Book Review – Calling Christian Leaders (John Stott)

This short book is an exposition of 1 Corinthians 1-4, focusing particularly on Christian leadership. Stott breaks the four chapters into five sections. The first is on the “ambiguity” of the church – the church is a painful paradox – what it claims to be is not what it seems to be. It is holy yet becoming holy, one yet divided. With regards to holiness he warns of the opposite dangers of perfectionism (failing to appreciate that there will always be sinners in any church) and defeatism (giving up opposing sin and tolerating it in the church).

The second section takes on the theme of power through weakness. Stott explains how the only power of the church is found in Jesus, in the cross and in the Spirit. He warns of the corrupting desire for power, and calls us to examine our motives even when we pray for power – why do we want it? The gospel demonstrates power through weakness, and so should the church. It is important then that leaders exemplify this principle and reject worldly models of leadership.

The third section is on the Spirit and the Scripture. He speaks of the twin gifts of our salvation and the Spirit, before explaining the relationship between the Spirit and the Bible. The Spirit not only inspired the Bible, but illuminates us as we read. He takes some time to clarify what is meant and what is not meant by “verbal inspiration” of Scripture.

The fourth chapter explores various pictures of the church – a field, a building, a temple. A higher view of the church will actually result in a lower view of leaders – as we understand that it is God who gives the growth.

The fifth and final chapter deals directly with the topic of leadership, and calls for loving, gentle and humble leadership as opposed to the autocratic models too often found in churches.

As with all John Stott’s books, this one is marked by careful exegesis and reverent submission to the Word of God. As usual he is humble, gracious, thought-provoking and insightful in his teaching. It could be read in a few hours, and would be useful as a guide for anyone preaching or studying their way through the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians.

Book Review – Show them No Mercy

This book presents four views on the “Canaanite genocide” reported in the book of Joshua. This has always posed something of an ethical dilemma for Christians, as the Israelites are commanded to leave no survivors in their conquest of certain cities. The four authors are said to all sit “squarely within the evangelical tradition”, and are tasked with explaining how we can make sense of such bloodthirsty texts in our Scriptures. This is particularly pertinent as in a post-9/11 world, many atheists are claiming that religion is irrevocably violent.

Each writer gets to make their case in an essay of around 30 pages, followed by brief responses from the other three writers.

Radical Discontinuity – C S Cowles

The first essay is the most combative. Cowles considers the Canaanite conquest to be sub-Christian and even “anti-Christian”. He views the God of the Old Testament as violent and vindictive, while the God of the New Testament, revealed in Christ is one of love. He therefore freely repudiates the Old Testament texts (it is not a “Christian message”) and claims there could never have been any legitimacy for these attrocities. What is surprising is not that he should be so horrified, but that while claiming to be evangelical he has such low regard for the Old Testament. He seems to be suggesting that Joshua was not hearing from God, but simply making up whatever he wanted to do in the situation. He claims to be following the line that Wesley took on these matters.

The responses to him are polite, with the other authors thanking him for being so frank and honest in his views. However, he is rightly criticised for effectively de-canonising the Old Testament, and also for conveniently ignoring the “violent” texts of the New Testament. It is not at all clear that Jesus saw himself in any way as opposed to the revelation of God in the Old Testament.

Moderate Discontinuity – Eugene Merrill

Merrill represents a dispensationalist postition and his essay falls into two parts. First he surveys all instances of what he terms “Yahweh war” – war sanctioned (and fought even) by Yahweh. Interestingly, he also sees the future battle of Armageddon as another example. His justification from Yahweh war also is strongly Scripture based – God displays his holiness and omnipotence, without contradicting his goodness and mercy. The true foe in the war is idolatry and false gods. While Cowles freely criticises Scripture, Merrill shows determination to accept it’s witness to God however uncomfortable it may be. Strangely, while highlighting lots of instances of “God hardening the hearts” of various enemies, Merrill sees this as a human action (as opposed to divine initiative) of hardening which brings the judgement of God.

Unsurprisingly, Cowles castigates him for defending the indefensible, while the other two authors are more receptive to his arguments. Gard suggests he has not properly considered why, given his argument, all nations should not deserve to be annihilated. Longman feels that he has ignored instances in the OT where God is said to be fighting on the side of Israel’s enemies and altogether ended up with to “neat” an explanation.

