I have been reading Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis while recovering from surgery.
It is a real easy read, I should have finished it by now, but I am guilty of being a bigger TV watcher than reader. Wow! What an awesome book…it really makes me feel so small and dumb when it comes to the Bible…this is a great book about repainting the Christian Faith. Rob shares some interesting points, which interestingly enough I agree with, yet I know they are controversial, but then again that’s kind of always been me.
Rob Bell really gives you the confidence to ask questions in this book…and taking that freedom, I ask the same question I have asked for a long time, Why did God allow me to grow up under the pastors and teachers that I did, who’s interpretation of the Bible was typically agenda driven? I see a lot of my dad’s style of leadership and teaching in this book, I’m not sure if he would agree with Rob Bell 100% from this book, I am sure I will not either, but he always taught me to question what I was being taught from one man’s interpretation compared to what the Bible says about it, or as Rob Bell calls it, the teaching of another Rabbi’s yoke. Definitely check this book out for yourself, I cannot wait to finish it.
Nick
The problem I have with Rob Bell is that he wholly embraces Post-Modernism, which is the centerpiece of many “emerging churches.” John Macarthur talks about it quite a bit. As Bell frequently says, his focus is on mystery, rather than conquering mystery. He frequently maintains that the Bible is not clear enough on many issues for us to be able to take a stance. Of course, he also says that he agrees with Orthodox Christianity and such, but many of his quotes seem to indicate otherwise.
Perhaps the most prominent example is his apparent stance on homosexuality. There’s a guy, Dr. Ben Witherington (who actually seems to be quite the fan of Bell), who writes about Bell’s response when he specifically asked him about where he stood on homosexuality. Bell first stated that you have no moral authority to speak on homosexuality unless you have a friend who is homosexual (a statement which contradicts the concept of absolute truth – the central tenet of Post-Modernism [there is no absolute truth]), he then argued that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality (an argument that seems to adhere to the belief that the verses relating to homosexuality are just the opinions of men), he then said that all sexual sin should be considered equal (an attempt to downplay the significance of homosexuality), and, finally, he said that the Bible never says anything about sexual orientation.
He has similarly disconcerting stances on other issues, too, but this post is getting long.
I would have to see, hear, or read some of those quotes directly from Rob Bell. I know that a lot of people do not like the Post-Modern movement of the church, I don’t fully embrace all that they do, however with instances like Absolute Authority, Rob speaks on this in this book and he seems to fully accept that there is Absolute Truth and that Absolute Truth can only come from God…He downplays man’s interpretation of that absolute truth, which I completely agree with him on, because I have seen time and time again where man has interpreted Absolute Truth (the Bible) based on their own agenda and the results that they hope to achieve in the end.
As far as John MacArthur goes, I respect him greatly and have some of his books, however I do not embrace all of his stances either. He is extremely traditional in a lot of his approaches, and I have heard he has issues with a lot of the more modern movements of the church holistically, not just the Post-modern church, once again some of which has been said through other sources and to be fair I would have to hear him directly knock it. I hold true to the policy because I have seen time and time again people hear something and take away what “they” heard or what they though they heard. I have been on many forums where 50 year old pastors are bashing people like Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, and others for no good reason, yet they misquote the Bible themselves. So I have to see and hear for myself before I can agree. I have not seen anything off so far in this book, yet I am not finished with it. I am not sure I will totally agree with him on all things, but then again, I don’t usually do that with anyone! Here is his quote from this book, this in my mind is honorable, “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 what 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 am 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?
One more thing, so far in the book when he talks about “Mysteries of God” he is talking about the things of God that we cannot fully comprehend and fully grasp for which he gives us illustrations. He refers to God as being so big that he is containable. So far I do not see any evidences of the criticism that have been raised against him, however once again, I am not finished.
I’m not a member of the John Macarthur fan club or anything. I don’t know much about him, other than that he is widely respected and the stuff I’ve heard (he has a CD and a few articles about the emergent church) consists of him disagreeing with the emergent church solely on philosophical grounds, not because of the way they operate, hold services, etc… He goes through and introduces the basic concepts of pre-modernism, modernism, post-modernism, etc… and explains his philosophical disagreement with emergent principles based on their adherence to post-modern thought. And he’s right to do so…
I’ve read multiple quotes by various emergent leaders and some are frighteningly wrong in their theology. One prominent emergent guy (I believe his name is Brian McLaren) literally denied the entire meaning of the gospel, stating that hell is NOT prescribed for those who do not accept Jesus as their personal savior. Rather, in his book, he says that hell is reserved for the rich who do not help their poor brethren. (I have the actual quote, but it’s somewhat long)
Another emergent guy (I can’t remember his name) said something to the effect of “Yes, we have gay people in our church. We also have people who like chocolate.”
One guy named Tony Jones (who is apparently considered a leader in the movement) said:
“We must stop looking for some objective Truth that is available when we delve into the text of the Bible.”
