1 Corinthians 1:17-19, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (Emphasis Mine).
1 Corinthians 1:22-23, “For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.”
While reading a magazine I came across this offer for a free book, which if you know me is hard for me not to consider, and it was saying that it contained what the new generation really thinks about Christianity. The title is, UNCHRISTIAN, by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. I thought it would be worth reading as I work with the “new generation” in the Campus ministry I direct.
I received the book about six months ago and I have just completed it, and if you know me I usually complete a book in about a week and at most two. While I found a lot of the statistics and figures interesting, I found what surrounded it lacking and very emergent and overly stated many times. They would critique about Christians “eating their own,” yet they were doing just that through the entire book, but made it alright this time because it was from non-believers.
First, I am always nervous when statistics are used for anything, as anyone that has taken a basic civics class knows that with the question posed the right way, written the right way, and asked with the right tone of voice, one can get just about any result you are looking for from those you question. One example I always use with my college students is telling them that when more people eat ice cream there is more rape. This is a true statistic, but if you do not tell the people that people eat more ice cream in warm weather which is when more crime is committed to begin with then we may want to get rid of ice cream.
What surprised me most is that not once did they mention the Holy Spirit anywhere in the book. Not once was looking for the Holy Spirit a way of changing how Christians behave or how we reach unbelievers. Instead it was all about tactics, new stories and new formulas. It is interesting to me that any time there is a change in the landscape of our culture there needs to be a new formula given instead of preaching the truth and letting the Holy Spirit move. The book came off a little like we are the ones responsible for how people respond to the truth of the Gospel after we tell them about it. We are planters and Christ is the harvester through the Holy Spirit moving in their lives.
Don’t get me wrong I think a lot of what they said has some legitimacy behind it. Christians need to be loving more in how we present ourselves, but loving in the way Christ tells us through the Word of God, and not how the world thinks. I am not sure why a book would be written to tell Christians how to change their ways from non-Christians - that is telling in and of itself.
Lastly, for the sake of keeping this to some reasonable length, is that there is never any call for repentance as a national church. If we are doing things as wrongly as the book says, then the very first thing we need to do is repent publically and fill the altars at our churches, but I did not see this anywhere. It seems that if we humans do enough then we can make it happen, and that would be boasting in ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, I think they have some legitimate complaints, others not so much, but I think that we as a church need to first ask God for forgiveness for our sins and then move forward through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In the end, this book is basically trying to do the same thing many other books that line our shelves in the Christian book stores are doing. They are trying to do it through changing formulas, or putting a new twist. Trying to do it themselves. I would not buy this book unless you are able to attain it free or very cheap, as you will not miss anything and have probably read it in many magazine articles or some other book. Save yourself the time and hassle. I wish I would have.
Revelation 3:19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”
Acts 2:38, “Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
6 comments:
Wow. It sounds like you have the answers. Maybe you should write a book then. I am reading unChristian now and I get a totally different take than you just described. This book is telling us Christians what the world (at least 18-29 year olds) thinks about us. I was saved when I was 20 and I know these view are true because I had them and know other who did as well. The question they are calling us to ask is "are we going to doing anything about their perceptions?".
Jesus felt very comfortable around outsiders. He spent time with them and understood their life. Books like unChristian help us to better understand those outside the church so that we can reach them. But many Christians would rather just stand at their pulpit and not take any responsibility for how outsiders feel towards us.
Jesus says in John that they will hate you because they hate me. I agree that some supposed Christians act out in hate instead of love. But even if all Christians acted as we should, the world would still hate us. I'm not going to take advice from the world to how a Christian should act to be accepted by the world. They hate us because they hate HIM. I don't need a book to tell me that; just God's Word.
I not only have read this book, but I have had the pleasure to hear Gabe Lyons speak on this subject.
I am not going to reiterate what was said in the book, but I will concur, Christianity has a serious image problem. We'll leave it at that.
As for your point about the Holy Spirit, the authors of this book didn't want to give a church answer, cliche response as to how to change Christian church. While, yes, Lyons and crew looked to show ways to change the church (because you have to do that to change the church's image), he wanted to fix the church's image in the eyes of non-Christians... honestly, how many non-Christians are looking for Christians who seek the Holy Spirit? These non-Christians are looking for a church that is fixed on the mission at hand.
I am slightly amused at this review. It seems you were completely unreceptive to what Lyons had to say... and to me, your missing of the point proved his point.
I am not sure you read my entire review on this then, as I said that there was legitimacy to their complaints, but the Church in Church History never bases what they are doing on what the world thinks, and when they do/did it was a complete disaster. We base it on what the Bible thinks through discernment of the Holy Spirit.
How does the church discern what to do without utilizing the Holy Spirit? They don't give any answers, just what the world thinks. Who cares? As the anonymous person said above, the world is going to hate us no matter what the church does. You will not win. The church is for believers, and not unbelievers, though they are welcome to come in the doors. The teaching and worship is to grow and encourgage, train, disciple and convict believers first and foremost. Then those in the church should be out in the world making the changes.
It is when people try to make the church like the world that there is a problem. It is not our job to make an unbeliever comfortable. Jesus never did that. Show me where.
Show me how they solve the issue. Again, there are thousands of the same books out there they wrote and how the church needs to change.
But the change needs discernment through the inerrant Word of God and the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes the Christian/Church answer is the answer, even if it only amuses you.
Glad you were amused. Maybe I will write a book some day on it. But I can garauntee it will not be another book complaining on how the world thinks we are so bad. There is question to that for sure. But sometimes their view of bad is based on their idea of intolerance.
I would write a book to encourage the church to fight the good fight and be out in the world teaching about Christ and walking the walk.
Lastly, anyone that has taken a class in politics or basic psychology knows that you can make statistics say anything. Not a big fan.
Why is it I got the point wrong. I think I got it, but don't agree with all of it. Maybe you did not get the point of what I was trying to say and just have a hard time with Christian answers, because they sound Christian.
What is the mission on hand of the church? It certainly won't do much without the Holy Spirit, will it?
You change the churche's image by changing the hearts of people, and not how you make the church look.
They did not really give any ways to accomplish this task that has not been done, which goes back to my point of it is just "eating our own."
I do appreciate your comment and glad you were amused.
I mostly agree with the review. I am about halfway through the book, and so far, I think I have wasted my time reading the same statistics over 3 or 4 times.
Not to say it's a bad book, but it's very repetitive, and it prides itself in being eye-opening when all it really does is reiterate a message we've heard dozens and dozens of times already. There are "Christians" who definitely do not show or practice Christian morals, and there always will be. There is no shock there.
Another thing, just like the reviewer, I am not a fan of statistics either. Might be pretty easy to see that many "Christians" are lukewarm, but the extensiveness of it and numbers unChristian uses is not something I can readily take as fact. I am not entirely convinced from one study involving only 440 people. I need like ten different extensive studies from different companies, both Christian and Non-Christian, then I need to weigh them all out and compare, and maybe then I'll be somewhat more willing to believe the results.
I still have another half of the book to read, we'll see how that goes!
- Tony
Excellent review and great comments. I agree, once again we are eating our own. Great entertainment for the world.
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