'Velvet Elvis' by Rob Bell
It's a while back now since I read this book.
I know it’s an odd title.
In fact there are a lot of odd things about it.
It’s got an odd cover, since you can choose for yourself which cover you buy: it’s got an odd layout: and it’s got some odd ideas as well, I suppose.
At least they can strike you as odd to start with. Mainly because you haven’t thought of things that way before.
But, odd or not, you need to read this book!
Not because it’s fast becoming a sort of ‘cult classic’ (which it probably is).
But because it’s a healthy and necessary corrective to what you always thought (and maybe feared) the whole business of being a Christian is about. Wrongly.
Yes, ‘wrongly’.
Most of us (self included) have a whole load of mixed-up notions as to what it is to be a follower of Jesus. Faithfully inherited, strongly held, fiercely defended.
But which miss the point with a frightening lack of accuracy.
So Velvet Elvis is, as I say, a healthy and refreshing corrective –
“for those,” as the writer says, “who need a fresh take on Jesus and what it means to live the kind of life he teaches us to live.”
The writer. Yes. I should tell you a bit about him.
He’s a down-to-earth pastor of a church called Mars Hill, in Michigan.
Now, I’m always a little bit wary of folk who are the pastors of some megachurch.
By and large, all such sort of superpastors just depress me. At least, their success stories do.
However, despite the fact the church he founded numbers now a good few thousand folk, this guy’s safe.
Because Rob Bell went out the back and simply killed superpastor!
Yes! Read it all for yourself and see. Like he says –
“I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head.
They have this person they’re convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them. ..
You have to kill your superwhatever.
And you have to do it right now.
Because your superwhatever will rob you of today and tomorrow and the next day until you take it out back and end its life.
Go do it.
The book will be here when you get back.”
This is the only serious Christian book that’s ever made me laugh, I have to say. Out loud!
And the only one that’s ever made the serious stuff of following Jesus Christ seem quite so simple, clear and workable: and so much fun!
Buy it for yourself. Or borrow it. I really don’t mind, just get a hold of it somehow yourself.
Then read it. It won’t take long.
You’ll laugh a lot. And you’ll learn a lot as well.
And I think you’ll start to live life more the way it’s meant to be.
posted by Jerry Middleton at 1:32 AM
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2 Comments:
I'm a bit surprised by this article. I recently read Rob Bell's book on the recommendation of some friends and found it extremely misleading.
It seems to me that Rob Bell has a talent for oversimplifying and telling half-truths. One example of this is where he says that Jesus died for humanity, and then goes on to say that the obvious corollory of this is that there are forgiven people in heaven and forgiven people in hell. This is clearly not scriptural - there are numerous places in the Bible where Paul (among others) states that God's wrath remains on the unrepentant.
Another example of a half-truth is where Bell references John Piper as advocating the view that its all about our happiness - all meaning life, the gospel, everything, apparently. However this is only the lesser half of what John Piper teaches (which is why Piper repudiates the reference). What John Piper says is that "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." That is a very different teaching because it places God's glory above (and not beside) our satisfaction. Rob Bell seems to have somehow missed this.
Now, the other main concern that I have is that Bell, in his attempt to "repaint the Christian faith", doesn't really give much space to the gospel. Rather he makes vague allusions to it here and there, leaving more room to the teaching of what is better described as an "ethic" - "living the way Jesus lived". Jesus was not primarily an example and to give this idea as much emphasis as Bell does is extremely misleading. If we merely try to copy Jesus with our lives, we are being legalists and our actions are abhorrent to God. So imitation of Christ needs to be grounded in the gospel of grace. Its just a pity that Bell didn't bother saying this.
On balance I found the book very unhelpful. The students I know who have read the book have definitely had a hard time with it. It has distorted perceptions and resulted in a lot of questionable doctrine that I think robs God of the glory he is due because of its man-centred preoccupations.
Any responses (especially from Rev. Middleton) would really be appreciated.
Many thanks for your extensive comments, which I've much appreciated.
There's a couple of things to say from the start.
The first is that it's a long time (as you can see) since I read the book, and wrote what I did (and, indeed, checked the blog myself for that matter - hence the delay in getting back to you!).
The second is that I read Rob Bell's book in a single sitting, and having read it again at a more leisurely pace since then, I've been able to take what I hope is a more considered view of the book: a view which I suspect is much more in line with your own.
Today, I think the only reason I'd suggest that a person read the book is to be familiar with it, insofar as it has become a bit of a cult classic.
At the first time of reading, I didn't agree with everything there at all - not by any means - but I did find it very stimulating, obliging me to think through lots of things in a fresh and challenging way. It seemed to me at the time that that sort of stimulus and the challenge involved in that would be a healthy sort of exercise for others, since the book is so easy to read.
On reflection, and with the benefit of a second and slower read of the book, I'm not quite so sure how healthy it actually is. Not least because Rob Bell does indeed have a real talent for putting things in an extremely simple and readable way - which ends up, as you rightly say, over-simplifying and effectively hiding the gospel by not revealing it all.
Thank you for what you've written. I think it needs to be said.
I was thinking only the other day that I must delete that post, but since you've posted your comments, I'll respond to them first and hope that you maybe pick up on them soon.
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