I’ve spent the last 10 months or so on a fiction binge.  I’ve been devouring Fantasy, Science Fiction and Western books like a box of donuts.  I was especially addicted to the books written by Robin Hobb.  Every book developed an excitement within me to read the next one.  The most recent book that she released was still in hardcover.  I bought it, read it, and set it down, reckoning the whole experience disappointing.  The last book stunk.  I’m glad it stunk.  I’m actually excited that it stunk.  My addiction was broken.  It was not only disappointing, it was glorious.

So, what to read next?  I’m already reading stuff that is not profitable.  Might as well take it up a notch and read something that could possibly be, moderately profitable.  There’s been a lot of discussion lately around the books:  The Shack, Velvet Elvis and even Blue Like Jazz (which has been out for quite some time now).  I decided to read these. A lot of pastors are abandoning the the hermeneutics and exegesis that they use in their study of the Bible to, in reference to these books, pronounce heresy.  These are the kind of things that bother me.

• Taking someone else’s word for it w/o question…
• Basing our opinions on isolated quotes…
• Casting judgment without reading….

So, I read through these books.  I found value in each one.  I found some questionable stuff in each one too.  Thing is, I wasn’t looking for dirt for the sole purpose of looking for dirt.  I didn’t read them from a predisposed disposition of disagreement.  I read them, extending grace..  the benefit of doubt.. hoping for the best..  -I found the best parts.

Rob Bell knows that his book is going to be contraversial.  He knows that his form of communication breaks the boundaries of normality.  This is why the back cover has this statement:

“We have to test everything.  I thank god for anybody anywhere who is pointing people to the mysteries of God.  But those people would all tell you to think long and hard about twhat they are saying and doing and creating.  Test it.  Probe it.  Do that to this book.  Don’t swallow it uncritically.  Think about it.  Wrestle with it.  Just because I’m a Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it nailed.  I’m contributing to the discussion.  God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?”

RB has been accused of not believing in the virgin birth of Christ.  Why?  Becuase he’s trying to make a point that has nothing to do with the virgin birth, and yet, people stop reading at page 26 without hearing his defense on page 27:

“I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth and the Trinity and the inspiration of the Bible and much more.  I’m a part of it, and I want to pass it on to the next generation…… “

The following sentence in the quote above raised my eyebrow:

I believe that God created everything and that Jesus is Lord, (so far so good… but, then…) and that God has plans to restore everything.

This is where people start having problems.  I’m not sure what RB means here.  Does this statement encompass: Hell, the Devil, the demons, those who rejected Christ?  Is this a statement that supports the accusation that RB is an Universalist?  Or, does this idea of restoration speak of God’s ultimate plan and the completion of it?  I’m not ready to pull RB into a witch trial just yet.  He just told me that he affirms the Christian faith.  That doesn’t include Universalism.  Later on, he’ll even speak of people being in Hell, so I’m not sure, with a statement like that, that a person can be a Universalist.

In contrast to those who expend all their energy defending one brand of faith over the other, Bell places his emphasis upon the “enjoying” or the “experiencing” of the faith.  The analogy is corny, but he uses a trampoline to explain it:  (pg. 27)

“I am far more interested in jumping than I am in arguing about whose trampoline is better.  You rarely defend the things you love.  You enjoy them and tell others about them and invite others to enjoy them with you.”

A lot of people criticize RB for asking questions.  Concerning this topic, he says: (pg. 28, 29)

“Questions are not scary.  What is scary is when people don’t have any.  What is tragic is fiath that has no room for them.”

Later, starting on pg 47, RB talked about some “rabbi” terminology.

“A rabbi’s set of rules and lists, which was really that rabbi’s interpretation of how to live the Torah, was called that rabbi’s yoke……………..   One rabbi even said his yoke was easy.  The intent then of a rabbi having a yoke wasn’t just to interpret the words correctly;  it was to live them out.  In the Jewish context, action was always the goal.”

Somewhere around pg. 78, RB begins to talk about the process of affirming and claiming truth wherever we find it.  No where doe he talk about ascribing truth to something we see as being Biblically wrong.  Nowhere is he claiming a relative view of truth that may vary from person to person or religion to religion.  You can get that from Joel Osteen.  Rob Bell isn’t going down that path at all.  He uses Paul, and gives examples of how Paul pulled real truth out of different circumstances, and claimed it.  He used this method as a device to teach and expand upon a fuller truth.  – on a side note, I just completed listening to Robinson Crusoe on my Mp3 player.  He did this too, when attempting to share his faith with his cannibal servant Friday.

“(pg. 80 – So as a Christian, I am free to claim the good, the true, the holy, wherever and whenever I find it.  I live with the understanding that truth is bigger than any religion (note from Chad – our faith, Christianity is not a religion) and the world is God’s and everything in it.”

Concerning the idea of secular vs. spiritual, he says on pg. 85:

“This is why it is impossible for a Christian to have a secular job.  If you follow Jesus and you are doing what you do in his name, then it is no longer secular work; it’s sacred.  You are there; God is there.  The difference is our awareness.”

Wow.  I remember learning this lesson while winding electric motors back in in 1994 in Bedford, Virginia.  All to the glory of God!

Continuing on with the idea labels, he addresses the threat of us abandoning discernment when things become labeled “Christian”

“The danger of labeling things “Christian” is that it can lead to our blindly consuming things we have been told are safe and acceptable.  When we turn off this discernment radar, dangerous things can happen.  We have to test everything.”

He challenges a simple view of salvation on pg. 107 by saying:

“For Jesus… salvation is far more.  It includes this understanding, but it is far more comprehensive – it is a way of life.  To be saved or redeemed or set free is to enter into a totally new way of living in harmony with God.  The rabbis called harmony with God “olam haba”, which translates “Life in the world to come”.  Salvation is living more and more in harmony with God, a process that will go on forever.”

RB shared his experience of going in for counseling when things got confusing in his life.  The counselor told him that his issue was a simple one.  He said this:  “Sin” (pg. 114)

“And then he said, in what has become a pivotal moment in my journey, “Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be.  And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.”

In the back of the book where I keep a list of significant page numbers, it merely said this:  Pg. 114 – WOW!

The book stopped having a significant impact on me after pg. 116.  I didn’t find anything worthy of taking note of and can’t even remember what it’s about.  But, on this final page.. (116 that is) I was really encouraged:  Many of us pastor types have this unspoken expectation in our heads of what we’re supposed to become.  We see the guys with the big churches who write books and are on t.v. and we feel challenged.  We feel like we too, need to strive to become the super-pastor.  Notice what RB said:

“I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head.  They have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them.  They have this image they picked up over the years of how they are suposed to look and act and work and play and talk, and it’s like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear….   And the only way to not be killed by it is to shoot first.  Yes, that is what I meant to write.  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.  This book will be here when you get back.”

I watched his video “Everything Is Spiritual” three times.  It was incredible.  I highly reccommend it.  I read Velvet Elvis, and saw many places where his communication was either: wrong, misleading, vague or hard to discern.  It may have been heresy, as some see it.  It may not have either.  Unless he was clear in the intent of what he was saying, I didn’t try to apply any of my own presupposed definitions.

Since I’ve read the book, I’ve heard it misquoted so many times with the sole intent of defaming the author.  Maybe his other stuff is more clear concerning his questionable doctrine.  I wasn’t looking for the wrong stuff so much as… I was looking for the right stuff.

I found some right stuff.