Here is a review of an interesting book my wife and I read.
The book was given as a gift and I hope a constructive critique placed here doesn't
dissuade anyone from gifting a book to me in the future! We are grateful for having received it and
were challenged by its message, but perhaps the most important thing the book
did was cause us to examine our position and consider God’s Word more carefully.
I encourage you to make a habit of
reading books with your spouse so you can discuss them and grow together in the
Lord.
So, before I give my take on the book, let me first give a
brief overview of the story narrated by Jake Colsen, a fictional character
based on what appear to be the synthesized personal experiences of the
co-authors, Dave Coleman and Wayne Jacobsen:
The book, which is a quick read, is about a young Associate
Pastor of a fast growing mega-church. Jake is sincerely "trying hard"
to serve the Lord in his role but with all that seems to be going well on the
exterior, a bleak picture is painted of a church plagued with stereotypical,
albeit very real, issues that could be found in any church community - legalism,
pettiness, insincerity, gossip, facades, hypocrisy, traditionalism, power
struggles, divisions, and what can feel like a mind boggling volume of programs
and activities designed to get the community to come and see vs. going and
telling. Following a soul shaking encounter
with a man named John, Jake soon realizes his life is deeply lacking the
authentic relationship with Christ he longs for. He is disillusioned and wants to know more. His
curiosity leads him on a spiritual journey and a series of chance encounters
with the protagonist character John. In each chapter, Jake is facing some new issue
or hurdle in his life and John always mysteriously shows up to challenge him to
reconsider what he believes about living out his Christian faith and about his
understanding of the church. Jake goes
through a transformation over the course of the story and ultimately leaves the
traditional church community and begins meeting with a group of believers on an
informal, ad-hoc basis. It is clear, according to the authors view point, this
resulted in Jake having a closer walk with God and a more authentic body experience
than what could be found in the more organized model.
The Positives – my wife and I both found the book to
be an interesting perspective on the organized church and it sparked good conversation.
The book emphasizes a foregone conclusion that there are wrong-headed ways of
viewing the church as an institution or place - particularly when it is viewed
as being led or perhaps even controlled by people. The book addresses some of
these common pitfalls head-on. As C.S.
Lewis famously said, “I thought I was coming to a place until I realized it was
a person.” Having been followers of Christ
for most of our lives and having both served on staff in church ministry, Amber
and I have witnessed literally every issue raised in the book and found
ourselves identifying with the character Jake on more than one instance,
particularly during the first half of the book. As John begins to challenge
Jake by helping to point out some of these issues, it leaves the reader waiting
for the proverbial "punch-line" that will offer the proper direction.
This doesn’t exactly come to fruition but we will assume positive intent that
the source of the answers, both within the story and in its application, is to
be discovered by seeking the Lord. Most of the problems addressed by the book
can be reduced to the inevitable susceptibility and imperfect nature of
humanity and the tendency of man to put almost anything, except God, in His
rightful place as the true head of the church. The book is calling the reader
to get back to the essence of genuine Christian living, which requires first
and foremost a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The book focuses on the
aspects of grace and a more simplified church body. Christ as our ultimate
source. The idea is to do away with anything that might otherwise become
substitute to placing full trust and dependence on Christ. Once we discover
this reality, we will naturally be filled and poured out on others on the same
journey. It is on these points, in general, we agree.
The Critique - I hope to underscore that while I may
not be in 100% agreement with the authors of this book, they are my brothers in
Christ, and therefore I wish to be a constructive critic. First, allow me to lay
out a high level critique and then I will sustain these observations in more
detail. The reader may note this book is written in somewhat of an elementary
style (the first chapter was a bit hokey and almost lost our attention
altogether) and therefore may leave a lot to be desired for readers who are not
particularly keen on this sort of fiction. For our purposes here, we will
overlook this aspect, assuming this was an intentional way of reaching a
broader audience.
First, the book is weak in its theology and hermeneutics of
scripture concerning the church and the nature of God. Second, the picture
painted of the church by the authors is historically distorted and therefore
misleading, demonstrating poor ecclesiology. Thirdly, I am not sure I can buy
into the fatalistic approach of the character John. Again, while there are
certain facets of the book that I acknowledge as true or at least often true, I
am a bit disappointed to conclude that the overarching message and the logic
used to arrive there are fatally flawed. I think with a modified approach, this
book could have been a sound and relevant work. As I said, allow me to sustain
these observations:
Areas of Weak Theology - In the interest of brevity,
I will cover the biggest theological gaps.
The first red flag for me was the surprising lack of
solutions or alternatives offered when presenting one critique after another of the organized
church, many of which a person could easily identify with. I will get into the
problems with the authors views of the church in the next section. The second concern was realizing the lack of
reference to scripture, even indirectly. Where scripture is referenced, it is
very narrow in both scope and context, which is a common hermeneutical fallacy
called de-contextualizing. This approach basically allows a person to
make the scripture say whatever you want.
As I mentioned, the book rightly speaks of the relationship with Christ
and of His grace, but speaks basically nothing of His being just, holy, worthy of
reverence, or of him being Lord - the King of Kings. Christ's death extended to
the world an unmerited favor, grace, and forgiveness. These are precious truths whichare indisputable, but it therein lies the reality of a
necessary reconciliation and propitiation for willful rebellion and
sin. No other sacrifice could have accomplished this work. I was surprised at how these and other
significant orthodox truths of the Christian faith were marginalized.
