Pages Menu
TwitterRss
Categories Menu

Posted by on Jan 30, 2011 in Book Reviews, Evangelicalism |

Don’t Call It a Comeback edited by Kevin DeYoung

Having just cited some thoughts from Kevin DeYoung on why and when students leave the church, I thought it would be appropriate to go ahead and offer a summary of what Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day offers. You can find the table of contents and some of the endorsements over at Kevin DeYoung’s blog. I’ll just offer a quick summary of whom the book is written for and what you can expect to find in the book.

Audience

DeYoung writes in the introduction, “This book has two main aims. The first aim is to introduce young Christians, new Christians, and underdisciplined Christians to the most important articles of our faith and what it looks like to live out this faith in real life…The second aim of the book is to reassert the theological nature of evangelicalism. In recent years the term evangelical has lost almost all its meaning…But we think there is still merit to the label, provided it can be infused with theological meaning that manifests itself in some key ethical, social, and ecclesiastical stances and practices” (17).

Content

On the first account, the book is a great success. After briefly tracing the history of evangelicalism, Part 2: Evangelical Theology lays out some of the basic truths of the Christian faith, with helpful, well-written chapters by young theologians and writer such as Andy Naselli, Tim Challies, and Russell Moore.

Part 3: Evangelical Practice builds on the doctrines already presented with helpful looks at difficult questions such as vocation, social justice, abortion, homosexuality, the church, worship, and missions. Each author approaches his topic with the conviction that Scripture is the final authority–and thus they come to unpopular answers to some of the questions–but they also approach each topic with a great measure of grace. Hopefully, this part of the book will do something to illustrate to a new generation of Christians that conservative theology does not mean accepting the (popular, though not necessarily correct) label of self-righteous power-grabbers who want to force everyone to agree with them. For the homosexual, for the pregnant single lady, for the poor, this book offers truth from God and yet grace for sinners.

Summary

As Kevin DeYoung intentionally notes in the introduction, there is little that is new in Don’t Make It a Comeback. But that’s not the purpose of the book. The purpose is to lay out evangelical faith and practice from the perspective of some young evangelical leaders who want to be God-honoring, people-loving, Spirit-filled Christians who faithfully represent God to the world.

Read More

Posted by on Jan 30, 2011 in Christian Life, Evangelicalism | 2 comments

Why and When Students Check Out of Church

Kevin DeYoung

I’m currently working my way through Don’t Call it a Comeback, edited by Kevin DeYoung, and in the opening chapter–The Secret to Reaching the Next Generation–DeYoung offers some thoughts about why and when students leave, or least become disinterested in church.

Remember, the next generation is not just out there. They are also in here, sitting in our churches week after week. We often hear about how dangerous college can be for Christian teens, how many of them check out of church once they reach the university. But studies have shown that most of the students who check out do so in high school, not in college. It’s not liberal professors that are driving our kids away. It’s their hard hearts and our stale, compromised witness that opens the door for them to leave. [Don't Call it a Comeback, page 26]

While I’m not sure about the general reliability of the statistics that he cites (in general, not just these), there is likely something very true about it. Perhaps college is when students officially break with the church many times, but surely the lack of being captivated by God and his work in the world before college is why many students become disillusioned enough with church that they will one day leave it.

DeYoung offers five central ways of reaching the next generation (grab them with passion, win them with love, hold them with holiness, challenge them with truth, and amaze them with God), and none of them are really strategies based on cultural trends or fads. Rather, he argues that reaching the next generation is simply doing what the Bible has always indicated we ought to do (in ways that are understandable of course). But he does have one insight that makes a powerful point about how to keep students engaged:

The take home from all this is pretty straightforward. The one indispensable requirement for producing godly, mature Christians is godly, mature Christians. Granted, good parents will still have wayward children and faithful mentors don’t always get through to their pupils. Personal holiness is not the key that regenerates the heart. The Spirit blows where he will. But make no mistake, the promise of 2 Peter 1 is as true as ever. If we are holy, we will be fruitful. Personal connections with growing Christians is what the next generation needs more than ever. [Don't Call It a Comeback, page 27]

Read More

Posted by on May 31, 2010 in Book Reviews, Evangelicalism |

Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

Summary: “It’s all about Jesus.”  That expression summarizes the central message of Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola.  Sweet and Viola wrote this work because they believe that many churches today have lost sight of the central part of of Christianity: Christ.  They proceed to emphasize the absolute centrality and importance of Christ in every area of life, arguing that Christianity is not a system of doctrine, nor a cluster of programs, nor simply what we do as Christians.  Christianity is intimately knowing Christ and following him, nothing more, nothing less.

Reactions: From one perspective, it’s impossible, as a Christian, to find any fault with Sweet and Viola’s Jesus Manifesto.  What could possibly be wrong with focusing on Jesus?  Insofar as it goes, nothing, but there are both positive and negative aspects to their presentation.

Positives: Sweet and Viola offer some compelling critiques of the contemporary church.  One has to only look around at various “evangelical” Christian churches to see that many of them have simply forgotten the absolute necessity of being a disciple of Jesus, turning instead to program after program, principle after principle, new fad after new fad, and so on.  So the basic premise of Jesus Manifesto is much needed: We need Jesus, not programs.

Negatives: Simply having a good central thesis doesn’t mean that one will necessarily work out that thesis in positive ways.  Unfortunately, Sweet and Viola reflect the sad status of much evangelicalism in the following ways: (1) They drive a wedge between knowing Jesus and knowing doctrine.  Rightly understood, these should go together.  They seem to want to separate them.  Without knowing what we believe about Jesus, it will be quite difficult to identify whether we have a genuine knowledge of him. [1. For example, Mormons may claim to know Jesus, but given their doctrinal claims about him, we must reject that suggestion.]

(2) Sweet and Viola repeatedly call Christians to simply know Jesus and follow him, but they never clearly identify how this is to happen.  They suggest that the community of Christians is important, but that’s almost as far as they get.  Sadly, this reflects the status of evangelicalism–saying it’s all about Jesus, but not truly understanding how to follow Jesus, because it’s disconnected from the historic, orthodox doctrine of the church.  God has given his word, his people, prayer, and the sacraments to us to help us know Jesus and follow him.  Sadly, Sweet and Viola never acknowledge the absolute importance of all of those things.

So while I appreciate the central thesis of Jesus Manifesto, I can recommend it only as an insight into the status of evangelicalism, not as a book to genuinely help God’s people grow in him. [2. One other complaint I have is a pet peeve with a bit of a question: the book uses endnotes rather than footnotes or parenthetical citations.  I hate endnotes.  They are, in my opinion, the scourge of serious reading.  This book commits this error even more egregiously because it puts all the Scripture references in endnotes.  So whenever Scripture is quoted, you have to turn back many pages, try to find the right chapter, the right endnote, and then see where in Scripture the verse came from.  This seems like a strange decision...why make it harder than it has to be to look at Scripture in context?]

Disclosure: I received this book free from BookSneeze in exchange for writing a review. I review for BookSneeze

—Footnotes—

Read More
%d bloggers like this: