work with and explaining that I didn't listen to them anymore (he does), he asked why. I honestly didn't have a good answer and so I decided to give them another chance.

The first podcast that  came to wasn't by Rob Bell himself, which was refreshing. The sermon by Kent Dobson ,was on the "Naked Bloody Guy" of Mark 5:1-20. This is a familiar story of a man who had been possessed by a multitude of demons, the encounter he has with Jesus and his freedom from that.

What frustrated me constantly in the course of this sermon was that Dobson seemed to be overly concerned with suggesting new interpretations for every aspect of the story. Many of these were a stretch and seemed to be based on massive assumptions.


In a story of demon possession, Dobson completely underplays the supernatural aspect and tries to reinterpret the story as a statement about the colonial oppresion of Rome. Thus when the demon replies to the question, "what is your name?" with the phrase "My name is Legion for we are many", the man is making a political statement about the military might of Rome and his forced isolation.


Eventually, the application of the sermon, based on Jesus' command to this man, was that it is our responsibility to share the story of what Jesus has done for us and the mercy he has shown us. Good application. Good point. Why though, was it necessary to focus on the military oppression of Rome which you have to dig and and add to the story to even find there?

This reinterpretation seems to a common feature in the teaching of emergent preaching, particularly in my experience in the teaching of Rob Bell. Almost every sermon I hear from him has a moment of 'you may think it means this, but I know it really means this'. In fact, at least in my group, I think this added a lot to his appeal. However, I think this obsession with new understandings moves the sermon away from the truth of scripture. If someone interprets scripture based on whatever new information he chooses, he can make it say almost anything. I believe for the most part, the best guide for reading scripture is itself.

Definitely, it's more then beneficial to be culturally aware of the original setting but come on; first look at what the passage itself says.