Here it is, the Blog I promised on Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. I would just like to start with if you have not read this book yet, you really have to get a copy because it is fantastic!! I am just going to share some of my favourite points Bell made in his book along with some refrences, interesting points, my opinons... etc. If you do not agree, I do not care to hear you argue your opinon, try to change my opinon, argue your theology etc, cos quite frankly I have had enough Christians in my life try to tell me what to believe. It is quite annoying. I do not need someone who cares to try to shove their beliefs down my throat so keep that in mind if you feel you need to comment like that... I will probably ignore you... In fact this book was crucial in helping me recover from damage I have expirenced from the church in my life thus far... after lifing a couple years in the Bible Belt I can honnestly say I have been disgusted by much of the church. My good mate Brad has been reccommending this book to me since 2007 and I finally read it. All I can say is I should have read it sooner!! Its really good. Regardless of your religious beliefs you should pick it up & read it. Bell tells us what the church SHOULD be doing, and a lot of history etc to help us understand it. The book is really titled Velvet Elvis: Repainting The Christian Faith. If you are a Christian, or just a person who is not a Christian because you dont like the Christians you meet or what the church "is" this book is for you... I believe it really gives us a true glimpse on what it should be like... The kind of church I want to be a part of & the type of Christian I would want to be... Regardless of what you believe tho u should pick it up :) The book is an easy read & is broken up into seven movements just as I will break up my info on it so it is easy to read... Now that you know some of my background, these are a few of my thoughts...
Velvet Elvis
One of Rob Bells opening points sets the stage for the rest of his book: "Christian faith is alive only when it is listening, morphing, innovating, letting go of whatever has gotten in the way of Jesus and embracing whatever will help us be more and more the people God ants us to be" (pg 11).
Movement One- JUMP
Rob Bell makes an interesting point that whatever your religion is, no matter who you are, Everybody follos somebody. Even if we insist we are an individual, we got our ideas from somewhere... Thus we all follow SOMEBODY!! As Christians, we are to follow Jesus because we believe his way is "the depth of reality" (pg 21). By this I understand Rob Bell to mean by living the way of Jesus one gains a better understanding of the world, how it works, and the ay things are. Rob Bell explains faith to be like a trampoline you jump on. You invite others to join you to jump as well because you enjoy it. A trampoline is powered by springs (these are our beliefs or theology). Bell says we can take one spring out of the faith and examine & question it for what it is (example was Jesus really born of a virgin)... Rob Bell believes by faith being a trampoline we can examine each individual thing while we still jump and our faith does not fall apart. If faith was like a brick wall of fundamentals, take out one brick & evenything falls apart. Springs are flexible, and if we are really trying to understand the Bible we will always leave with more questions... Rob Bell argued that too many Christians these days are too busy trying to convince people they are wrong & always defend their beliefs. Bell argued "You rarely defend the things you love. You enjoy them and tell others about them and invite others to join them with you" (pg 27). He argued to be a Christian you don't need to know anything about the springs to persue the way (pg 34). Even if someone is not a Christian that does not mean they have the entire picture wrong either. The last big point Rob Bell made in his first movement was that Christianity should bring us joy. He argues how it is possible to believe all the right things and be miserable (pg 35). "Joy doesn't rule out suffering, difficulty, and struggle. In fact, taking Jesus seriously almost guarentees our lives will be difficult!!" (pg 35). How many Christians do you know would say that trying to convert or persuade someone?!?
Overall my favourite part of this movement was the discussion of the springs. I know oh so many people that if you take away one aspect of their faith they would have to reevaluate their entire beliefs on that one thing... Bell simply argues we need a Jesus big enough and flexible enough like a spring to handle our questions and that if one spring is removed, we would still be able to jump!!
