Bell's Velvet Elvis

"Velvet Elvis" may be a good metaphor for the book. Like any painting generally complementary of Jesus or Elvis, there may be some things worth admiring but not everyone will want to hang it their house. Rob has an engaging style of writing, flip-flopping between paragraphs and single sentences as if he were talking to you in your kitchen. His theology and style are put forth as common sense, hopeful, authentic, and reflecting his experience of the world in 21st century America.

A few quotes:
"It doesn't matter where I find it, who speaks or lives it, or what they believe, I claim and affirm the truth wherever I find it." (p80)
"...to be Christian is to do whatever it is that you do with great passion and devotion." (p84)
"Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it." (p114 quoting his therapist).
"God has an incredibly high view of people." (p134)

Particularly striking about the first quote is his use the first person singular, implicitly claiming Rob Bell the arbiter of truth. Similarly, the other quotes show the high value Rob places on self-actualization whether it is in discerning truth, work and vocation, or to become who God has made us individually to be. He does have some good things to say about the work of God in Christian communities and society - "It is our turn to rediscover the beautiful, dangerous, compelling idea that a group of people, surrendered to God and to each other, really can change the world." (p164)

Rob Bell probably considers most things that would be a part of a systematic theology but it comes out rather randomly and some things just don't hang together as well as we might hope. I appreciate his sense of hopefulness but distrust his reliance on "whatever seems like truth," "feels good," or "feels right."

Keizer's Enigma of Anger

Enigma of Anger was indeed as the subtitle proclaims "essays on a sometimes deadly sin." While the essays were enjoyable and many of salient points well taken, I missed the sustained argument that comes with books that are written with a bit more of the whole in mind. Still, each of the essays in their own ways, argued for the legitimacy of anger within the lives of the faithful and humanity generally. There are lots of ways that anger can stray into sin, both in understanding the source and in it's expression. After reading the book, I get the sense that rightly felt and expressed anger is a difficult but not impossible target. One of the things that Keizer's book may accomplish for readers is to encourage them to have a deeper and sustained reflection on their own anger. A few quotes worth considering:

"The worldview of the envious--and to a certain extent, for the lustful and avaricious too--runs counter to God's vision. Nothing they see is good, or good enough, or else nothing they see is enough of the good. In other words, you can never please them, which is as good a definition as you may get of what it means to be damned." p 46

"An artistic performance is like a Thanksgiving meal--be it Grandma's or the Holy Eucharist: Someone has gone to a lot of trouble on your behalf, and all you're required to do is sit down and eat, watch, or listen. And in the right frame of mind, that is all you want to do: be nourished and be grateful" p91

"It is mercy--not justice or injustice--that makes us the most angry in the end" p279

Wright's Dwelling Places

Nice to be back in Iowa. Wright's Dwelling Places transports the reader to small fictional town in Iowa where families have been economically squeezed out of the farming business. While Mack and Jodie are able to find other jobs, they struggle most in losing a way of life, a way of relating to nature, and a way of relating other people. The story is told through the eyes of four of the five main characters, with perspectives regularly shifting through a common timeframe. The story certainly deals with loss and change, and how family members experience this in different ways and with different results. Of particular interest was how Christianity plays throughout the story: how farmers and foreclosing bankers go to the same church, how the somewhat misplaced prayer of Kenzie speaks powerfully to her father Mack, how the church is able to help the families name what has been lost.

Mack - the loss of the farm led to a depression that landed him in the psychiatric ward and estranges him from his wife and family
Jodie - wife of Mack who also struggles with the loss of the way of life, becomes involved with another man, but eventually accepts Mack back into her life.
Rita - mother of Mack, lives alone but cares for many of her elderly neighbors and friends. Her husband and other son died in trying to keep the farm.
Kenzie - daughter of Mack and Jodie who regularly prays for her family and throws herself into her spirituality and faith. Kenzie finds herself attracted to an older man that seems to share her faith.
Young Taylor - son of Mack and Jodie who seems obsessed with death, closer perhaps to expressing what everyone else is experiencing at the loss of farming.