Book Review

Well, Lord Save Us From Your Followers turned out to be a pretty good read. While I'm not sure if I completely agree with the author, the book is very provocative and insightful. The author's premise is basically that everyone in our culture today wants to be heard, and not one wants to listen. Because of this, we've turned complex issues into "bumper sticker theology", boiling difficult topics down to ineffective one-liners in order to get our "point" across, whatever that "point" may be. I found the author's discussion of his trip to Africa, his interview with Al Franken, Michael Reagan, and various other points of his book particularly enlightening. The pros of this book is that he attempts to really dig into what "they" believe (i.e. non-evangelicals), in hopes of understanding how the American church is perceived by those outside of it, and thus figure out how we can improve upon the negative perceptions. While the author isn't saying anything that hasn't been said before, it's still a good read to approach with an open mind and take what you can from it.

The most valuable thing that I took away from this book is that many Christians have done a very good job at passing judgment on others, and a very poor job of showing them love. While you don't need a book to tell you this if you've been in church much, the author does help identify how this has become an alarming problem, in that many perceive the church based upon negative encounters with folks like the hate-mongers at Westboro Baptist (I hate to even bring up their names, since they don't deserve all the attention they receive). This is probably the main focus of the book through it's latter half, that Christians have become known for what they are against rather than for being followers of Jesus. Unfortunately, the author at times does define some evangelical leaders in blanketed terms, though he does attempt to be unbiased in his assessment. Again, the book deals a lot with perceptions, so the author himself, like most of us, will obviously fall into that trap every now and again.

My biggest qualm with the book though, is that though the author made his point very well, that love and dialog is needed with the unchurched from the church, rather than judgment and condemnation, he doesn't get you from that point to the intersection of Truth very well. It is clear from his countless examples in the book, that love and compassion readily opens doors for the unbelieving world to see the love of Jesus in the life of a believer. Unfortunately we often fail to see that in the life of Christ, and what a stunning example his acts of love show us. What doesn't come out of this book very well is where to go from there. Now, I'm not saying that humanitarian aid, and food kitchens, etc. aren't an indispensable work and meeting a need that very few are willing to meet, but for average Joe Christian who is living out his faith, how do you go from loving to leading? Now, it may very well be that the intention of the author was not to present a model of relational evangelism, only to identify the problem and be a catalyst to get people thinking, but the book left me feeling like the solution should be that if we all just love and understood each other, then everything would be "okay". Again, there is a big void in many churches where there is no love for sinners (which is obviously ironic, since many Christians forget that they also fall into that demographic, as we all do), but the point of the gospel is not to just show love, but also to deliver truth.

So, it was a good read (finished in 3 days), and if the purpose is to get the church thinking about what it's priority should be, then it delivers.