Movement Two- YOKE
"What is interesting to me is that the phrase 'personal relationship' isn't found anywhere in the Bible" (pg 43). I found this quote to be one of the ones that stood out the most in the book. Before living in the Bible Belt, I honnestly had not heard the phrase personal relationship before while at church. In fact the more I heard people say you need to pray a specific prayer to ask Jesus into your heart, the more disgusted I became... Shouldn't me knowing I believe & saying I believe be enough?!? Why was this suddenly a "rule" to be a Christian. I always felt the Bible was best understood when I was in a group Bible study while in secondary school, and Rob Bell made the point that the Bible was not originally written for people to read on their own but in groups (pg 53). The Epistles were written to groups or people such as Corinthians, Thessalonians, Romans, etc. Another point Bell made was "the more people insist they are just taking the Bible for what it says, the more skeptical I get" (pg 44). Bell does affirm however God has spoken & the rest is just commentary. But how are we to say we are the ones taking the Bible for what it says? One can make the Bible say almost anything they want it to. "When you hear people say they are going to tell you what the Bible means, it is not true. They are telling you what they think it means" (pg 54). He gave a little insight to inturpreting scripture. The underlining point to inturpretation however was "action was always the goal (pg 57). Rob Bell went into some history then to help explain scripture inturpretation. Back in the day, Rabbis ways of teaching their disciples was how to be like them. Jesus was a Rabbi, so ultimatly his teachings were how to be like him. Rob Bell argued that the Word is alive because it HAPPENS. It is our story. Just like Moses & the Israelites crying out for deleverance from Eqypt thousands of years ago, we still today cry out for delieverance in our daily life from things. Rob Bell also stressed the importance of the context "to grab a few lines of Jesus and drop them down on someone 2,000 years later without first entering into the world in which they first appeared is lethal to the life and vitality and truth of the Bible" (pg 63). Rabbis & Jesus intrepreted scripture using the context and outside knowledge of the scriptures meaning to do something known as Binding & Loosing in which they would apply the context and see how to carry out the scripture in their lives. As disciples of Jesus we are given the power to bind and loosen for ourselves & get our own inturpretations. We are not to simply blindly listen to what someone tells us the Bible "means because they may or may not be correct. "When people say all we need is the Bible its simply not true" (pg 68). I agree with Rob Bell strongly in this statement. When we thing about it, we are not reading the original scriptures most often when we read the Bible since they were written in Hebrew, Greek & Aramaic, and many of us do not know these languages. First we need the tools to learn these languages or enough of them to decide what we thing the scriptures are presenting. Then we need more tools aside from the Bible to put ourselves into the right historical context since none of us are currently living in the Biblical times. After we believe we have an understanding of this, we need to see how we can apply this to our lives because action is ALWAYS the goal. And we can not trust someone else knos all of this context etc that they claim they do, we have to learn it for OURSELVES!!! Perhaps one of our biggest problems in the Church today is too few Christians reading the Bible and trying to understand it in this way... and far too many taking anothers word for it!!
Movement Three- TRUE
So what is this BIG DEAL about Christianity anyway? Bell Argued "it isn't just concerts and surfing and the high points, and it isn't just those beautiful moments in the midst of the everyday mudane; it is also in the tragic and the gut-wrenching moments when we can not escape the simple factthat there is way more going on around us than we realise" (pg 75). Have you ever felt like there was something bigger going on & you just couldn't tell what it was?!? That this world is so intercretly woven together in a specific ay that it seams hard to explain? Rob Bell states that "it is God's world and God made it and God owns it and God is present everywhere in it" (pg 77). God does not "show up to our Bible study, or our church event, our prayer meeting, or whatever it may be... God doesn't intervine... WE are the ones who show up, God is and was always there. Because of this Bell makes perhaps one of my favourite points in his book: ANYONE can speak truth... Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Athiest... ANYONE. "As a Christian, I am free to clain the good, the true, the holy, wherever and whenever I find it (pg 80). Rob Bell argues that Christianity is not the only truth out there. For example in Turkey the muslims do not build their houses all at once so they build parts at a time when they can afford to because they believe it is bad to have debt. Rob Bell argued that just because these people were not Christian did not mean they did not believe in something GOOD!! We need to claim something good when we hear it as our own no matter who said it, Christian or not a Christian. Rob Bell also argued that not all "Christian" things are good meaning Christian music, propaganda etc... An artist may praise Jesus in their songs but on the side live a life far from what is considered GOOD, while a non Christian singer may be just the opposite. One of my favourite lines in the book was Christian is a great noun and a poor adjective. It really is... Because all things in this world is God's and God is all places, it is impossible for a Christian to have a secular job! God intends to use us regardless of our profession if we seek to do good and do it for God. I hated going to a Christian school where it sometimes seamed that those wanting to be a pastor or minister of some kind or a missionary were seen as above those in a business related degree or something. We all have different purposes in life. We also all have different beliefs. it is important for us to think for ourselves and claim thruth wherever we see it. We need to believe in a Big Jesus to be able to accept everything we hear in church is not alays truth, and sometimes what we hear OUTSIDE of church IS truth! Rob Bell made the point that God is everywhere on this earth & its all his. He couldn't be more right. That is why it is disgusting when people who are involved in "missions" argue that they are going to bring Jesus someplace... How can you bring God someplace he already is? Rob Bell claimed that Tour Guide may be a better term then missionary because they SHOW you a God who is already there among you... and even if you were to CARRY God, he is a big God... thats a pretty heavy load to carry :) Rob Bell finished movement with 3 ponts I liked on page 92:
1) My friends are resonating with Jesus whether they realise it or not
2) If it is real, then it is showing us God
3) Wherever you jind those (Passion, Love, Exhilleration) you are finding God!
Movement Four- TASSLES
Rabbis all wore a specail garment which had tassels on them. Because Jesus as a Rabbi he would be wearing one of these. Does anyone recall the Bible story where a woman had been bleeding for many years reached out and touched Jesus' tassle and as healed and made new through her faith? This is not a story directly of Jesus saving her "soul" so to speak but she was looking for a physical healing. It is true Jesus saves souls, but that is not the point of it... "salvation is holistic in nature. For Jesus, being reconciled to God involves far more than just the saving of your physical body or your soul- it involves all of you" (pg 107). Rob Bell continues to say "The point of the cross isn't forgiveness. Forgiveness leads to something much bigger: restoration. God isn't just interested in the covering of our sins; God wants to make us into the people we were originally created to be" (pg 108). In a way I would like to put it however is not only does God want to make us into people who will presue "his will for our lives" as I heard so many times in the Bible belt, but perhaps he wants to make it so that regardless of what bad circumstances we have had with people, with the church, or with life in general that they do not control our actions or our thoughts in becoming the people who we are. What if we saw these points as ways we could better impact the world around us... not to be defined by this world (if you were raped, if you are rich or in poverty, etc) but what is we let God make us in who we were meant to be that we could feel we lived a life of deep purpose?!? With my thoughts on this track, it is easy to agree with Bell's point "approaches that deal solely with not sinning alays fail" (pg 108). Rob Bell also believes that "It is possible to be saved and not be a healthy, whole, life-giving person. It is possible for the cross to have done something for a person but not in them (pg 110). "It is possible to be a good Christian and go to church services and sing the right songs and jump through the right hoops and never let Jesus heal your soul" (pg 118). How many of us today have been hurt in our lives? ALL OF US!! None of us are exempt. The sad thing is many of us "forgive and forget" when the incident still subconciously impacts us years and years and years to come; regardless of our religious beliefs. We need to drag it all up in order to fully heal from it all and it takes time!! We need to be like Job who was relentless in his persuit of God. Rob Bell came to the conclusion that very few ever let Jesus truly heal their souls, and perhaps that could be a meaning to what Jesus meant when he said the way is narrow. What were the conclusions Rob Bell made to what we can do to move beyond this focus only on Jesus saving you from sin cycle etc. Rob Bell left Movement Four with 2 main conclusions on page 120:
1) The system has to be changed. It has to be destroyed and replaced not with another system but with an entirely new way of life.
2) Very few people actually live from their heart. Very few live connected with their soul.
