Book Review - Velvet Elvis

When I lived in Nashville, the church where I attended was spilling over with fans of the book, Velvet Elvis. We were not an "emerging church", but this book often gets lumped into that category and those folks. There were something like three or four small groups that were all reading this book and discussing it. Many people had told me that it was the most life changing book that they had ever read. I did a bit of research about the book online since I was a starving musician and couldn't afford to buy it myself . What I found was that many people think Rob is the anti-Christ and many think he is neigh unto deity. He is a very polarizing figure as is usually the case with very talented leaders who say somewhat radical things.

Recently a friend challenged me to read Velvet Elvis and I took him up on it and bought the audio book on iTunes. It is an interesting book for sure. Basically I take it as a collection of things that Rob feels are very important for Christians to know and he has a huge desire to get these things across to people who claim the name of Jesus. I am not going to give you a blow by blow review but rather make some brief comments concerning the book.

I want to say right off the bat that I think much of what Rob says is very good and very helpful. His discussion of the importance of understanding historical context when interpreting scripture was well done and essential to any attempt at understanding the Biblical text. He also speaks candidly on the pressures of being a pastor of a very large church and the lessons he learned in the process where helpful. Rob writes well on the topic of Christian identity and I believe his discussion of it should be normative in today's Christian culture.

On the other hand, Rob tends to drop little bombs here and there with a phrase or two, but fails to deal with the wreckage of the blast. I assume here that he is just trying to provoke for the sake of drawing attention to his point. Thus, I don't assume too much and give him the benefit of the doubt with these statments that tend to appear in the context of a larger thought idea. These sentiments proved consistent until I got to Movement 5 (chapter 5). Here is what he says near the end of this section:

Notice how many places in the accounts of Jesus he gets frustrated with his disciples. Is it because the are incapable? No, but because of how capable they are. He sees what they could be and could do and when they fall short it provokes him to no end. It isn't their failure that is the problem, it's their greatness. They don't realize what they are capable of. So at the end of his time with his disciples, Jesus has some final words for them. He tells them to go to the ends of the earth and make more disciples and then he leaves. He promises to send his Spirit to guide them and give them power, but Jesus himself leaves. He leaves the future of the movement in their hands and he doesn't stick around to make sure they don't screw it up. He's gone. He trusts that they actually can do it. God has an incredibly high view of people. God believes that people are capable of amazing things. I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus, which is a good thing. What I am learning is that Jesus believes in me. I have been told that I need to have faith in God, which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus has faith in me. The Rabbi thinks we can be like him.

Now maybe, Rob is not really saying what I think he is saying here. Maybe if we sat down for coffee and I had the chance to question him on this all the smoke would clear and I would not be so quick to disagree with what he says here. If that is the case then I would suggest that (at least in this section) he is being a bit irresponsible as a writer in terms of not being clear (at least to me) as to what he really means.

On the other hand if he really means exactly what he says here, then I would have to say that his driveway is a few feet short of the street, theologically speaking. Do I really need to support my statement here? It seems to me that anyone who actually has a cursory knowledge of the Bible and it's themes would be able to quicky and confidently reject what Rob is saying here about Jesus' belief in us and that we need to believe in ourselves more. It sounds a bit too close to Joel Osteen and his empowerment theology.

I know that Rob is a very intelligent man who knows a lot about the Bible. This is why the statement above is so disturbing to me. Again, I may be wrong to assume this much on Rob, but it sure sounds like he really thinks that people need to believe more in themselves as opposed to believing in God to provide all they need to do whatever it is He has called them to do.

In sum, this book has a lot of good things to say, but a lot of stuff that also makes me go, “What is he really getting at here?" If he is saying what I think he is saying then I have some serious problems with some of the content, but I guess it needs to be qualified before I would send him on down the river. Maybe he is intentionally hard to pin down, or maybe he is just not that great of a writer. I guess I'm not the one to judge that. You'll have to read it yourself and let me know what you think.

For another review you can click here. I don't think this reviewer is being totally fair, but his fourth point is right on.