Eschatological Continuity – Daniel Gard

Gard begins by arguing that revelation occurs not only through Scripture but through the God who acts in history. He views the Canaanite genocide as an eschatological foreshadowing of the final judgement. Like Merrill, he draws on Von Rad’s work on “Holy War”, and briefly surveys the biblical evidence. He believes that there was also “reverse holy war” – God was sometimes responsible for the defeat of Israel rather than its victory, but reminds us that Israel was never fully destroyed.

He focuses particularly on the understanding of the writer of Chronicles, who foresaw a “new David” coming. He says that Israel could participate in the holy wars because they were simultaneously a political and theological entity – unlike the church who can never justify a war, although he does agree with the concept of “just war”. He concludes by focusing on the cross – the sacrifice to save us from wrath.

Cowles again responds with hostility, arguing that the surrounding nations were less barbarous than the Israelites, making mockery of any concept of judgement in their destruction. Merrill agrees in part with Gard although rejects his eschatology and doesn’t agree that God fighting against Israel counts as herem – Yahweh war. Longman agrees with Gard’s conclusions but not his argument.

Spiritual Continuity – Tremper Longman III

Longman starts by comparing the Joshua accounts to modern terrorists such as Bin Laden with their concepts of “sacred space” and “holy war”. He also admits that there is a very small radical fringe of Christianity who might claim justification of violent action (e.g. against abortionists) from passages such as this. However, despite this Longman warns that we cannot conveniently disavow the OT. He argues that the holy war was itself an expression of “worship”. It was not that God was an enemy to Israel’s enemies, but that they were to be an enemy to God’s enemies.

As with Merril and Gard, Longman goes through the accounts and features of holy war. He notes that the Bible does not understand herem as the destruction of innocents – and views it as a final punishment after great patience on God’s part. His main approach is to argue for five phases of holy war – starting with God fighting for Israel, then God fighting against Israel, but then moving on to Jesus fighting against spiritual powers and authorities. Jesus radically changed people’s expectations by failing to bring political revolution. The church is involved in its own herem, but it is a purely spiritual battle – not against flesh and blood. And the fifth phase is the final battle as depicted in Revelation.

Summary

Personally, I think this book suffered by having too many contributors. Merrill, Gard and Longman are obviously in broad agreement about the historicity and authority of the Old Testament, and cover much of the same ground when summarising the biblical material. Their differences are not really strong enough to make for interesting reading. It would have been better to have two very differing views (probably Cowles and Longman) and let them hammer it out.

All four contributors of course completely disavow any warmongering or violence by the church, so in that sense, the argument is simply over what we do with the uncomfortable parts of the Old Testament. The answer seems to be that what you make of those parts depends on your view of Scripture. And that in turn has a very big impact on what your view of God is. It is the same issue that is at stake in current debates over the nature of the atonement – can we accept the Biblical testimony to God’s anger against sin, or do we say that this is incompatible with love and therefore reject any Scripture that does not fit our understanding of who he is, losing large parts of both Old and New Testaments in the process?

Book Review – Eat This Book (Eugene Peterson)

Anyone who single-handedly paraphrases the entire Bible is probably worth hearing on the subject of Bible reading, so I chose this book as my introduction to the writings of Eugene Peterson. It is not the first in his “Spiritual Theology” series, but stands alone as a guide to what he calls “spiritual reading”, or what has been know in the past as “lectio divina” – the Scriptures are not merely to be read, but lived.

The first section utilises the picture of the apostle John being given a book to eat in Revelation 10:9-10. These are words intended to get inside of us. He stresses the importance of the Bible if we are to be those who know who Jesus is, where he is going and how to walk in his steps.

When reading a spiritual book, we need to pay close attention to form – it is not just what is said, but how it is said that matters. And the form is a story. He talks about how we need to move from reading the Bible to see how God fits into the story of our lives, to reading it to discover how our lives fit into his story.

Peterson stresses the importance of exegesis – exegesis is the care we give to getting the words right. It is loving God enough to stop and listen to what he says. This is not to say that he feels that true understanding of the Bible is the domain of experts only, but he does recommend that commentators be our companions as we seek to give care to properly comprehending what the Word says.

He proposes a “hermeneutic of adoration” (it reminded me of N T Wright’s “hermeneutic of love”, but the concept is slightly different). Our culture makes self the authoritative text to live by, and the church has bought into this. He warns that just as eating the book gave John stomach ache, so the Word of God not only comforts us but disturbs. We cannot necessarily systematize to get rid of the “difficult bits”.

