I'm with some friends in Hokkaido, and I just got passed a copy of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis. I pretty much sat down and read it in one sitting - at least, as much as I could with two young kids crawling over me. There's some great stuff about the provisional nature of Biblical interpretation and the fluid nature of doctrine. I was going to pull out a bunch of quotes and post them here.
Then I thought, well, why bother? I was in my friends' mission headquarters the other day and glanced over at a copy of Evangelicals Now, and saw that there was an article in there straw-manning the hell out of these dangerous people who are trying to abolish doctrine!
So I just thought, stuff it. There's no quote I can pull out of that book that is going to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with it, and the book isn't trying to convince anyone anyway. It's all just, to use a spectacularly inappropriate metaphor, preaching to the choir. Hey, that's not a bad thing, because sometimes the choir needs a bit of preaching to as well.
But the good stuff in the book isn't about doctrine or interpretation. If you're reading the book you already know all that. It's the challenge, the parts about finding joy in your walk with God, the stuff about killing off your inner super-pastor, the reminder that the work of a pastor is not just work but privilege.
That's the good stuff. But I'm not going to pull out quotes. Just go read it. If you like this blog, you'll agree with what it says, but I hope it challenges you as well.
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