Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Cover Image May Vary)

This book causes you to think. I highly recommend reading this book with the Bible in hand to investigate what is said is true. There are some good challenging points and other questionable ones. This requires discernment by the reader.

A very provocative book. Rob has some interesting things to say and many valid points. Yet, in his desire to reach our postmodern society, he comes off as writing in a deliberately ambiguous manner on some major issues. This lack of forthrightness frustrates me no end. Perhaps its me being picky, but read it for yourself and see.

My mother taught me that if you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all. If I were to follow her advice, my review would consist of the following line: "I believe that Rob Bell is well-intentioned in writing this book." Fortunately, I don't *always* listen to my mother.

Bell's argument - that we need to "repaint" the Christian faith and "rediscover" Christianity because it is *only* effective when it is "listening, morphing" and in tune with the times - is admittedly pragmatic, but not consistent with Scripture. In particular, Bell errs in the following areas:

- a reduction of the Bible from Truth to metaphor. While he calls Scripture "amazing, beautiful, deep", he never once uses its key attribute, true. He never raises Scripture above an "engaging collection of writings" and even cynically asks, "is the Bible the best God can do?" As a result of his lack of belief in the authoritative nature of Scripture, the Bible is no longer seen as a factual revelation of God's acts... instead, it is to be used as a metaphor to help us understand our own experiences. This doesn't square with how the Bible represents itself, however. It is not *our* story that is crucial, but *HIS* story. There is much more here, but I've promised myself to keep this review... if not short, at least shortER.

- his view of doctrine is skewed. As a typical postmodern, Bell emphasizes doubt and mystery as keys to the genuine Christian experience, labeling any concrete doctrinal proposition (no matter how well-grounded in Scripture) "bricks" that hinder one's faith. This, however, moves the focus or object of one's faith from it's *objective* content - Christ's life, crucifixion and resurrection - to a *subjective* individual experience of faith, one which easily changes with life's circumstances.

- his understanding of sin is woefully underwhelming. Bell's "confession" was that he failed in the "relentless pursuit of who God" made him to be, after defining this as his calling. Bell here is simply legitimizing our current cultural morality - one in which the biggest "sin" is to fail to be true to ourselves. However, even a cursory glance at Scripture would reveal that sin is far more serious and pervasive than this superficial analysis.

- he promotes an unbiblical view of the atonement. Not surprisingly, since he clearly fails to understand sin, Bell claims that everyone is *already* loved by God as a reconciled, forgiven sinner. This universalist approach to the atonement is utterly inconsistent with Scripture; this isn't some minor doctrinal error. See John 3:36, Acts 2:37-38, 2 Cor. 5:20, Rom. 2:5, Acts 7, etc., etc. This viewpoint is terribly dangerous for the church, as it would remove any reason to evangelize or send missionaries to preach the Gospel... after all, according to Bell, we're already saved from God's wrath.

- he has an odd belief in God's faith in man. Continuing on his man-centered gospel (little 'g'), Bell goes so far as to claim that Jesus chose His disciples because He believed in their innate abilities. When Peter attempts to walk on the water, and meets with limited success before he goes under, Bell claims that it's because Peter lost faith in *himself*! Bell goes on to say that "I've been told I need to believe in Jesus.... But what I'm learning is that Jesus believes in me.... God has faith in me." This is a dangerous misinterpretation of the relationship between God and man as revealed in Scripture. When the gospel becomes the message of God coming to earth and dying on the cross to help mankind realize how great we really are, something is *deeply* wrong.

I apologize for the lengthy nature of this review, but there's truly that much - and more - wrong with Bell's postmodern spin on Christianity. The "gospel" that Bell teaches here is totally unrecognizable from the one clearly laid out in Scripture. I would remind Bell of Paul's admonition in Galatians 1:8-9...

{EDIT} Wow... I can't even begin to describe my sorrow in reading other people's comments about this book. I'm not some old, stuffy, theology professor who won't stand for new-fangled thought. I'm a young(ish) guy who simply took a few minutes (okay, hours) to compare what Bell said with Scripture itself. As Christians, we can't simply just accept what other people say at face-value... our faith is far too valuable to water down like this. We are to test it against Scripture; and Bell's book fails this test miserably.

