[be sure and read Part One before reading the following...]
Bell quotes a man giving a lecture on creation. At one point, the man says, “If you don’t believe that God created the world in six literal twenty-four hour days, then you are denying that Jesus ever died on the cross.” It’s a bizarre leap of logic….but he was serious.
For this man, his faith isn’t a trampoline; it’s a wall of bricks. Each of the beliefs for him is like an individual brick, stacked on top of another. If you pull one out, the whole thing starts to crumble. It appears to be strong and rigid, but if you begin to rethink even one brick, the whole thing may start to crumble.
The problem of living in Brickworld, is that a brick is a fixed size. It can’t flex or change because if it does, it can’t fit into the wall anymore. What happens is that the wall becomes the sum total of the beliefs, and God becomes as big as the wall. But God is bigger than any wall. Or religion. Or worldview. God is bigger than your and my understanding of the Christian faith.
For those of us living in Brickworld, our posture becomes pretty defensive. We spend a lot of time defending the wall and proving our bricks are the right ones. (You rarely defend a trampoline…you invite people to jump on it with you.)
Ever seen someone pull a picture of his wife/girlfriend/kids out of his wallet and begin to argue the supremacy of this particular loved one? Of course not. They simply show you and invite you to see what they already see.
[On a side note, Brickworld has a tendency to keep everyone out unless they have the right bricks. Maybe you've been outside the wall before, like I have, and you know what I'm talking about.]
Jesus? He invites everyone to jump. The least. The unlovely. The lepers and prostitutes. The struggling single Mom [or Dad]. The family who seems to have it all together, but really is just playing ‘church’.
Leave Brickworld. Shake the dust from your sandals.
And come jump with me.
