So what should we make of this book generally and the trajectory of Rob Bell’s ministry specifically? Are we just shortsighted, unable to see how this book is really a super-missional missive written from the frontlines to dislodge comfy Christians entrenched in the church? I don’t think so. There’s no bad news in zimzum, so no gospel is needed. This notable absence illustrates the plight of the postmodern, post-Christian pastor. When the Bible is pitched overboard, the gospel is capsized too. In this book the Bells have set the Bible bar so low that almost any religion could clear it and any spiritual leader applaud it. I’m certain many will. 

Rob and Kristen Bell. The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage. New York: HarperCollins, 2014. 160 pp. $24.99.

Let’s begin by giving Rob Bell his props. The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage (co-written with his wife, Kristen) is an innovative work. It’s hard to build a book around the word zimzum and not be tagged as racing down the road less traveled. Zimzum, by the way, is a Hebrew word unearthed by the Bells from some arcane rabbinic literature. “God had to contract or withdraw from a certain space so that something else, something other than God, could exist and thrive in that space,” they explain. “And the word a rabbi from the 16th century used for this divine contraction is zimzum” (18). They do not explain why God’s omnipresence is displaced by the things he created.

In marriage, zimzum is the space you create for your spouse to thrive. It releases energy “generating the flow that is the lifeblood of marriage” (19). If you want a strong marriage, you work to strengthen your zimzum and increase the energy flow between you and your spouse. Those with failing marriages have neglected their zimzum. Zimzum is innovative . . . in a somewhat mystical Jedi, “Use the force, Luke” kind of way.

Points for Style

As for style, the writing is simple, clear, and accessible—no small feat when dealing with the complexities of zimzum. The Bells prove adept at charting the space between couples as “responsive, dynamic, exclusive, and sacred”—ideas that shape the themes for chapters two to five. They write in a way that says, “We get you; we’ve been there!”—which helps explain the popular appeal of Rob’s writing. The Rob and Kristen, “he said, she said” dialogue stretching throughout the book is not merely a catchy literary device but a playful look at what appears to be a strong and commendable marriage. Useful handles such as “act in love, not fear” and “don’t let others into your exclusive space” ring with relevance, though sourced in zimzum rather than in Scripture.

If Love Wins raised the question “Is Rob Bell a universalist?” this work presses an even more troubling inquiry: “Has Rob Bell lost his Bible?” It’s a critical question for someone advertised on the dustcover as “one of the most influential Christian leaders in the country.” To measure him accurately against that endorsement, though, the reader must consider two related problems.

Novelty Problem

The book’s first sentence is, “We want to give you a new way of understanding marriage.” Quite a bold proposition: a new way of understanding marriage! The Bells have happened upon—and thoroughly embraced—a deep, transformational truth from a Jewish rabbi (who presumably rejects Jesus, the New Testament, and the mystery of marriage as revealed in Ephesians 5) that unlocks “the deeper mysteries of marriage” (viii). I lost count of the number of times the Bells used words like complex, mysterious, deep, and profound. The results are ideas so enigmatic, so shrouded in subjectivity, that meaning is obscured or, worse, entirely lost.

Jesus, by the way, is mentioned once (103).

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