I’ve seen multiple interviews with Rob Bell, read quotes from his books, and seen a couple of his videos. He says a lot of stuff that is fine. Then he says other stuff that is consistent with post-Modernism. And that kind of confusion is what one would expect from such a movement, since the Bible and post-Modernism are completely incompatible. If you try to mix the two, you are either going to make no sense (I believe in the Bible as absolute truth, yet I don’t believe in absolute truth) or have to compromise on one of the two (most likely the Bible).
Along with his stance on homosexuality (and multiple sources seem to confirm it) one of the controversial quotes from Velvet Elvis is really flawed. I don’t know if you’ve made it that far yet, but it’s the quote about “What if we discovered that Jesus actually had an earthly father named Larry…” and so on. He basically asks “If the virgin birth were proven untrue, would you still follow Christ?” The implication that one could safely remove the doctrine of the virgin birth is absurd as you would undercut the entire concept of Biblical inerrancy. And the examples he uses (he mentions Mithra and Dionysus) are favorites of liberal theologians who claim that the virgin birth and all Biblical miracles are fables. They state that the Bible was edited over the course of time; that we stole the story of the crucifixion, virgin birth, apostles, resurrection, etc… from Mithraism; and so on. Any implication that such attempts to undermine the Bible might reasonably be proven correct (the theories have been thoroughly disproven) is borderline heretical, as we are no longer talking about removing the truth of the virgin birth and Biblical inerrancy, but destroying practically every core tenet of the orthodox Christianity that he claims to adhere to shortly after that quote. The result is like some kind of literary/philosophical whiplash (the Bible should be flexible enough to lose these core doctrines and maintain its identity…BUT…I adhere to these doctrines).
The one thing that makes confronting the so-called emergent church difficult is that it is, as Macarthur says, amorphous. For example, whoever wrote Erwin Mcmanus’ Wikipedia entry classified him as an emergent guy, but I love everything I know about him (I actually have one of his sermons on CD) and have never heard anyone claim that he has flawed theology or anything like that. Since most of the people who are considered emergent never say “I am part of the emergent church” (some do), you just have to examine them one by one, I guess.
Anyways, it’s hard to fully talk about this in this little comment box.
By the way, sorry I didn’t respond to the e-mail you sent. I didn’t get it until yesterday. I don’t really check that 3Conservatives.com e-mail address. My actual e-mail address is BenCarnes85@hotmail.com
As far as the article, I see no problem with your premise. Handouts definitely create dependency. As my macroeconomics professor said, once people come to the trough for free food, they’re not going to want to leave to get food on their own. Thus, it’s a race to see who can promise the most government assistance. I don’t know if you saw this, but so far in the Presidential campaign, it looks like John Edwards is winning. His plan is CRAZY:
http://www.3conservatives.com/?p=54
It is late and I have to get to bed, so I cannot respond to everything that I would like to right now. I have seen the quote you are talking about with saying what if Jesus had an earthly father…etc. Rob Bell states after his hypothetical question that he believes in the Virgin Birth, and I took away from it that Rob Bell was saying that there are certain doctrinal issues that you cannot change and it be okay. He does however support that no man has it all nailed down in other issues, and he gives a pretty clear understanding of how scripture has been written and how each apostle was writing scripture based on the culture that they were in and also based on the style that they wrote in and explained things in. So he does support interpretation of some non-foundational doctrinal issues as being fluid and either relevant for todays culture or not so relevant. For instance, Andy Stanly who does not claim to be apart of the emergent church says that all scripture does not preach today…we could not get away with preaching stoning your children because they disobey, yet some scripture and the law taught this.
Rob Bell went on to explain that the God inspired Bible was not written by God taking control of there hand and writing everything, some of the scripture was written, such as letters to the church by Paul, and then determined as being God inspired through research, examination, and comparison to other scriptures. I think what happens is a quote like this one with Jesus’ earthly father is taken totally out of context and it makes it sound as if Rob Bell supports the hypothetical question that he is challenging the reader with.
This is my main issue with people like Macarthur. I respect him and a lot of his work, but he and others like him take too much out of context and pull too many quotes out to speak out against something they don’t like. I know there are a lot of emergent leaders that have horrible beliefs, but when something so complex is narrowed down to one quote for proof of an opinion it does a disservice. The one thing about a Rob Bell or a Erwin Mcmanus is that they are deep and very complex…you cannot pull single quotes without the full paragraph or page to back up a claim. With this issue, Rob Bell was saying this to prove a point. I may have totally missed it, I payed close attention on that section, but he brought his point around.
Actually, John Macarthur didn’t mention that quote in his CD (that I heard). I read that separately. I’ll have to read the entire chapter, but the context from the quote seems pretty clear.
And John Macarthur addresses the philosophy better than I do, since he knows more about it. For example, he points out that not all post-modern thought says that there is no universal truth. Some will admit that there might be truth, but we cannot know what the truth is.
If you join the “goonies” (there is a link on my Myspace Profile) Paul Wright is holding a “book club” on this book right now. I have yet to pick it up, but I saw it being discussed over there then saw that you are reading it – I’m curious now.
http://www.paulwright.com should have links too
~your goonie sis
You can see the quotes directly from Rob Bell here:
http://www.theopedia.com/Rob_Bell
This might help some who want to know where he’s coming from little more clearly.