On Matters of the Church - this is the main thrust of
the book, as you might easily conclude from the title. I'm sure the authors
would have wished that to be perhaps the secondary message but the bias is
clear. Anyway, the thought that came to my mind as I read the book was the old
cliché of "throwing the baby out with the bath water." As I recall, a
large portion of the New Testament epistles deal specifically with instructions
and encouragements to organized church congregations. These churches were
comprised of elders; deacons; men and women using their God given gifts so the
church would be organized, accountable and consistent in upholding the gospel
message, orderly, and effective - not random, relative, and disconnected (Read:
1 Cor. 12-14; Eph. 4). But wait…didn't the early church meet in homes and isn't
this more authentic to what God wants? The early church did meet in homes, but
at no point does the Bible outline a preferred meeting place for the church.
The early church, especially the Gentiles, met in homes primarily because of persecution
from the Jews and Romans, not to mention the real obstacles of feasibility. Also the gatherings did not necessitate the
use of a building since most of the Jews at the time still clearly continued to
attend worship in the temple. The point
is a change in the location of our gathering makes little difference. Believers are what comprise the church – not brick
and mortar.
Issues the book clearly takes with more traditional organized
church models, as legitimate as many of those challenges or issues may be, are not unique to the local church or with
traditional church models. The portrayal of the church by the authors is not
exactly an attitude of love. It is one
of frustration, judgment, and condemnation.
On some points, it is clear the authors have a prejudice against organized
church communities (perhaps from bad experiences). So, are we to conclude that
churches who meet in homes are immune from the issues that plague humanity?
The Bible teaches we are to love our wives as Christ loved the church
(Eph 5:25). Let’s not forget the church, regardless of where they gather, is
His bride. A quote from Wayne Jacobson in the back of the book reads, "I
can tell you absolutely that my worst days outside organized religion are still
better than my best days inside it." Depending on his experience, that may
be true. However, it is not an objective
universal truth taught by the Bible. My point is the book paints, unfairly I
think, a predominately negative picture of the local church and seeks to
justify not only why we might be frustrated but why it makes sense to abandon
traditional churches. In so doing, it ignores
nearly all of the positive aspects found in the local church, such as corporate
worship and prayer (which is the very setting in which God first anointed the
disciples with the Holy Spirit), community of believers, discipleship, encouragement,
Christian friendship, instruction, edification, charity, missions, outreach,
etc. The logic used against an organized
model, I submit, represents issues common to humanity in general, not the local
church specifically. If we follow this logic to its conclusion, the exact same
problems can be found in the workplace, in local sports clubs, and in our homes
- should we retract from those organized gatherings too? Rebellion from
organized religion does not eliminate the propensities for distraction from
Christ in our daily walk, for other things to take His place (idolatry), or to
chase after self interest.
I agree we are naturally drawn to other Christians because
we share a common bond and affinity in Christ and in the Holy Spirit. I can’t
tell you how many times I was able to recognize the Spirit of Christ in another
person who I didn’t even know. So I trust
in His ability to draw us near to other followers of Christ and to Him. I am also
convinced there is no perfect church model as Solomon said "under the
sun" but that doesn't mean we forsake coming together in an organized way.
We should have grace toward the church in all its various assembly styles and
long for the day when the church is gathered in that perfect harmonious union
in the eternal presence of God. Let’s
focus instead on the uncompromising truth of the gospel vs. petty stylistic
differences and personal preferences which are distractions in and of themselves.
Regarding Fatalism - fatalism or determinism are entirely
different from faith. Fatalism means a power or force driving us toward a
destination over which we will never have control or influence. In essence, all
things have been predetermined, so we are merely playing out a script of events
like puppets or like a train on a single track. John is a character in the book that pops in
and out of the life of Jake, leaving his relationships and encounters intentionally
to chance, saying repeatedly that if they are supposed to meet again, they
will. You may be thinking, "No, he left their future encounters faithfully
in the hands of God!" If that is
the case, then perhaps he was a great man of faith. I guess my concern is that we
do not see Jesus or any of the apostles in the Bible taking such a flippant
approach in their relationships, much less their discipleship, with others. It
was always intentional. Faith is trusting in God not because He has
pre-programmed all the choices and events, but because He knows the past, present,
and future simultaneously. This is why
when He speaks to our hearts, we can be sure His Word is trustworthy. Hebrews 11:1 says "Faith is being sure
of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." The faithful can
be sure because Christ is the only real source of hope and we can be certain
because He holds the full scope of eternity. As I see it, Jesus did not call us
to be drifters riding on a sea of fate.
He expects us to trust him in each step we take as we make decisions at
one fork in the road after another. This
is why Isaiah prophesied of Christ saying, “We all, like sheep, have gone
astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the
iniquity of us all.”
Let me say the book "So You Don't Want To Go To Church
Anymore?" made some fascinating points and very sincere observations which
made the book worth reading. What we should always keep in mind is that works
of men must always be subjected to the inerrant truth of the Word. I do hope
this review proves helpful to you in your journey and if you have read the
book, I would love to hear your thoughts as well.
