11 - The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World, David F. Wells, 253 pages

I'll begin this by saying, this is by far one of the best books I have ever read. I have, for awhile now, contemplated the misdirection of the American Evangelical movement. We are a culture that is obsessed with self: Jesus came to die for MY sins; God wants ME to be happy, healthy, and wealthy now etc. But this is all a farce. The concept of the Gospel does not point to man or self, but to God. Not only this, but we have become the most technological civilization there has ever been at any point. The world is connected by the push of a button; we have hundreds if not thousands of 'friends' on Facebook; one can know within minutes the latest news stories on the opposite coast and on the other side of the world. But instead of becoming more connected, we have privatized our lives so that community is becoming non-existent. One no longer knows those in his local community which normally would encourage accountability, but this is quickly disappearing. This is a foundation we have built for ourselves: one that rests on emotionalism, felt-needs, a lack of doctrine and other factors that have invaded our churches. And this my friends, is why the American Evangelical church is dying.

Wells contributes this slow death to three movements: the marketers, the emergents, and the postmodernists. He begins the book with "the Lay of the Evangelical Land," and in the first sentence shocks the reader with this:

"It take no courage to sign up as a Protestant. After all, million have done so throughout the West. They are not in any peril. To live by the truths of historic Protestantism, however, is a entirely different matter. That takes courage in today's context."

He then breaks down these three movements but has a consistent theme throughout his book: the lack of a doctrinal foundation. He says,

"What happened, though, was that this doctrinal vision began to contract. The goal that diversity in secondary matters would be welcomed quite soon passed over into an attitude that evangelicalism could in fact be reduced simply to its core principles of Scripture and Christ. In hindsight, it is now rather clear that the toleration of diversity slowly became an indifference toward much of the fabric of belief that makes up Christian faith... The erosion in biblical ways of thinking at first passed almost unnoticed. Nevertheless, after a while it was hard to miss the fact that this was happening. No doubt there were many specific causes. Campus organizations were undoubtedly reducing Christian faith to its most minimal form. And as serious biblical preaching in the churches diminished, ignorance of biblical truth became commonplace. But the largest factor in this internal change, I think, was that evangelicalism began to be infested by the culture in which it was living. And then Christianity became increasingly reduced simply to private, internal, therapeutic experience. Its doctrinal form atrophied and then crumbled."

He begins with the marketers: these are the "seeker-senitive's", those who place the idea of what people think before the Gospel message. For example, there was a church not long ago that sent out surveys to the local to community to find out what kind of music they liked and then, based on the outcome of the surveys, spliced the most popular music into their church service to appease people. He argues this mentality of turning the church into a business comes from our economic world where numbers (such as attendance and money) are placed in front of doctrine. When we begin to let the culture influence the church, the church will crumble, as Wells puts it here:

"The truth is that without a biblical understanding of why God instituted it, the church easily becomes a liability in a market where it competes only with the greatest of difficulty against religious fare available in the convenience of one's living room and in a culture bent on distraction and entertainment... The constant cultural bombardment of individualism, in the absence of a robust theology, meant that faith that had rightly been understood as personal now easily became faith that was individualistic, self-focused, and consumer oriented. That was the change to which the church marketers attuned themselves. Instead of seeing this as a weakness to be resisted, they used it as an opportunity to be exploited. Increasingly, evangelical faith was released from any connections with the past, from every consideration except the self, and was imbued with no other objective than entrepreneurial success. As the evangelical experience was thus cut loose, it became increasingly cultural, increasingly empty, and increasingly superficial."