Rob Bell caters to a world so hungry for metaphors and comparisons...and takes no shame in doing so. I believe his integrity and raw belief make this book a wonderful take on Christianity. He forces no one to believe how he does. He condemns no one for having a different faith. I believe he is reaching for society as a whole, not simply postmodern. Provocative, refreshing, and a genuine look at the Christian faith.

Rob Bell cleverly manages to cast doubt on and question the neccessity of many of the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity including the virgin birth, Christs death and resurrection, having a personal relationship with Christ, and even Heaven and Hell, all while professing to be part of "this tradition" and believe these things. I do not believe he is saved. I believe his testimony about his breakdown speaks to just this. I believe he was never given over to Christ but in the cultural-traditional sense and he met with an impass where he was uncomfortable with the separation between the saved and the lost. He was to renounce the faith or submit to God's Word and so he decided to create a third option: Repainting the Chrisitan faith.

He starts be insisting that hell was nothing more than a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem, then continues to reduce God to "a feeling of love for each other" between an engaged couple who specifically asked him to perform a "spiritual" wedding without mentioning God, the Bible, or anything Christian. (BARF) He continues to adopt the Roman Catholic idea that "binding and loosing" authority which Jesus gives his Apostles is to continually change and reinterpret what the scriptures mean to suit whatever agenda they feel so inclined to adopt. (By using as example the same legal manipulation of scripture that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees.) He then suggests that we should learn to think like a first century Jew...(the one's who rejected Christ en masse) in order to REALLY understand what Christ was trying to say. Did I miss anything?

Yeah, just listen to any of his sermons or videos. It all sounds good to the untrained ear except for a couple pervasive concepts. The constant reminder of Christ "restoring all things" which he seems to take literally and the constant absense of a "coming judgment" which he seems to want to psychologize. The man referrs to the Lord as "this Jesus" every time, without exception, as if He is some unknown person he is analyzing. Yet he refers to the Dalai Lama as "His Holiness" and goes on like a school girl with a crush about how inspiring it was to be in his presense.

Is that an alarm going off? Maybe its time to wake up.

I was utterly disappointed. I have marked my copy all to pieces (and since I borrowed it, I guess I will be replacing it now...)
Rob Bell is compromising. Human understanding should never be more important than the truth of the Bible and what God has laid out for us. The Bible is ALWAYS ENOUGH Rob. Always. Shame on you.

A mixed bag. He has a few really good insights and very helpful thoughts on the nature of the Christian life tossed in with a lot of really vague/bad/dangerous theology. I applaud his focus on how the Christian life should be lived, but while talking about what should be the effects of Christianity he misses the heart of Christianity: The Gospel that Christ died on a Cross to save sinners from the punishment of sin. Read with discernment. The more I find out the less I like this book.

Yes, an amazing book. I wish this had been written 20 years ago (and that I had read it then) and maybe I wouldn't have wasted so much time with frivolous churchy activities.

I started reading this book completely sure that I was against the emergent church's teachings and its leaders, i.e. Rob Bell. With a healthy skepticism, I went through the book over the course of a few weeks looking up Scripture, jotting down my thoughts, and sipping a warm caramel macchiato as I went. At the end of each chapter, I found myself more and more confused as to why so many of the church leaders and family members I had talked to were so adamantly opposed to emergent theology. Although some of his thoughts are questionable, that's exactly what was so great about the book.

One of Bell's main points, which others have commented on quite thoroughly, is that our faith is meant to be questioned. At one point, he says something like 'doctrines are great servants but horrible masters.' As humble followers of Christ, we need to be able to say that we do not have all the answers, and what we believe is always up for discussion. We should not blindly accept what we have heard for centuries. The life of a Christian is one of continual intellectual and spiritual growth, and when we lose the ability to question and discuss our beliefs, I believe that growth is stunted.

I liked how Bell discusses faith in terms of the trampoline and the brick building. The brick building is a faith built upon separate pieces of doctrine where if one brick is removed, a person's entire faith comes into question. The other picture is that of a trampoline, where there is faith involved, but it is more of an issue of inviting other along for the fun. It's about the questions and the journey, as opposed to the arrival and the brick building. I liked this analogy and thought it was helpful in thinking of how faith plays itself out.