Peterson is a very profound and creative writer, but I must admit there were a few places where he seemed to get so profound that he lost me. He proposes that Bible reading should be “liturgical”, but not what most people understand “liturgical” to mean, but rather something that pertains to the whole of life. He moves on to give some good advice on the importance of reading “in context” – not so much meaning reading the bits before and after, but understanding the context into which the words were first spoken.

The second section of the book, goes through the art of spiritual reading – lectio divina. This quite practical section leads us through lectio – we read the text, meditatio – we meditate on it, oratario – we pray the text, and finally contemplato – we live the text. He encourages us that “anything goes” in prayer – the Psalmists demonstrate that prayer is about honesty before God, not about being “nice”.

The third and final section talks about Bible translation, a subject dear to Peterson’s heart. He is somewhat critical of “literal” translations, as they can lose the impact of metaphors. He tells the story of how he came to write The Message, a translation into modern American. He sees himself as following in the tradition of Tyndale, whose passion was to put the Bible into everyday language – an aim that was partly undone by the translators of the King James version.

Overall I found this to be a very stimulating read on a topic that is not often written on (at least from this angle), and certainly more lively than some textbooks on hermeneutics I have read. I’ll probably try a few more in his Spiritual Theology series.

Book Review – NIV Application Commentary on Jeremiah & Lamentations (J Andrew Dearman)

Brief Summary

A 480 page commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations that seeks to bridge the gap from what happened “back then” to how Christians can apply it to their own lives today.

The Introductions

Both Jeremiah and Lamentations have their own reasonably sized introductions. He explains that Jeremiah was written to help God’s people make sense of their fall to the Babylonians. Dearman takes a strongly Christological perspective in seeing how themes of temple and land would be ultimately fulfilled. He thinks it unlikely that Lamentations was written by Jeremiah, and notes that in the New Testament, it is on the lips of Jesus himself that we most frequently find lament.

The Commentary

As with all volumes in the NIVAC series, the full text of a chapter or section is included, followed by three sections of commentary. The first section, entitled “original meaning” attempts to explain what the text meant in its original context to its original hearers. “Bridging Contexts” shows both the points of continuity and discontinuity between our modern context and theirs. Finally “Contemporary Significance” seeks to apply the message directly to our own lives. The “Original Meaning” section is most similar to a standard commentary, while the “Contemporary Significance” section is what might be heard in a typical sermon on the passage in question.

Most of the commentary is done in sections of one chapter at a time, although  there were a couple of places where five or six chapters were tackled in one big section.

Strengths

Since Jeremiah is not arranged chronologically, it is very helpful to have good information linking what is prophesied in each chapter to the historical situation at the time. Dearman is also careful to apply the passages in the light of the New Covenant, but at the same time does not blunt the social and ethical implications of the prophecy. He works hard to keep the application sections varied and interesting. He tackles a wide variety of subjects including pluralism, politics, abortion, worship, social justice, and the fulfilment of prophecy. He likes to pick out incidents from modern history to illustrate his points.

Weaknesses

With the limited space given to “Original Meaning”, not everything can be commented on, so those looking for exegetical answers on particular verses may not find what they are looking for. The “Contemporary Significance” sections are often focused on the American church and culture, so it won’t always hit the mark for readers from other parts of the world.

Why Buy It?

This commentary will be useful for two groups of people. First, those personally studying their way through Jeremiah will find the format helpful – one chapter a day can be managed without too much time commitment. Second, those preparing sermons or Bible studies on Jeremiah and Lamentations will doubtless find some good ideas on how to present the “relevance” of this ancient book to modern audiences.

Word and Spirit

Ever since naming my blog “Word and Spirit”, I have always been on the lookout for Biblical passages and themes that relate these two topics together. Initially, I tended to think of “Word and Spirit” in a purely ecclesiological sense – a “Word and Spirit” church is one that values both sermons and spiritual gifts. Most churches who present themselves as “Word and Spirit” are trying to indicate that they have this dual emphasis on preaching and pneumatology.

But over the last years I have noticed many ways in which the Word of God and Spirit of God work together in the life of an individual believer. I began gathering material, with the intention of writing a short book that I would make freely available to readers of this blog and friends (already two people have offered to buy it if I put their names in the foreword!).

