What We Talk About When We Talk About God: A Review

How does he get away with this?

This is the question I ask myself whenever I pick up a Rob Bell book.

Imagine the original book proposal sent to his editor at HarperOne. Did it sound like this?

Dear Mickey,  

I would like to publish another book with you now that I've moved out to L.A. That last one just went viral, didn't it?! Anyway, tell me what you think. Nothing high tech or fancy on this one. All text in the book will be 14 point font san serif, with big margins. Use that pulpy paper I like. Instead of indented paragraphs we'll just drop a line like most blogs I'm reading recently. The full text of the book will be about the same length as a long piece in The New Yorker. 

The book is about God, and it won't have any big words at all, or fancy terminology... until it does, like when I use the German word Grenzbegriff in one chapter, and then the mostly untranslatable Hebrew term kavod in another chapter. But no one will notice, because I will have won them over with my simple and approachable breathless language (you know, like the way I talk in all of those Nooma videos). 

I promise  

to make

lots 

of lists 

and format 

some paragraphs 

like this. 

All kinds of people want to talk about God. They really do. This book will sell. It will also make a difference in people's lives. Here's my outline for the book, kind of like the table of contents.

It will be  

Open, 

Both, 

With, 

For, 

Ahead, 

and So. 

These are the words that will shape how I talk about God in this book. 

Now that's what I'm talking about. 

What do you think? 

Rob

No one can pull this kind of thing off (in the same way that no one could pull off long footnoted book length essays in Harpers until David Foster Wallace did it). But Rob Bell can pull it off, and does. I sat down with his book at about 8:30 p.m. this evening, and didn't put it down until I had read it through, at about 10. It might take you longer or shorter to read it, I'm not sure, but at the end, I know you will say, "Wow, that was really really good, really helpful."

I keep thinking to myself, with a certain kind of jealousy, "Why is it that Rob Bell can present what is essentially solid Lutheran theology mixed with solid liberal Protestantism, and get such huge press for it?" Because he can, and he does, far more than any of us Lutheran or liberal Protestant folk do or can.

But then, in the end, who cares if he does it instead of us. He's doing it, and it's really really good, and you should read it, and then share it with a friend. Preach it, Rob, preach it.

Now that's what I'm talking about.