This is Rob Bell's first book since Love Wins. Some people loved Love Wins, some hated it. It certainly created a strong reaction in most people. I felt it was not Rob Bell's best book by a long way, though it did contain some great stuff. With What We Talk About... I think Rob Bell is back with a real cracker. I read it in two days and really enjoyed it. It will be of interest to anyone thinking about issues of faith, whether Christian or not, and will stretch your mind when it comes to thinking about the way the world works and how God interacts with us.
He looks at how God relates to us using three central concepts: With, For and Ahead. God is with us, for us and ahead of us.The first two are basic Christian truths expressed in beautiful and challenging ways as Rob Bell is known for doing. The third reminded me very much of Brian McLaren's book The Story We Find Ourselves In, in describing how God stands in our future, calling us forward into progress and fresh understandings of ourselves and the world. He describes a kind of progressive revelation in how God relates to humanity, bringing restrictions to a barbaric culture and eventually revealing himself fully in Jesus. He uses this to explain some of the apparently barbaric commandments God gives in the Old Testament. This is interesting but only partly convincing.
My favourite chapter was Open, where he gets into a bit of quantum physics, and blows your mind with some crazy facts about universes and atoms, relating it all to how we think about God. For example, 'if all of the empty space was taken out of all the atoms in the universe, the universe would fit in a sugar cube'. That's all well and good Rob, but where would you find a sugar cube when all that empty space has been removed? Seriously though, it is a great chapter and typical of how the author's mind works in brilliant ways.
As ever, some quotes to whet your appetite:
(on science and religion) 'Science does an excellent job of telling me why I don't have a tail, but it can't explain why I find that interesting'
'the same creative bang that formed the universe is unleashed in us through our trust in what God is doing in the world through Jesus'.
'Confession is like really, really healthy vomit. It may smell and get all over the front of your shirt, but you fell better - you feel cleansed - when you're done'.
So get this book, whoever you are, and chat to some other people about it. It's well worth a read. You've done well, Rob Bell.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Talk-About-When-God/dp/0007427336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363552381&sr=8-1
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