Some churches have gone as far as leaving out key doctrines of the Gospel, such as the doctrine of sin, to cater to the "felt-needs" of the congregation. But the real irony is that Christians will flock to churches that have a strong doctrinal and preaching foundation:

"What were these people looking for in a church? If we believe all the church-marketing hype, we would have to conclude that potential customers wanted, above all else, not to hear issues of truth and belief. These should be avoided like the plague. These are matters, the prevailing wisdom says, that should be hidden from seekers because they are so dreadfully off-putting. Not so! In fact, go percent of those in Rainer's studies said the preaching was important to them, and not just any preaching. Almost the same percentage, 88 percent, said that what they came to hear was doctrine. The beliefs of the church were important to 91 percent. They wanted to know what the church believed. They wanted to have this laid out for them - with conviction. This was their preeminent concern. The next issue of importance, the friendliness of people, was far down the list - only 49 percent cited it. Is this such a revolutionary discovery? Should we really be so amazed that people would like to know what Christians think and whether, in this age of jaded, faded, transient beliefs, there actually is something that can be believed for all time?"

Wells next attacks the Emergents, those who believe that the social gospel runs supreme, or who believe in existentialism. In both cases, the priority of doctrine is neglected and human thought or reason is the ultimate end to the churches many problems.

Wells ends his book with a word of criticism he seems to get a lot: that it is great to diagnose what is wrong with the church, but how do we fix it? The point he makes is that if we believe that God is sovereign, it is in his will that we are to remain faithful to preaching and teaching the word of God and that he alone is able to make a change in the direction of the church.

I believe that my calling in this life is to enter into the ministry and begin to accept this great challenge: to remain faithful in the things God has given us and to pray that someday He will effect change. Whether I see the fruits of this labor is a non-issue as God is the one who has ultimate authority. This book was an eye-opening look on today's church in our self-absorbed culture and I recommend it to anyone who is involved in the church.

10 - Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, J.R.R Tolkien, 416 pages

I actually finished this book last week, but have yet to write a review for it. It seems to be a trend that I procrastinate everything from school work to book reviews, but yet I keep saying: better late than never!

This book delves into the fantasy world of Middle Earth where, as most of you know from the polarizing movie trilogy, Frodo is on a quest to destroy the one ring of power in the fires of Mt. Doom. As I said in the last review on the Fellowship of the Ring, the plot synopsis is not necessary because of how intricately tied our culture has become to this story.

Much of what I said about the Fellowship applies here: the text is lush and eloquently written. It is almost like enjoying a rich desert that melts in your mouth as you are able to taste the smallest details in the concoction. It really is a pleasant read. But it is not always the most understandable read. Many of the words are archaic in nature and perhaps even a little alienating because of Tolkien's English heritage. Either way, I was able to fall in love easily with the main characters because of how relatable they are. Frodo has been given this enormous task to deliver the ring to Mt. Doom but the irony here is he is only a halfling. He is not even tall enough to blend in with an orc. But the beauty behind this is no matter how big the task is, not only does he accept it's challenge but he makes huge strides in finishing his goal; not without the one and only Sam. Sam tries his hardest to protect his master, even if he stumbles a little on the way and does more harm than good. Nevertheless, his courage to put his master's well-being before his own is admirable, and he does it without compromising the weight of his master's mission. It would be easy to help Frodo carry the ring, but Frodo has been tasked with this undertaking, not Sam and he cannot interfere no matter how much he might want to when he see's Frodo's burden.

One more side note: the actor that portrayed Gollum did such a superb job when matching his performance to the standard of the book. It is actually kind of freaky how well he played that out.

As I have said before, I understand now how these books have become enshrined in our culture fifty years after they were written. The story is excellent and the detail is impeccable. I look forward to finishing the trilogy this week!

9 - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R Tolkien, 531 pages

This is a bit late as I finished this book about a week ago, but better late than never. Since my departure from regular book reviews, I was about 3 books behind and I thought of no better way to catch up then some good ol' fiction novels. I bought the Lord of the Rings Trilogy awhile back and thought it was the most impeccable book series to get back on track by trying to read all 3 of them in one week. I almost succeeded, too, but I picked up a new book that I quickly became enamored with after I finished The Two Towers (book review coming soon). I suppose I should put it down and finish the trilogy!