So I was looking for opportunities to develop the material by teaching it, and last Sunday I had the chance to preach at a Sunday night student event at my church. I based the talk on the metaphors of the Word of God as our spiritual food and the Spirit of God as our spiritual drink.

I had far too much to say in the time I had available (I skipped over at least 10 points!), and was worried it would come across as more of an “information blast” than a sermon, but people seemed positive about it. I’ve put my notes online in PDF format here for those who are interested: “Being Filled with the Word and Spirit“. If the mp3 gets made available I’ll put a link to it as well.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that a charismatic evangelical spirituality is simply a life filled with the Word and Spirit of God. This involves being a “self-feeder” (as Willow Creek have just “discovered”), by regularly coming to meet God in private in the Word and prayer, but also encountering God in his Word and by his Spirit in community, as we enjoy a “Word and Spirit banquet” with other believers when we meet together.

Anyway, my next steps are to organize my material into chapters, and I’ll post them one at a time on this blog as they are complete, so you can be my proof-readers and editor if you like!

Peterson on Commentaries

I came across a great section in Eugene Peterson’s “Eat This Book” encouraging people to read commentaries cover to cover. This is something I love to do, although until I read this, I have never heard anyone recommend it. He draws a great parallel between commentators and football fans. I’ll quote him in full. (emphasis added).

It is useful for readers of the Bible to keep company with some of our master exegetes; the easiest way to do it is to use their commentaries. Biblical commentaries are, for the most part, employed by pastors or teachers in the preparation of sermons or lectures. They are treated as “tools”. But there are treasures in these books for the ordinary reader of the Bible. Among those of us who read – eat – this text not in preparation for an assignment, but simply for direction and nourishment in following Jesus, which means most of us, biblical commentaries have for too long been overlooked as common reading for common Christians.

I recommend reading commentaries in the same way we read novels, from beginning to end, skipping nothing. They are, admittedly, weak in plot and character development, but their devout attention to words and syntax is sufficient. Plot and character – the plot of salvation, the character of Messiah – are everywhere implicit in a commentary and persistently assert their presence even when unmentioned through scores, even hundreds, of pages. The power of these ancient nouns and verbs century after century to call forth intelligent discourse from learned men and women continues to be a staggering wonder.

Among those for whom Scripture is a passion, reading commentaries has always seemed to me analogous to the gathering of football fans in the local bar after the game, replaying in endless detail the game they have just watched, arguing (maybe even fighting) over observations and opinion, and lacing the discourse with gossip about the players. The level of knowledge evident in these boozy colloquies is impressive. These fans have watched the game for years; the players are household names to them; they know the fine print in the rulebook and pick up every nuance on the field. And they care immensely about what happens in the game. Their seemingly endless commentary is evidence of how much they care. Like them, I relish in a commentary not bare information but conversation with knowledgeable and experienced friends, probing, observing, questioning the biblical text. Absorbed by this plot that stretches grandly from Genesis to Revelation, captured by the messianic presence that in death and resurrection saves us one and all – there is so much to notice, so much to talk over.

Not all commentaries fill the bill – some of them are written by scholars who seem to have no interest in God or the story, but there are enough that qualify to convince me that they provide welcome and indispensable companionship to all of us readers of the text who, as we follow Jesus, don’t want to miss anything along the way.

Book Review – The Church on the Other Side (Brian McLaren)

The thesis of this book is pretty straightforward: the times are changing, and the church had better move with the times. We are transitioning from modernism to postmodernism and the church on “the other side” of this great cultural shift will look very different to the modern church. McLaren therefore offers us twelve strategies to help us successfully navigate the change and build churches that are appropriate and relevant for the new world. “A new world needs a new church.”

McLaren clearly believes there is something very wrong with the current state of the church – “human beings are incurably religious, yet Christianity has lost its power to satisfy us”. His solution is not renewal or reformation (indeed he is critical of these approaches). No the church must be “re-invented”. He claims that there are no “blueprints”. Most evangelicals will be wondering what place he gives to the Bible as the foundation for our ecclesiology. They will still be wondering by the end, and left suspecting that the answer is “almost none”.

Many of the typical emerging church concerns are outlined. The church needs to be more honest about its failures, less dogmatic, less arrogant, less caught up with traditions (and more connected to “Tradition”), less about personal salvation and more about community now. We should focus on what unites us rather than our doctrinal distinctives and embrace all types of Christian spirituality. A nuanced Amen to most of that.

