Customer Rating: 
Summary: READ THIS BOOK!!
Comment: Before I decided to read this book my friends kept telling me, "If you're comfortable with your faith, don't read this book," to which I replied, "If you're comfortable with your faith then something is wrong." If we don't challenge our faith, then how will we ever develop spiritually?
That's exactly what this book is about: challenging and questioning our faith. Bell takes us into the world of questioning ALL THINGS in search of truth. Question yourself, question the church, question your beliefs, question religious principles and doctrines, question culture, and even question the Holy Bible and how we use it.
Along with Bell's profound insights and wisdom, he provides an abundant list of commentary, references, resources, and literature to explore certain points more in depth. This book will challenge you. It may even change you. Above all else, this book will help bring you more in-tune with God.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Rob Bell Shows Us More
Comment: Througout his book, Bell reiterates the theme that ""One of the central assertions of the Christian worldview is that there is `more.' " (19) Over and over he gives us deeper and deeper ways to think about the gospel, evangelism, denominational differences, and how we live our lives on a daily basis. No matter which side of the postmodern issue you are on, you will find much food for thought. He writes in a casual, yet profound style that keeps the interest of the reader and draws that reader into a more relevant understanding of being a Christian.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Still Shopping
Comment: Timm Oyer [Hastings, MI, USA]
Rob Bell never fails to elicit a response from his readers, which probably tells more about their theology than his. His theology at times
seems either incomplete or disconnected. As a fellow pastor, I expected his book to have a central theme running through it, but couldn't discover one unless it was that we need to always be seeking to know God more. I would have felt much more fulfilled if he had stuck with one theme instead of initiating a number of them and leaving for another thought before the previous one was developed. It was sort of like riding around a neighborhood and his telling you what kind of home he's looking for only he won't know it until he see's it.
I understand the use of metaphors to get a point across, Jesus certainly used plenty of them to great effect, but Jesus knew how to make a metaphor stay in the background rather than become the focal point of interest. Rob is a devoted Christian, and though there were times we took opposite sides, his desire to see the church love the world is to be applauded. If you are reading his book as a theological work you will be sorely disappointed, however, if you are reading it hopeing to be introduced to new views your plate will be full. You owe it to yourself to read his book with an ear to the Spirit, so that you don't become unnecessarily defensive or unrealistically accepting.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Delightfully colorful, but...
Comment: Christianity doesn't need a new coat of paint; sorry, Rob.
I enjoyed Velvet Elvis. Bell writes with delightful style and enthusiasm. I believe he is a good Christian and a good man. I believe he is a young Christian and a young man. He may always remain young; that may be a good thing for the rest of us, we'll see.
Velvet Elvis has fresh, heart-felt insights and mind-stretching, sometimes self-contradicting illustrations. Therefore Velvet Elvis is not for the sour-hearted or the weak-minded. I enjoyed chapter 2 a great deal. To be reminded that Jesus was a Jewish rabbi teaching Jewish people of his day is good reading. To be told that Jesus is the "best" way and not the "only" way is not endearing.
Those who have a vaunted opinion of their own selfhood, who believe they know of a path to God and not of the path from God, might find comfort, peace, direction, delight and fun in Velvet Elvis. Those who understand what the phrase, "I surrender all" actually means, might also enjoy the romp through Bell's book as I did. I also enjoy reading the Bible while munching a chocolate bar. But Jesus Christ is LORD. Proclaiming the lordship of Jesus is by far the best way. I did not see a confession of Christ's lordship in Velvet Elvis, although I delighted in Bell's colorful splatters of paint.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An Appeal to Think
Comment: I consider myself theologically conservative. While some reviews portrayed the book as a liberal treatise, I did not see it in this way. What I took away most from the book is the need to continuously challenge, re-think, and revisit doctrine. Bell also did a good job of putting things in context.
If you are dogmatic about your interpretation of the Bible, whether liberal or conservative, this is not a book with which you will agree. But the biggest point in the book is challenge and thinking. Bell gets this point across well.
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