Tag: christian

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#BookReview: Jesus Called – He Wants His Church Back by Ray Johnston

Interesting Concept, Not Much Substance. I went into this book expecting a great discussion calling the American Church back to Jesus Christ. What I got was a couple of decent points and a lot of sermon promoting the status quo for the American Church. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. So much promise, so little delivery.

If you’re in the American Church and wondering why so many people despise you – you won’t find many answers here.

If you’re a former member of the American Church that is begging for someone to call it to repentance – you won’t find that here.

If you’ve never been part of the American Church and you’re desperately seeking any acknowledgement at all of your problems with it – you’ll find here that some of them are mentioned… and quickly dismissed and yet again, you are to blame, according to the author.

What you *will* find here is more proof-texting (taking Bible verses out of context in service of whatever contrived point the speaker is attempting to make), more victim blaming, more The-Spirit-Of-God-Compels-You level berating, more scare tactic “evangelism”, and more trite Churchisms about how everyone else is the problem.

But there are *just* enough good or at least decent points to keep this out of Gold Mine level (tons of detritus for a few scarce flakes), so there is that at least.

This review of Jesus Called – He Wants His Church Back by Ray Johnston was originally published on October 20, 2018.

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#BookReview: The Great Spiritual Migration by Brian McLaren

Is Incomplete and Unproven. I was looking forward to this book. I really, really was. I wanted McLaren to show us how, what, where, and why Christianity was on a migration towards being a better Christian. Instead I got a story of how McLaren himself has moved from being a very conservative Christian to a very liberal one. Instead of describing how Christianity can transcend our political issues of the day, McLaren insists that we fight for one side of the political issues of the day. Instead of instilling hope, he seeks to instill fear – in the words of The American President, he doesn’t appear interested in solving anything so much as making Christians afraid of some *other* global catastrophe and saying that those who have a “lesser understanding” of the Bible are to blame for it. Rather than being transformative, as he believes himself to be, he exposes himself as just another elitist trying to tell everyone else that he knows what is best for them. Truly a shame.

This review of The Great Spiritual Migration by Brian McLaren was originally published on May 28, 2018.

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#BookReview: We Are The Danger by Sean Edwards

Presented a lot of arguments, but little evidence to back them up. I could very likely write a more detailed presentation of similar arguments with the facts to back them up myself – I’ve largely *been* doing that on social media for years. Still, a good read if you’ve never considered the topic. But in this day and age, who hasn’t?

This review of We Are The Danger by Sean Edwards was originally published on January 6, 2018.

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#BookReview: Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow

I finally finished reading David Murrow’s “Why Men Hate Going to Church (updated)”, after having put it down for a couple of months while I read other books and worked on other things.

The best I can say about this book is that it is a gold mine, in the truest sense of the term. You see, my wife watches Gold Rush on Discovery Channel, so I wind up watching quite a bit of it with her. On that show, various crews move around literally TONS of earth, searching for a few specks of gold. That is EXACTLY what you will be doing reading this book – searching through tons of detritus (to put it gently) for the occasional HINT of something worth noting.

To say I was disappointed in this book would be a statement in contention for understatement of the year, at least. Upon seeing the title and even a couple of the other BookSneeze reviews, I actually requested BookSneeze make this available in eBook format, which is how I read all my books now. I was hoping for something as mind blowing and concrete as Shaunti Feldhan’s seminal work, For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men. Instead, the “research” in this book at one point literally consisted of the author standing outside an Alaska sporting goods store and asking 97 men what they thought was masculine or feminine about church.

And that is the most glaring flaw of this book – little to no actual research to base the author’s claims on. Instead, he draws on what he personally sees and how he personally feels. Which is fine, if the title would have been “Why Me and My Friends Hate Going to Church”. But in purporting to talk about a genuinely real crisis, the author falls flat on his face due to so little research on the topic. Add to this the guy’s blatant homophobia and misogyny – he dislikes any song that mentions a love of Jesus, because it sounds too gay – and you pretty much have a recipe for disaster. Indeed, one of the reasons I put the book down for a couple of months was because of the sheer number of times I was almost ready to destroy my Kindle just to get this book away from me. But I agreed to participate in the BookSneeze program (a truly great program, btw), and I didn’t want to review the book without completing it, so here I sit, having now done so.

Overall, I’d give this book 0.5 stars out of 5. It has enough good in it that if you’re DESPERATE for something to read and can get your hands on a free copy, I’d say it is better than nothing – but not by much. Had I paid for the book, I’d be demanding my money back.

This review of Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow was originally published on December 6, 2011.

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#BookReview: With by Skye Jethani

Skye Jethani’s With: Reimagining The Way You Relate to God was my first book through the BookSneeze review program, and I’m honestly glad I found the program and this book on it. You see, this is one of the more mind blowing books I’ve ever read – which is saying something, considering I’ve read books such as Ted Dekker’s Circle Series and most books Bill Myers has put out.

If you want to quit reading this review now, I’ll leave you with this: READ THIS BOOK. You will NOT regret it.

Some details:

Mr. Jethani – an editor of a leading Christian magazine – uses the first half of the book to talk about the four basic ways most of us relate to God:

Life UNDER God is basically what I call “Talibaptists”, though Mr. Jethani never gets CLOSE to using that word. These people believe that we must live life strictly by the Bible and that if we don’t, we’re doomed.

Life OVER God essentially uses the Bible as a divine “how to” manual, nothing more, nothing less. These are the people that keep the “self help” authors in business.

Life FROM God sees God as a divine bank account that can never run out. This is the consumer culture variant of Christianity.

Life FOR God sees life as a mission. These people will go to Outer Mongolia at the drop of a hat – and still miss the point.

In each of the first four chapters, Mr. Jethani delves into each of these first four ways of relating to God, and shows both their strengths (yes, they have them), and their critical weaknesses.

In the remainder of the book, Mr. Jethani describes a life WITH God, what it looks like, and why it is the epitome of a Biblical understanding of our relationship to God. While I’ve tweeted a lot of amazing quotes from this book, you’ll just have to read it to see them for yourself, as well as the remaining treasure trove I simply couldn’t tweet out for many reasons.

In my Kindle edition, the appendices began at roughly 80% or so, and included both a discussion on some “how to pray” techniques as well as a brief discussion guide for the book. Overall, the only weakness that I saw – though it was a bit glaring – was that when I hit the appendices, I was still looking for a more succinct summation chapter than the one we got.

Overall, a VERY strong book, and I would give it a 5/5 without any hesitation at all.

This review of With by Skye Jethani was originally published on September 27, 2011.