Movement Five- DUST
Jesus himself is the very word of God. Jesus claimed to be the ay the truth and the life, but what does this mean historically? In biblical times, Jews believed the Torah as the way the truth and the life. The law was so central to the Jewish way of life that young boys by the age of ten would have the entire Torah memorised in Hebrew: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy!! I have read these books of the Bible and I can imagine memorising them to be no easy task. If an ten year old boy can do it, someday I want to memorise the entire Torah in Hebrew as well!! Of the boys that memorised the Torah, the more gifted of those went on to memorise the rest of the Tennach (known as the old testament) by the age of thirteen!! Of these boys the best of the best would try to become Rabbis because the Rabbi was the most respected of the men in town. Those who were no longer in the process of their studies had begun the family trade. The remaining best of the best would be questioned by the Rabbi to see if the Rabbi thought he could become like him. If the Rabbi was sure of this young teenagers abilities he would allow him to become his disciple, and if not he would return home to learn the family trade. If the young man were to become disciples of a Rabbi, the Rabbi would teach them his yoke. He thought he could be like him. The disciple would leave his friends and family and give up his life to follow the Rabbi. Disciples were to show a true level of devotion to their Rabbi. Jesus was a Rabbi & one can find it very interesting when they see his choosing of his disciples. Jesus chose fisherman for his disciples, what is this significant of? Jesus chooses the not good enoughs!! Because of this I can never doubt that Jesus does not think I can be like him... He chooses everyone and even those who are not good enough!! But to be a disciple we must commit ourselves. In the Biblical times a disciple would follow his Rabbi everywher because he would never want to miss a thing, even if it meant folloing him in the desart for days getting covered in dust. "If you are a disciple, you have committed your entire life to being like your Rabbi" (pg 133). I Christian has to remember this, and I think at times it gets difficult, but the thing that relieves pressure in wondering if we can be like Jesus is that Jesus chose us as the not good enoughs. He chooses everybody. Rob Bell makes his point that God believes people are capable of amazing things. I agree we all are capable of amazing things be we rich or poor or clever or thick... Our abilities do not make us who we are... Our choices do!!
Movement Six- NEW
Is there really no such thing as a bad church? I would argue that there is such a thing... I would argue that there are bad churches, bad Christians, and bad pastors!! Rob Bell argued that it is possible for religious leaders to get in the way of people entering the kingdom of God. I would have to agree. I once attended a church that the pastor alays voiced his opinon and said if you did not agree with his exact theology, you were a sinner and going to hell. In fact one Sunday when there was a snowstorm and many did not attend church, my mum went and when attendance was low the pastor commented about how those who did not come were sinners and were going to Hell. Sin is deffinatly an issue in the world, but as a Christian it should not the main focus or direction of the church... We have been made NEW and that is what Rob Bell discussed in movement six. When we are in Christ we are made new... we are not who we ere by any means anymore. Rob Bell tells us how our old self will still on occasion try to rear its ugly head in our lives, but we are not that person. We need to die to that nature everyday because when we are in Christ we are given a new nature and we have to believe it and claim it. "It is not that we are now perfect or that we will no longer struggle. Or that the old person won't come back from time to time. It's that this new ay of life involves constant, conscious decision to keep dying to the old so that we can live in the new" (pg 140). Rob Bell presented that If we are in Christ... God's view of me is Christ... And God views Christ as perfect. What does that mean for me? God views me as perfect! We escentially are HOLY!! Colossians 3:12 tells us we are Holy! "The issue is my learning who this person is who God keeps insisting that I already am" (pg 141). That is what we are looking to learn when we study the scriptures and attend Church as a Christian. That is why Rob Bell argues that shame has no place in the Christian expirence. "Beating others up about who they are and what they are not is going in the wrong direction" (pg 142). I personally can relate to this. I have had many expirences in the church where other Christians I may have met once or twice try to tell me how I should live or try to tell others how they sould live "I don't think its in God's will for you to do this" or "If you don't believe/do/think the same as me you are sinning and going to hell" or "I don't think God wants you listening to that secular song" or the most rediculous I have heard "If you dont pray before taking a dump on the toilet, you are sinning. You have to see if its in God's will for you to go first..." Through all of these expirences I had actually gotten disgusted with the church and left it for a while, but because of God I am back. It really buggs me when Christians use the excuse to hold one another accountable to judge other people. It makes it seam like someone needs to sort out their life before they are accepted by the Church or Christians which is not true! In fact becoming a Christian is a process as long as you are confessing your faith and are willing to learn for yourself and inturpret scriptures etc. Rob Bell made a few points on pg 144 we should remember:
1) The point isn't my failure; it is God's success in remaking me into the person he originally intended me to be.
