Velvet Elvis

The following is a letter to my pastor, who several years ago gave me a copy of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis. We'd had a few conversations about the Emergent Church and he was interested in my take on Bell's book.

Hi ___. After about 5 years or so I've finally finished Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis. Since you went to the trouble of buying it for me I figure I might as well go to the trouble of telling you what I think. Because you know how hard I find it to share my opinion about anything.

Rob Bell strikes me as a great guy. It's clear he loves Jesus and he loves people. He has a sincere desire to see the hurt and broken find restoration in Jesus. As you might imagine I have problems with some of his theology. I'll just try to hit a few key points:

Bell has a real problem with this or that person or denomination saying they have a "definitive" understanding of the Bible. Which is all well and good, if any of us claim to have a pure revelation of what God would communicate to us, we might as well write it down and tack it on to the end of the Bible. But Bell takes this to the extreme of almost saying it's impossible to really understand God's word. As he puts it "only God is absolute, and he has no intention of sharing his absoluteness with anyone." (Really? Does that include things like truth?) He calls the Christian faith a "paradox" to which we "never come to the end," (really? Not even in Heaven?) and goes so far as to quote "one of the great theologians of our time, Sean Penn," who said "the mystery is the truth." (in response, I quote the great theologian Me, who said, "what the flipping flarn is that supposed to mean?") The amalgamation of truth, and thus, the principles of our theology, should not be thought of as "bricks," which are static and inflexible and rough and which together form a wall to keep people out; but as "springs" on a trampoline, which are pliable and flexible and change, and which invite us to jump on the trampoline of faith to which they are attached.

Of course my immediate response to this is, when it comes to one's theology, how stretchy is too stretchy? Can we make God into a woman? Can we make the Trinity a quartet? After all, if only God is absolute, and if he's not going to share his absoluteness with anyone, let's have some fun with our theology, because, you know, it's all relative.

Also, Bell wants to have his cake and eat it too with this. After waxing ecstatic about his happy stretchy laughy taffy theology, he writes things like:

"But sometimes when I hear people quote the Bible, I just want to throw up."

And: "Sometimes when people are backing up their points and the Bible is used to prove that they are right, everything within me says "There is no way that's what God meant by that verse."

Now hold on a minute there, Tex. Don't go lobbing bricks at other people's trampolines. After all, as you say,"God has spoken, and the rest is commentary."

Well, if the "mystery is the truth," and we therefore can't really figure out which ways to interpret scripture are the right ways or the wrong ways (except those ways that Rob KNOWS are wrong. Trust him. He's a pastor.), where do we go from there?

Well, this brings us to the second point about Bell's theology that I'm not so wild about: he doesn't seem to leave enough room for God to help us not screw it up, and grants too much room for human beings working together to come to the right conclusions. Here's another excerpt:

"Notice what Jesus says in the book of Matthew: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth with be loosed in heaven."

"What he is doing here is significant. He is giving his followers the authority to make new interpretations of the Bible. He is giving them permission to say 'Hey, we think we missed it before on that verse, and we've recently come to the conclusion that this is what it actually means."

"And not only is he giving them authority, but ...somehow God in heaven will be involved."

Now to be fair, Bell at least allows God to be "involved" in this. But [in this passage] Jesus was not giving "his followers", i.e., every Christian everywhere, this special authority (whatever in fact this "binding and loosing" is referring to). No, Jesus gives this authority to one person in particular: Peter, the person to whom he is speaking in the quote. Jesus gave Peter the revelation of God to write things that we now identify as scripture. Is Rob Bell saying that we have all been given this authority?

He doesn't go that far. But he spends a long time talking about this "binding and loosing" thing, suggesting, as in the quote above, that Jesus gives "his followers the authority to make new interpretations of the Bible." Does this make you a little leery? It does me. How do we prevent Christians from taking scripture and riding a one-way train to crazy town? Why, through other flawed human beings holding each other accountable, of course. Bell says this about the early church: "They gather together and make interpretations of the Bible regarding what it will look like for millions of people to be Christians."

Um, I thought, like, the early church was led by these apostle dudes, who had, like, the direct revelation of the Holy Spirit, and um, like, wrote things that weren't interpretations of scripture, but the scriptures themselves? Or something?

