Rob Bell's book, Velvet Elvis, is a very accessible work that attempts to make some systematic order from the seeming chaos that Christianity finds itself in today.  It's a good book, worth a good read.  But there are a few small things that I'd like to comment on along the way.  That's what these posts will be doing.

For instance, the title of the book derives from his opening introduction about a velvet Elvis painting he found.  He uses this as a metaphor for Christianity.  It's not static.  Nobody has nailed it on the head so that nobody has needed or wanted to add or detract anything since.  The life of faith is necessarily one of movement, growth, adaptation. 

Yet there are key differences in theology and painting, if we want to examine the velvet Elvis analogy a bit further.  Art is by necessity an interpretative pursuit.  There is a reality upon which art draws, but each artist, each genre interprets that reality differently.  They accentuate different things.  One focuses on lighting.  Another on color.  Another on texture.  The artist reserves the right to interpret reality in a deliberately misleading way, in order to make a point. 

Theology is somewhat different.  The goal of theology is not so much personal interpretation - though that is unavoidable - but rather, seeking to better and more accurately understand the reality of God that has been revealed to us through Scripture and tradition.  If I claim to be a Christian, there is only so much interpretation I'm going to be free to do before I remove myself from the historical/traditional/theological confines of Christendom.  If I choose to accentuate one aspect of God, I must recognize that to do so may be distorting what God has revealed about himself - both that one aspect that I wish to distort, and his other aspects as well.  My emphasis may have a purpose, but if I step outside the bounds of what God has said about himself, then I'm not doing the job of a theologian.

Artists have no such constrictions.  The interpretative process is the point. 

Bell draws back to this same point on page 14, when he states that "If it is true, then it isn't new."  This is the fundamental difference between art and theology.  Art can be very new and different, while also being more or less 'true'.  I would argue that theology is more apt to go wrong in what it says about God when it attempts to be new.  Thus, the tendency is to stick to what has already been agreed upon as true, rather than rushing off to embrace what's new. 

But Bell has a point.  The church can't simply cling to what has been said, as though they have no role in how that is disseminated, or translated, or applied within the context of here and now.  And certainly, it shouldn't be assumed that theology has no more to be learned or discovered.  We just have to be careful about what we think we've learned or discovered.  As the Teacher once wrote, "There is nothing new under the sun."