He talks about the need for a new apologetic. “Proofs” of the Christianity to make it more credible are no longer needed for a postmodern world. Rather, Christianity must be seen to be plausible by being a community people would want to join.

McLaren is very hard to pin down on doctrine (probably deliberately). His approach seems to be the politicians favourite “I can neither confirm nor deny that doctrine…”. For example, he speaks of the need to stop fighting against other religions and fight alongside them, leaving you not quite sure of his position on the exclusiveness of Jesus for salvation.

The church needs to find a new rhetoric, which is to say it needs to talk less and do more. He calls for churches to become a lot less attached to their structures, and to reject the models of leadership found in modern evangelicalism such the “Bible answer man” who will fix any doubt with a quick proof-text, or the “successful” mega-church pastor who promises you perpetual victory and prosperity.

He lists many reasons why traditional “missions” are running out of steam, and suggests new models where we think more holistically about “mission”.

The book finally closes with three chapters on postmodernism. He is convinced that it is the future, and that we should not only understand it, but embrace it. He sees it as the future not only in western culture but worldwide.

It is not hard to see why Brian McLaren is so popular. He certainly identifies a number of real problems in the church, and suggests many good ideas for improvement. However, this book left me feeling uneasy for a number of reasons.

First, while I do not claim to be in any way an expert on culture, it seems remarkably simplistic to subsume everyone under one new umbrella of “postmodernism”. I see a world containing many diverse cultures, and though “modernists” may indeed be dying out, they certainly still exist and need to be reached with the gospel.

Second, after identifying many ways in which the church has unfortunately embraced the negatives of modernism, it seems bizarre that he should be so eager for the church to reconfigure itself to be exactly what post-moderns are asking for. He somewhat cheekily suggests that he need not critique postmodernism because (grumpy old) D A Carson has already done enough of that!

Third, while making clear that he does not accept relativism, it is almost entirely unclear what he believes the basis for knowledge is. He wants to encourage creative and “messy” thinkers, to re-invent the church, to embrace new paradigms. But how will he judge these ideas? It certainly does not seem like he would offer the Bible as any kind of objective standard.

Maybe McLaren would say that this question reveals that I am stuck in a “modernist” mindset. And perhaps it does. But when one of his messy thinkers suggests that all religions lead to God, or that we should all dance round naked at the church worship service, on what basis will he accept or reject their proposals? Is the church on the other side able to detect heresy? Or is the only heresy the idea that heresy is even possible?

I would only recommend this book to those interested in understanding the emerging church’s ecclesiology. The good ideas he proposes can also be found in books by those far more rooted in Scripture. Jesus has already “invented” the church. We do not need to re-invent it, but maybe we do need to re-discover his original intentions for it, and re-configure the way we speak and act so that we are truly able to communicate the unchanging truth of the gospel to a post-modern world.

Book Review – Discovering Christ in the Song of Solomon (Don Fortner)

This is essentially a commentary on the Song of Songs taking an allegorical approach. Indeed, the author insists that the book “is not in any sense to be interpreted literally” and “it would lead to great evil to interpret it literally”. Personally, I find that approach too limiting, but the allegorical interpretation does have good pedigree, with Spurgeon and the Puritans seeing in this book a love story between Christ and the church (and indeed between Christ and the individual believer).

The book has no introduction and is divided into 32 short chapters, which make it suitable for reading a chapter a day as a devotional guide. The early chapters in particular are very good at stirring us up to desire to know the manifest presence of the Lord in our lives. We are to treasure his presence above all things, not being content with mere religious gatherings, and not allowing even our sins to keep us from Christ.

As would be expected in an allegorical interpretation there are some rather speculative interpretations, and the author rarely admits to uncertainty over the meaning of a passage. It has a strongly reformed theology and he even manages to find references to Arminian theology in places! There are some good sections on assurance of salvation and the believers struggle with sin and its effect on our relationship with Christ.

Overall, there is much good devotional material in here, but the jury is out on the hermeneutics. It is not until chapter 7 of Song of Songs that he even considers that there could be an application for husbands and wives. But the call to love Christ more deeply and to treasure his presence is always a valuable one, and even if other commentaries may need to be consulted, I think the allegorical approach should not be lightly dismissed.