2) Christians are people LEARNING who they are in Christ
3) When we see religious communities spending most of their time trying to convince people not to sin, we are seeing a community that has missed the point.
If the point is not sin then what is the point of being a Christian. Rob Bell suggests (and I agree) that the purpose of Christians is to bring heaven to earth. When we see poverty, famine, and other injustices on earth we refer to those as hell. As a Christian we are to be like Christ and to try to eliminate those from the earth. Heaven and Hell are not just where you go when you die but they are present realities! "This new kind of life in him is not about escaping this world but about making it a better place, here and now" (pg 148). One of the worst sins we can do as Christians is to not be generous. The man who was not generous is one of the few people in the Bible who it specifically mentions goes to Hell when he dies. What does that tell us? As Christians "the goal is not escaping this world but making this world the kind of place that God can come to" (pg 150). Whether or not you are a Christian, you already are who God created you to be. But how do we REALLY fully embrace this? "We can only find it when we give up the search, when we surrender, when we trust" (pg 151). We are exactly who we are supposed to be. We just need to surrender to God who we are and live our new life with him that he has already given us. We are already new in Christ, we just need to start believing it and living it... Not sin focused but by bringing heaven to earth through the simple things. It won't alays be easy, but it will deffinatly be worth it that we all may expirence that new life! :)
Movement Seven- GOOD
For Movement Seven to begin, let us start with how the Bible began when God created the earth. God created the Garden of Eden where the first original sin took place. There is an interesting connection here to the conquering of sin by Jesus. Jesus rose from the dead in a garden, was placed in a garden tomb, and after he rose when he saw his mother Mary weeping in the garden when his body was "missing" she mistakes him for the gardener. This is more than coincidence. There are a number of parallels between the old and new testaments that Rob Bell brings to our attention in the final movement of his book. In order for sin to be ended, God had sin overcome in the same way in entered the world (in a garden!!) Lets take a look back to the garden of Eden: When God created thje earth, he gave creation the power to grow and multiply telling Adam to care for it. Rob Bell argues because of this, litter and polution are spiritual issues (pg 158). When God created the Garden of Eden, it as GOOD... it was not perfect, but with its potential to develop it has the chance of becoming perfect. The early Christians spoke of God coming to earth at the end of time, not about us leaving to go someplace else. God claimed when Jesus would come there would be a renewal of all things, not just human souls. Creation moaned when sin entered the world because that was not how it was supposed to be! The return of Christ is to bring the whole picture back together as God intended it to be. In Revelation we have a picture of a city. If a garden is tended and cared for, Rob Bell tells us that it eventually becomes a city. Maybe we need to look back at bringing heaven to earth and seeing ho we can spread some love among all of Gods people. If you take all of the sin and death out of the Bible we are left with four chapters Genesis 1&2 and Revelations 21&22. A garden... and then a city... Another significant parallel.
The first Christians were counter-cultural. Paul was the first person in all of human history to state that all people were equal (male or female, slave or free). In Paul's day the idea of all people being seen as equal was revolutionary. Today we often say that all are equal, but the church I believe rarely acts that way. The church should take Pauls words and apply them to day. (homosexual or straight- clean or a stoner- prostitutes and virgins- Christians Athiests Muslims and everyone in between from all cultures). It is the duty of a Christian to love like Christ but so many we know do not, or if they love, they have an adgenda: all they really want is to convert someone... THAT IS NOT REALLY LOVE IS IT?!? More Christians are trying to persuade those who do not believe that the resurrection was real than anything else... could that be missing the point?!? OF COURSE!! The Early Christians you never found trying to persuade someone that the resurrection was real. There are of course a couple reasons for this: 1) Those who were around to expirence the resurection were all still alive and 2) Everyone back in the days of the early church claimed their God rose from the dead... even the ceasars and Ceasar Augustus!!
