So it is time for me to put out a review for Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.
Rob Bell leads the Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids which should not be confused with the Mars Hill Church in Seattle where Mark Driscoll preaches. Although they both came out of the ‘emerging’ church stream they have since followed differing paths.
Rob is a highly articulate and intelligent man with a well respected ministry (at least with some elements of the global church). He has however come under attack from people like Mark Driscoll and others.
He is the brains behind the Nooma products which people either find helpful or annoying. I must admit the ones I have seen the later has been my opinion.
I was asked to read Velvet Elvis by a close friend of mine who had found the book challenging and insightful. He listens to a lot of Robs preaching and it is very helpful to him. I came to the book with concerns over the author having read a few things about him in the past and having consulting a few friends who’s opinions I trusted.
The big theme of Velvet Elvis is questioning. It is about questioning what we believe why we believe it how we out live what we believe and how we respond to our beliefs.
I found the book very challenging and I have learnt a lot from it. I disagree with Rob on a number of points but his aim to get people to think about what they believe etc is very important and we should not just learn thing by rote. He often uses examples of Rabbirric learning, for which some have criticised him, and applies them as to how we understand the scriptures. This I fully agree with, within this their lies a danger, especially for new or non trained / academic believers.
When we are young we are told lies by our teachers for example positive and negative, diagrams of how atoms make up etc. They are simplified so we can understand them, as you progress though you’re learning you are then told that the picture is wrong and that it is more like this…. The younger pupils cannot grasp the greater truth, at least not yet.
When we are young we sometimes need simple and black and white, and if we are taught properly over the years we expand our picture.
One of the sections most commented on is the picture early on of a trampoline. Rob says that the doctrines of the church are the springs and so what if you lose one of them as you can still jump with the rest. He uses the Virgin Birth as an example of this. I do not agree with him on this. For me the core orthodox doctrines, Virgin Birth, Atonement, trinity etc are the frame and the church practices are the springs, worship, communion, teaching, leadership, style, etc. Remove part of the frame and you no longer have a trampoline, remove on of the core doctrines and you lose Christianity and become a cult. It’s a small difference in some ways but a major one in others.
One section I struggled with was the following statement
‘Hell is full of forgiven people’ to me this does not make sense. If Father has forgiven them then why are they in hell suffering perpetual pain and fire? That would make him a cruel and unloving Father / God. Maybe my theology is out on this one I don’t know, but it does not look right to me. They had the chance of forgiveness then didn’t take it.
In another passage he states that
‘Jesus measures their eternal standings in terms of Not what they said or BELIEVED but how they lived, specifically in regards to the hell around them’ (emphasis added my me) Now I am conscious that I don’t want to take this out of context but this does sound more like salvation through works not through Grace and belief in Jesus. It’s a tricky statement to make and again leaves Rob open to misinterpretation. In view of the whole book I don’t think Rob means this but again it is a danger that someone might read this and say “well I just have to react well to the hell around me and I will get into the new heaven / earth.”
A final concern is a section where he says that where ever you find passion, love and exhilaration there you find Jesus, its way off the mark.
To say this, and the context was a ‘secular’ wedding, is so wrong. Before I became a Christian I was passionate about sex as often as possible with any girl that I could get off with, I still am passionate about sex but now only with my wife, drinking until I passed out, Punk music and getting into fights on a Friday night. Was Jesus there enjoying them with me? He was there but he was not enjoying them.
Anyway those were the few things I disagreed with. The majority of the book is excellent.
I did find Rob vague at times and difficult to pin down and I can see why this book has been lapped up by the younger (18 – 30) Christians, as it speaks to their generation.
It is not a book for the new convert or the immature believer as it may blow them apart. I would however recommend it for the mature Christian as there is a lot to learn from it.
As my mate Brian tells me eat the fruit and spit out the pips. That is what I have done with this book.
Oh and there was a lot more fruit than pips.
Thanks to Pete for recommending it to me.
Hi Alastair,
Interesting review, and a couple of things I think are worth mentioning!
First – the concept of ‘eat the fruit and spit out the pips’ is one I’m convinced Rob Bell would really approve of. He says that we have to think long and hard about things, ‘test it. Probe it. Do that to this book. Don’t swallow it uncritically.’ His mantra is ‘God has spoken, and the rest is commentary.’ So this is a debate he would enjoy!
The idea that ‘Hell is full of forgiven people’ is an interesting one. You state ‘If Father has forgiven them then why are they in hell suffering perpetual pain and fire? That would make him a cruel and unloving Father / God.’
But my understanding of this issue is a little different, and it is actually better expressed in the book ‘The Shack’. In this God explains that through the cross of Christ God is FULLY reconciled to the entire universe. He says that reconciliation is a two way process, through Christ God has completely done his bit. However, this isn’t some wishy-washy universalism, a lot of people refuse to be reconciled to God. These are those who sadly end up separated from God eternally. I can see sense in this and the idea that there are then forgiven people in Hell. But they didn’t want to spend eternity with God.
Also, in terms of the trampoline, I don’t think that you are very different from Rob on this subject, the difference is only what are the springs and what is the frame. Bell is also very clear that he does believe the virgin birth by the way. His issue is that if our faith is built around a set of indisputable ‘facts’ then it may turn out to be rather a brittle faith.
For example, at university I was told by a lecturer that there is no earthly way that there was even a city in existence at Jericho at the time of the conquest and biblical destruction of Jericho. If that were to be the case, and our faith is the brick wall that Bell contrasts the trampoline with, then due to a single ‘fact’ that has been allegedly disproved, the whole faith has the worrying potential to disintegrate.
I think the point is that if we know Jesus, then such things aren’t really the be all and end all. I share Bell’s orthodox view on both the Virgin Birth and the fall of Jericho, but his point is that if somehow someone could prove beyond doubt that an individual issue of the faith was wrong then the fact that we know Jesus would still mean that we keep our faith in him and don’t abandon Christianity because we were wrong on a point of Theology or History.
I can see the point that this maybe hard for new/immature Christian, but if people are within a decent community where these issues can be voiced and discussed and at least reasonably resolved, then this doesn’t need to be terminal for faith.
Thats more than enough from me, i’d be interested in anyone else’s thoughts.
Mike
Good comment Mike.
On the Virgin Birth I should have stressed that He says he does believe in it. It was remiss of me not to do so, thanks for pulling me up on it.