As long as it is informed by other plainer passages of Scripture, this approach brings to life Paul’s observation that the relationship between a husband and wife mirrors that of Christ and the church. I would probably however recommend that those wanting to study Song of Songs allegorically start with John Owen’s “Communion with God” or Hudson Taylor’s “Union with Christ” rather than this book. I still also consider Tom Gledhill’s Bible Speaks Today commentary on Song of Songs which takes a completely non-allegorical approach to the book to also be well worth a read.

Book Review – Self-Esteem (Joanna & Alister McGrath)

Self-esteem is a topic that preachers cannot ignore. We know that there are many who feel “worthless” and that the gospel must in some way address this. But does it do so by simply telling us we are in fact great so need not feel bad, or by telling us that we are sinners and so are right to feel the way we do? Both approaches have been taken, and neither seems satisfactory as a Christian approach to self-esteem.

Joanna & Alister McGrath are well placed to contribute to this debate owing to their expertise in the fields of psychology and theology respectively. The early chapters function as a primer on the secular understanding of “self-esteem”.

They provide the following working definition of self-esteem:

Self-esteem consists of a global evaluation or judgment about personally acceptability and worthiness to be loved, which carries with it pleasant or unpleasant feelings. It is strongly related to the perceived views of the person by important others in his or her life.

They then explore the different things on which self-esteem is typically based – the roles we fulfill and our performance of them, our “pedigree”, the love of others for us, and our eternal significance. There is an interesting discussion of the different reasons we ascribe to our successes and failures (whether we see ourselves as the cause or whether we see external factors as having caused them) and how this relates to our self-evaluation of worth.

There is a chapter that explores the relationship between negative self-esteem and various mental illnesses and personality disorders. One important concept they explore is that of “attachment” and “separation” in a parent-child relationship. Feelings of abandonment lead to low self-esteem, whilst a sense of attachment brings positive self-esteem.

At the mid-point of the book, they bring in a Christian critique of the prevailing secular understandings of self-esteem. Christians should neither uncritically accept or deny secular findings. However, the main weakness they note in secular approaches is the denial of the problem of sin. A Christian understanding of sin is deeply counter-cultural. Christianity offers freedom, but sin brings bondage.

Secular approaches assume that we do not need to question the way we are. We need not seek anything beyond the realm of this world. And, for the Christian, this inevitably means that those who rely upon secular therapies will remain captive to sin.

Also, secular approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy are simply content with attaining “realistic” goals, whilst Christ confronts us with absolute moral demands and calls us to be perfect. Rather than destroying the self-esteem of the Christian, our failure to achieve this has the positive effect of driving us to rely on the grace of God rather than upon our own resources. Thus our self-esteem is not based upon achievements (as in many secular approaches) but on grace.

The remaining section of the book is theological and practical, explaining that the cross is the Christian basis for self-esteem and confidence. In a great chapter on the cross, sin is likened to a disease, which God cures through the work of Christ on the cross. This healing is currently ongoing, and so our self-esteem should not be compromised by an awareness of sin. There is also a very helpful explanation of “justification by faith” in relational terms – we are in right relation with God.

The theme of separation and attachment is revisited in a chapter on the fatherhood of God. We find a deep longing fulfilled as we are reconciled to God and adopted. Another chapter works through the book of Philippians to explore how the gospel brings us a contentment and joy in all circumstances that comes as we follow Christ’s example of true humility.

The final chapter is very practical, explaining how Christians can help develop healthy self-esteem through affirming and accepting one another, and teaching on the significance of being “attached” to Christ. There is also a very useful section on the difficult topic of criticism. Our desire to affirm and accept one another does not mean that we will never criticise, but that it is done in the context of knowing one another deeply, being committed to one another, and is to be done simultaneously with affirmation and with a view to redirecting behaviour (rather than merely condemning).

This book is a good mixture of educational (on secular theories of self-esteem), theological and practical material. It will be of particular benefit to preachers and teachers who want to address issues of self-esteem, but are unsure as to what the best approach is. The answer is of course that the gospel, truly preached and rightly understood is central to helping people to develop a right evaluation of not just what they were but how God sees them and what he intends to do in them.

Book Review – The Purpose Driven Church (Rick Warren)

The main thesis of this book is that a local church needs to know what its purpose it, and then ensure that all it does is directed towards accomplishing that purpose. Rick Warren is of course founder and pastor of Saddleback church in America that has grown to over 20,000 attendees. He has a particular passion to reach the “unchurched” with the gospel, and this book details how he goes about this.