So what is the whole point of evangelism if we are not converting people? God chose each and every one of us to bless others. "It is our turn to rediscover the beautiful, dangerous, compelling idea that a group of people, surrendered to God and to eachother, really can change the world" (pg 164). God doesnt bless ony Christians, but he blesses Athiests, Muslims, Hindus... it does not matter. If God blessed only Christians... I do not believe many Christians would actually feel the need to be a Christian. God blesses everyone and so should we! If the church (which exhists to serve others) stops serving, it loses its heart... A church that does not serve has missed the mark. "Serving people is the only way their perceptions are ever going to change... it is so toxic for the Gospel when Christians picket and boycot and complain about how bad the world is. This behaviour doesn' help. It makes it worse" (pg. 166). Instead of pointing out there is a problem over and over why not take action? The point of understanding the Bible always has action as the goal remember? Why not serve those and fix how the world is bad rawther than complain all of the time about it!! If the Gospel is not good news for EVERYBODY than it is not good news for ANYBODY!! (pg. 167). "The most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly on display... the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever... "God shows no favouritism." So We don't either... Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them to the Christian faith. So there is an agenda. When there is an agenda it really isn't love is it? WE HAVE TO REDISCOVER LOVE, PERIOD. LOVE THAT LOVES BECAUSE IT IS WHAT JESUS TOLD US TO DO" (pg 167). Those who change the world do not need to draw attention to themselves. It can be simple and heart-felt. We can change the world by meeting peoples most basic needs... Like Rob Bell put "Jesus loves you, here's a toaster"... Its not like we have to do something even major that transforms a million lives... The lives of a few would still be changing the world. "Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that is all there is" (pg 170). We need to give this world not our "religion" but something real that they desperatly need.
"The church is like a double-edged sword. When it's good when it's on, when it's right, it's like nothing on earth. A group of people committed to selflessly serving and loving the world around them? Great. But when it's bad, all that potential gets turned the other way" (pg. 172). I have expirenced my fair share of what i believe to be the best of the best and the worst of the worst as far as churches and Christians go. What I ask you is what can be changed? To all of the Christians reading this, what can you do to better serve those around you without an agenda. No matter what we do, some people will just never CONVERT and we need to accept that. So love them anyway. If you are not a Christian, regardless of what your bleiefs are, what can the Church do in your opinon to serve you better, to serve the world better? To seam more compelling that it would not be looked upon by some with disgust?!? What could be done to better serve others, and what is getting in the way that can be stopped? It Is all something to think about no matter who you are.
I actually really enjoyed reading Velvet Elvis and I would reccommend it to anybody. It is a very simple read. If you enjoyed some of my points I made, you really should read the whole thing... If you did not like it, pick it up and read it to critisise thoroughly for yourself. After all God has spoken, the rest is just commentary!! :)
Sorry it took so long for me to post this, but as you can see by the length of the blog, it did take me a very long time to write it. I actually had to save drafts of this blog over a few days in order to actually finish it, but it was worth it. It was a really good book and has really helped me through many issues I have encountered with the church over the last few years. If you are in the same place as I was I can not urge you enough to pick up this book... It will really help you out :) After compleating this book I have officially marked off the first thing from my list of things I wanted to accomplish before returning to school. I hope to read a book every month this year and post a blog on it as well (some may be long and others may be short and I do not think they will ALL be Christian books). My book for February is called JESUS WANTS TO SAVE CHRISTIANS: A MANIFESTO OF THE CHURCH IN EXILE by Rob Bell. Stay tuned and I will hopefully have that blog posted at the end of February. I also hope to post tidbits of the different Bible studies I have done when I complete each study so stay tuned for my Stepping Up study by Beth Moore. I hope you enjoyed reading some of my thoughts on Velvet Elvis regardless of your religious beliefs. I hope you all have a good rest of your week.
Blessings,
RAYE