This book is unique in a couple of different ways: for starters, I have never read the trilogy but I have attempted to read this book before (without success). I thought that now my reading level has increased, I would be able to get through it with more ease and that, for the most part, is true. However, it is still a difficult book to read: the prose is sophisticated and antiquated which makes certain passages not easily digestible. One thing that stuck out more than anything was the fact that it is almost essential to understand landmark nomenclature before attempting to read this book. So many times he does not describe the land but simply refers to it as a "gully" or a "bluff;" without knowing firsthand what those things look like, one may be confused quite a bit!

What is more perturbing to me is I am seeing every scene play out as it did in the movies instead of letting my imagination take over and create a world for myself. While I was surprised at how much was the same, I was equally surprised at how much was different. The differences were even more annoying knowing that I could not see that scene as it played out in the movie. That's what I get for not reading it first!

I do not think it is necessary to divulge the plot of this book because of how accessible the movies made this story. I will say this: for anyone who has not read the book, I think it is worth reading solely for the character of Tom Bombadil. He is an intriguing character that was intentionally left out of the movies. Tolkien said about Bombadil,

"I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were, taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless..."

Just like the movie, the book starts out a bit slow and picks up towards the end. For those of you who have tried to read it with no success, I would highly recommend you try again. This is such a beautifully written story and I admire Tolkien's writing style; I can see why it was and is so enigmatic in our culture today, 60-70 years after it was written. In the future, I can see myself reading this out loud to my children someday as many have done before.

8 - The Story of Christianity, Vol II The Reformation to the Present, Justo Gonzalez, 530

So I've taken a little break from blogging, but not from reading. I know I'm a little behind in my weekly book reading (the last post was from, yikes, February 23) but I think I will be caught up in nearly a week.

This past semester, I took 2 classes on Church History: Part 1, from the inception of the Church to the Reformation, and part 2, from the Reformation to the Present. The text for the class was this book that I read, not in a week, but over the course of eight weeks. It still counts right?

Church history is so fascinating to me: it is amazing that even after 2,000 years, there is an institution that has gone through trials, even through the fire and nearly broke apart; it was only through the predestined plan of God that it continues to this day and that is nothing less of a miracle. Out of all of Church History, my favorite act in this wild play would have to be the Reformation. I had to write a paper on Martin Luther and it was some of the most enlightening and informative research I have ever done. My favorite line in the scene of the Reformation would have to be Martin Luther's monologue at the Diet of Worms: Martin posted his 95 thesis' in protest of the indulgence preachers (preachers who were saying that you had to pay for a certificate that got you into heaven or out of purgatory) and catapulted him into a confrontation with the Pope's "Papal Bull," culminating at the Diet of Worms which was a gathering to decide whether Martin would be excommunicated from the Church and given to the Inquisition (which would guarantee death). Here they asked him to recant and he asked for one more day. The next day, he was again asked to recant and he replied,

"Your Imperial Majesty and Your Lordships demand a simple answer. Here it is, plain and unvarnished. Unless I am convicted [convinced] of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning, I stand convicted [convinced] by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God's word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.

On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me."

Others took part of this momentous occasion, including Ulrich Zwingli and another favorite, John Calvin. After the reformation, Europe erupted into war and uncertainty. Later, those searching for religious freedom from the oppressive Church of England would take a ship across the Atlantic Ocean to a colony in North America, thus beginning American Christianity. One can see how gracious God has been with our own country with the First Great Awakening featuring Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield (it is said that there wasn't a person in the 19th century American Colonies that had not heard George Whitefield speak), the Second Great Awakening, and the Layman Church Revival. Not all is happy though: with the onset of humanism and the enlightenment, philosophy has been ever near to Christian thought, threatening it's very existence with the ideals of Deism in the 19th century and existentialism in the 21st century. Today, we are beginning to see the unification of a global society, and with that the ecumenical (one world church) movement take shape as we move further into end times.

In any case, I think we as Christians have a responsibility to learn Church History and I recommend this book as a starting point in your studies.