Oh well, at least we know that "somehow God will be involved." What's the worst that could happen? David Koresh? Who's that?

I jest a bit and he does say in other places in the book that he affirms that the Bible is "inspired" (no potential ambiguity in that term). But I'm disturbed that so much of Bell's theology rests on a bunch of humans rolling the dice and using their best guesses as they blindly cobble together this thing called Christianity, as opposed to the providence of God enabling them to work alongside God as God brings about what God wants. Bell has an extraordinarily high view of humanity and portrays a very laid-back God--indeed a God of borderline deism, who "has spoken," but has stepped back to allow his people to provide "commentary."

Consider this: " What do we find frustrates [Jesus] to no end? When his disciples lose faith in themselves... Notice how many places Jesus gets frustrated with his disciples. Because they are incapable? No, because of how capable they are...It isn't their failure that's the problem, it's their greatness."

Silly me, I thought Jesus got miffed when they lost faith in him, not themselves.

And this: "Jesus himself leaves the future of the movement in their hands. And he doesn't stick around to make sure they don't screw it up. He's gone."

Maybe it's my increasing lurch toward Calvinism, but I find that this is a borderline blasphemous statement about God's sovereignty. Jesus hasn't left anything in their hands, at least not exclusively. He is in control, right now.

Lastly I guess I'm concerned by Bell's apparent lack of concern for the lost. Bell is very concerned with loving people and introducing them to the love of Christ. He doesn't seem so concerned with whether they make it into the kingdom of Heaven or not. To his credit, he talks about sin, about the atonement of the cross, about hell. But he doesn't make much distinction between what he calls "hell on earth" and Hell in the eternal sense:

"The church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in the categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the "un" and "non," they work against Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other." How does that follow, exactly? How does recognizing that some people are saved and some are not translate AT ALL into how we are supposed to treat people? Are we to love the lost any less? Don't remember reading that. This is a complete straw man. As to the notion of being "offensive." Do people who are not Christians, get offended when identified as non Christians? Is that a pejorative somehow? Does the driver of a Chevy Impala get offended when you point out that their car is not a Buick Sable? If Bell is talking about screaming "sinner!" at people of course I agree with him, but who does that anymore? Can we let that hackneyed stereotype go? Can we recognize that it's actually a good thing to want people to be saved, in fact that it is very loving thing?

Apparently not, for about evangelism, he says "when there is an agenda, it isn't really love, is it?" To which I respond, so I didn't love ____ when I set out to win her as my wife? Of course love has an agenda. And furthermore, I say Rob Bell is a liar, [because he does have an agenda:]if Rob Bell doesn't have an agenda on Sunday morning, namely, to draw people into a deeper relationship with God, then I say Rob Bell is unloving.

Then there's this: "What's disturbing is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about hell here and now." he refers to a genocide in Rwanda as "A hell on earth." I don't want to diminish the dreadfulness of any human suffering, ever. But quite frankly, the worst day humanity has ever had is nothing compared to an eternity removed from the presence of God. Genocide doesn't even come close. I get it that Rob Bell has a passion for people, I really do. I'm shamed by my own lack of compassion in comparison. But this theology runs the risk, if I may turn a phrase, of being "so earthly minded that it's of no heavenly good." Bell makes it clear that he isn't interested in people being saved so much as loved (again, he's the one who says we have to stop thinking about people as "saved or not") and I'm afraid he's loving people right into hell.

Aaand, I'm just throwing this one in as a parting shot. I'm sorry. I'm a weak man. Here's Bell's definition of a Christian:

"My understanding is that to be a Christian is to do whatever it is that you do with great passion and devotion."

Really? What if you're a prostitute?

Let me know what you think. If I sound acerbic please understand that I'm attacking the man's ideas and not the man. Rob Bell comes across like a great guy and if met him I'm sure I'd like him a lot and want to hang around him. I know he's an old acquaintance of yours so I hope you realize this is nothing personal.

I guess in closing, I'll say, I know you mentioned that the [my church] uses some of Bell's resources for small groups, and I have to say that having read this book, it bugs me. Not a whole heck of a lot, but some. However, if ____ and ____ chose to embrace Bell's theology on Sunday morning, I think that would probably prompt us to find a new church.

Take care.