Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

I have a couple of friends who have recently taken up running with me, and it kind of caught me by surprise because I don’t actually ever remember them being with me on a run. But I’m sure they were, because as soon as my run totals get posted on Facebook, they have the exact same totals showing up on their profiles, too. It was confusing at first, because I kept telling myself that if they ran the exact same distance at the exact same time and the exact same pace on the exact same road, I should have seen them. Heck, you’d think we’d have talked at some point, too, even if the most we could say was a grunt. But nope, all I remember hearing on my runs was the sound of my legs screaming something at me about being an idiot and the wheels of cars trying to put me out of my misery.

So how were they logging the same number of miles I was? And why weren’t they ever as tired as I was after our group runs? The answer, of course, is obvious. They’re just joking around with me by copying my running stats and pasting them on their profiles. Pretty slick, too, because they’d even have people commenting on their “runs” and telling them what a great job they were doing. It was all very funny, and awesome, and…

A great illustration of why so many of us have a form of godliness but no power. A great modern day example of what happened that caused the first naked group run in the Bible.

Seems that there were seven sons of some guy named Sceva (we should bring that name back, huh?) who decided they wanted to do the same stuff Paul was doing, and so they would walk around trying to cast out demons in Jesus’ name. It must have seemed pretty cool for a while, and I can imagine a number of their friends “liked” what they were doing. They probably even commented on it: “Wow! When did you guys start casting out demons?” and “That was the best one yet! You’re really getting good at this stuff!” Everything was perfect, and if you didn’t really look past the appearance, you’d have sworn that they were doing the same things as Paul. Right up until one of the demons spoke…

It’s easy to copy, mimic, pretend. It’s even easier to enjoy the temporary kudos that come our way when we “look the part” enough that people actually think that’s who we really are. The entire landscape of American Christianity is full of people who have faked it for so long that they have actually convinced themselves that what they have is real, and the delusion has lasted as long as it has because nothing has ever pushed back. But when the push comes – when a revealing voice pierces the scam – the end result isn’t good.

The demon answered them, which says one thing to me. They were talking to him. They were addressing something that they never expected to talk back. And the question from the demon must have sent a chill down their spines. “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”

Oh, snap.

Let’s not kid ourselves. There will be a day when what we have pretended to have will be the very thing required, and we’ll come up short. We’ll reach for the gun that we’ve played cops and robbers with and find it empty. In the face of a real life or death situation, we’ll hear the empty *click* of a gun’s dry fire. And in that moment, we’ll wish that we’d never pretended.

In a flash, those seven sons went from a group of pretenders to a group of naked runners, overcome by the evil spirit in one man. They were, in every sense of the word, exposed. My guess is that they never pretended to have power again, and didn’t play loosely with the name of Jesus any more, either.

As soon as I post this, I’ll lace up my shoes and hit the road for a run, and when I get back, you might see on Facebook that a couple other guys ran the exact course I did at the exact time and pace for the exact distance.

I can assure you, though, that only one of us was clothed.

Best part of this book is that it makes you think. No mindless reading allowed!

I’ve put this one off long enough. I finished this book last Thursday (my 5th book in my little 2011 book-a-week challenge), but every time I sat down to write a review, I found myself struggling to put into words what I really felt about it. In fact, anything I do post is going to fail to completely explain everything I’ve thought about since reading it.

The book, Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell, isn’t new. It was written in 2005, but is one of the many books I have on my shelf that I’ve never read. This challenge gave me a good reason to pull it down and finally read it. I’m not sure if it was the best choice.

If you’ve ever been to a movie and felt like you should walk out, but didn’t, because you thought in the end it might be worth all the bad parts to experience the heart-warming conclusion, then you already know how I feel about this book. There are plenty of times that I pulled out my highlighter and marked sentences that were well-written and thought-provoking, but for the most part, I struggled with the very foundation of the book. Well, maybe the lack of foundation.

Bell starts the book by comparing Christians who allow doctrine to become a brick wall – he calls them “brickians” – with Christians who allow doctrine as become a trampoline. In essence, he writes, one is rigid and one is flexible. But as he played with his kids on a trampoline one day, he started to see the doctrines of our faith as being more like the springs in the trampoline.

The springs are statements and beliefs about our faith that help give words to the depth that we are experiencing in our jumping. I would call these the doctrines of the Christian faith. (p. 22)

For the brickian, each doctrine is a brick that gets placed in the wall and, if removed, would cause the wall to crumble. But if they are springs in the trampoline, they can be taken out and examined – even one or two could be removed – and the trampoline could still be useful. To prove the point, Bell asks what would happen if someone dug up undeniable proof tomorrow that Jesus had a father and wasn’t born of a virgin as we understand it?

What if that spring was seriously questioned? Could a person keep jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart? (pp. 26-27)

Bell does go on to affirm his belief in the historic Christian faith, but then asks:

But if the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn’t that strong to begin with, was it? (p. 27)

Let’s answer that question with Scripture:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is our faith. (1 Corinthians 15:13-14, emphasis added)

Apparently, according to Paul, our faith actually could fall apart if one doctrine was removed. Now, before you harass me, I willingly agree that Bell used the words “reexamine” and “rethink,” not “remove.” But, if he is going to start off his book with an analogy of the core doctrines being springs on a trampoline, than it stands to reason that he would – if pushed to it – have to say that the trampoline would work with a few springs missing. The Bible, though, says it won’t.

For me, the bottom line became one question: where did Bell put his trampoline? My guess is that it sits on a flat, sturdy section of his property, and that’s because the foundation matters. He’s right about a lot, but he’s wrong about what matters the most: the doctrines of the church aren’t springs in a trampoline, or even bricks in a wall; they are under us as we jump and grow and explore, and they give us the security to ask the questions we all will inevitably have.

Without them, jumping becomes dangerous.