He is aware that “mega-churches” come under heavy criticism, which he seeks to refute early on in the book. You can grow without compromise. Indeed, he would say that a church that is not growing is actually dying. He also reports that Saddleback has not grown through “transfer growth” (Christians changing churches). In fact, 80% of their membership were baptised at Saddleback, and they saw 7,000 conversions in their first 15 years. This is certainly impressive, though sadly I imagine that not many mega-churches would be able to offer statistics anywhere close.

Another “myth” he attempts to debunk is that you can’t have quantity and quality. Of course they are not mutually exclusive, but McDonalds teaches us you can have quantity without quality. There is a real danger that the church grows wide and shallow.

One of his key strategies is being “seeker sensitive”. This involves two things. First of all, he simply means that churches should not do things that make visiting unbelievers feel awkward, confused, unwelcome or embarrassed. The language should be understandable, the welcome should be warm, the music should be of a good standard etc. In many ways, he is arguing for things that most evangelical churches have now taken on board (the book was published in 1995).

But there is a second side to being “seeker sensitive”. The Sunday meeting is actually specifically designed with unbelievers in mind. They still have worship and a sermon, but of primary importance is that the visiting “unchurched” will enjoy the worship and find the sermon useful. Saddleback run services directly targeted at believers on a different night.

It is worth considering the unique culture of America here. Rick Warren got over 200 people to attend his first meeting simply by mailing invitations and promising a church that would not be boring and irrelevant. And these were not Christians who came. Such a thing is unheard of here in the UK, and this fact should give pause for thought for anyone who would seek to copy his methods (Warren himself is insistent anyway that it is only the principles that should be copied – the particulars will differ). Evangelism in a “post-Christian” culture will look very different to this.

Warren claims that though the sermons are aimed at people’s “felt needs” this does not mean that the gospel is watered down. He argues that Jesus himself used this method. While I agree that Jesus was a good communicator, I was not entirely convinced that his messages were all as upbeat as Warren makes them out to be. For example he portrays the Sermon on the Mount as starting with “eight secrets of genuine happiness” and ending with a nice story about the importance of putting the teaching into action. It strikes me as a remarkably positive spin on some very challenging teaching!

Saddleback are very intentional about who they are targeting. They even have a name for their ideal customer (yes Warren even calls church attendees customers at times!) – Saddleback Sam is a well-off, middle-class, professional, husband and father. They design their services to be exactly what he wants. If someone objects that this is pandering to his ego-centric consumerism, Warren responds that these attitudes will be challenged after they become a believer. If people came to church with the mindset that it was merely a dispenser of religious goods and services, then we would hope that that idea would be challenged almost immediately as they find the church not to be a mirror of their culture, but a counter-cultural community.

We might also wonder why such a “nice” person was chosen, when the gospel is surely for all races and social classes. Warren seems to think that other churches can target other types of people, but that you can’t simply try to reach everyone, so you should go for the people you “most easily” reach. I found this approach uncomfortable – if every church thinks like this, who will reach the poor, Muslims, alcoholics? The fact is that the Christian population is predominantly white middle class both in the UK and in America. We cannot avoid “cross-cultural” mission even in our own cities. Having said that, it does appear that Saddleback has developed some other ministries to reach different types of people, even if the seeker service is not aimed at them.

Also slightly odd was their discipleship program. This involved people graduating through four stages, each complete with its own covenant (for example the first one is to tithe, have a quiet time, and attend regularly). This sounded a little formulaic and even verging on the legalistic, but it has to be said that it is way beyond what most churches require of new members and does at least demonstrate a genuine commitment to spiritual growth rather than merely an infatuation with “numbers” that many mega-churches are accused of.

In fact the chapters on helping members mature and minister to others are perhaps the strongest in the book. They take seriously the importance of commitment, and one of the things I liked best was his aversion to bureaucracy and committees. He would much rather people spent their time in ministry. He also believes that members should be empowered to initiate new ministries as they have a heart for them, rather than leaders coming up with ideas and looking for staff.

Rick Warren is certainly a pragmatist. This will leave some readers wondering whether he puts results before uncompromising faithfulness to the gospel. This is the first of his books I have read, and to be honest I wish he had taken the time to articulate what he understands the gospel to be. I appreciate his passion to see people saved, and to see them become mature. There is undoubtedly much to be learned from this book. But at the same time there is much that should not be copied, even if it is working at Saddleback.