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When Bad Christians Happen to Good People: Where We Have Failed Each Other and How to Reverse the Damage by Dave Burchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars Dave Burchett, an Emmy award winning sports director, reflects his sports background in his writing style. I found the one-liners quickly became burdensome. But the content comes out strong, struggles around the half way mark but then pulls forward and finishes decently. Dave has broken the book into 3 sections: the indefensible things we do to one another (the case), thoughts on how we lost our audience (the cause), and being real in an artificial world (the cure). I believe that Dave did a great job presenting the case. He is funny (at first), personal and has good insights. His analogy of the church as a basketball team is actually a good explanation for why we so desperately need patience and understanding in regards to all the struggles that occur in your local church. He has personally been hurt and does a good job of helping us to relate to the struggles that many have felt at the hands of their own church family. As Dave begins to explain the cause, I think he also begins to lose me. His short "colorful" one-liners really begin to become distracting. For example: "It is my observation that even just one little grumpy piranha can stir up a whole school of frenzied attackers. In the wild, piranhas try to isolate their prey before attacking it. Generally the tail region is the first area to be attacked. Since that is just too easy, you can draw your own parallels to the Christian analogy. I am convinced that if you could just spear the lead piranha, most church schisms would be dead in the water (sorry)." He is basically advocating a "realness” for Christians. If we would sell totally out to Christ with integrity and humility, then we would provide a better body life experience for the church and a more appealing testimony to the world at large. In the cause he shows how we have failed in this. In the cure section, he argues for it. Overall, I agree with what he presents however it is easy to become over simplistic in this. He started the book off realistic regarding the struggles we all face since we are all at different levels and our spiritual growth is a process. But if we are simplistic with the cure, then we simply say we need to change. The greater issue is helping everyone to understand a real view and learn to operate in love with patience. The greatest evangelistic command given us by Christ is "love one another even as I have loved you”, “they [the world:] will know you by your love". If we would exercise this, knowing that everyone is growing at different stages then we would have a unity that would abide. It is not simple but it is honest, humble and patient. Now we need to progressively grow in our love! I do recommend the book. I think it is a good book to think through the reality of the struggles of being a dynamic living body of Christ. But I do believe the answers are a bit too simplistic. View all my reviews >>
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