I’d like you to imagine that you’re holding God’s GPS in your hand.  Regardless of when you pick this book up to read it, or where you live in the world, God’s everlasting principles herein will never fail to guide you as you seek to make him known in your relational encounters.

 

 

What if the greatest danger to the biblical church today comes in the form of secularized, man-centered, shallow Christianity?  What if Secularism, Atheism, or Post-modernism do not present the greatest threat to reformed, evangelical churches?  This is an important what-if.  To be perfectly honest, the salvation of many may be called into question if I am correct in thinking shallow Christianity is a bigger issue than we make it out to be.  In fact, how much do we actually talk about this within our church culture?

A discerning question to ask as we consider the maturity of ourselves and our churches is this: how are we winning new converts to Christ?  What are we drawing them in with?

According to a not-so-new little book I just read, it’s with “naturally occurring” spiritual conversations and a heart of outward service in the church.  Wait a minute . . . what’s wrong with that?  Aren’t we supposed to have conversations about God and eternal things?  Aren’t we supposed to reach out to the lost with loving hearts, desiring that they might be brought into our fellowship one day?  Well . . . yes.

But the devil’s in the details here.  Not every “Christian” book is truly helpful and godly, nor are the authors always mature examples of how we should live out our faith.  Case in point . . . we need to talk about God Space.

Conversations Over Conversions

Not too long ago, I read an interesting book on asking good questions called Wait, What?.  While it was informative, it was not biblically centered and ultimately not the greatest help for Believers as they encounter opportunities to share the gospel and share life with the lost souls around them.

Recently, a friend approached me about this book, God Space, which had been recommended by some missionary friends.  She read this book and, while seeing no obvious deviation from biblical truth, had an odd feeling about it that prompted her to ask for a second opinion.  The title interested me, but already gave me pause because it did not seem to be a book that would show up in the Christian literary circles I run in.  However, I wanted to give this book a chance and be able to discuss it with my dear friend.  My reading friends, there is much to discuss here.

My concerns started bubbling up quickly.  By quickly, I mean immediately.  In reading the introduction, I was astounded to get the feeling from the word choice and sentence structure that Doug Pollock puts his book on conversations high up on the shelf.  In fact, I would say he unconsciously (at least, I hope unconsciously) claims his book is nearly on par with the Bible for helpfulness and truth when it comes to conversing in a godly and biblical manner.  That would be red flag #1.  And we’ve only just begun.

I made it another eleven pages before red flag #2 presented itself.  On page 11, Doug mentions creating a conversational atmosphere that is “low risk and high grace.”  First of all, I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.  What on earth is a “low risk and high grace” conversation?  What exactly is this “risk” anyway?  If we’re talking about sharing the gospel here, there is no such thing as “low risk” when we approach someone to tell them they are a sinner in need of a savior.  After reading the whole book (he mentions “low risk and high grace” at least one other time), I believe his intention is to prevent us from pushing unbelievers away from salvation and the church by the way we conversate with them.  Teaching the saints how to have grace-filled gospel-centered conversations is an admirable and necessary ministry, but to applaud a method as low-risk causes me to wonder, what kind of gospel is this man sharing?  The gospel is offensive to those who are not saved, it is foolishness to the world, and a stumbling block for men.  (See 1 Corinthians 1:18, 23)  Therefore, unless we remove the gospel from our conversations entirely, no spiritual conversation is “low risk”.

I will tie red flags #3 and #4 together.  Doug has an understanding of the church and of grace that is incompatible with scripture.  First, the church.  This sentence stuck out to me in particular, “95% of ministries within the church are for church members alone . . . I’ve had numerous experiences that have confirmed this inwardly focused mentality.”  Should we be concerned that he is bothered by the “inwardly focused mentality” of the church?  Yes, absolutely.

What is the purpose of the church?  How you answer that question dictates your response to Doug’s words.  Read Colossians 1:15-20 and you will see that Christ is the head of His body, the church, and He is to be preeminent in everything.  Purpose #1 of the church is to love and serve Christ above all else.  Turn to Acts 2:41-47 and we find that those who believed were together in fellowship, breaking bread, devoted to the teaching of the apostles, praying together and selling possessions to distribute to any who had a need.  We begin to see here already the forming of ministries and service within the early church.  Did you notice what I underlined a few sentences ago?  This speaks of those who believed, i.e. they were saved.  Purpose #2 of the church is to build up, encourage, and exhort its believing members.  Church ministries are not formatted to unbelievers (aside from outreach, missions, and evangelism) because they are not part of the body.  An unbeliever has no share in Christ, and if the Church is Christ’s body then it follows that unbelievers cannot receive the full blessing of Church ministry and service until salvation at which point they are heartily welcomed and grafted into the vine of Christ.  The problem with Doug’s views is that he subtly promotes a seeker-sensitive church and brings down the purpose of the church to an earthly level.

Second (flag #4), the grace of God.  Have you ever heard someone say something like, “All men yearn for Christ” or “All men are seeking for God”?  Doug does not expressly say these words or similar phrases at any points; however, there are several pages where I had a strong feeling that is what he was truly talking about.  It’s a nice sentiment, I would like to think that people are deep down yearning for Christ and his work upon their life.  Maybe I’ll just let Psalm 14:1-3 inform how we think of this, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.  The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.  They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”  Is there any evidence according to this verse that man desires to be with God, to have relationship and fellowship with Him?  If you’re still not sure, let’s turn to Romans 3:11, “No one understands, no one seeks for God.”  To desire God is to desire ultimate goodness; in order to desire and seek after goodness there must be at least a speck of goodness within us to be able to do so.  We are wicked, evil, vile sinners in whom there is not a shred of goodness to be found or even cultivated.  There is no hope for us apart from Christ’s work, which means we are unable to even desire God unless He were to work that desire within us.

To give a brief explanation, the idea that men desire God when they are still apart from Him is part and parcel of the doctrine of prevenient grace.  I am fairly new to understanding this doctrine, I had never heard the term until researching the issues I had with this book.  However, I want to give a few thoughts about it so that you, dear readers, are more aware of this deception yourself.

Prevenient grace is the belief that God’s grace is given to all men for the potential of salvation. 

This would prevent the grace of God from being Omnipotent and Effective, for not all men are saved.  It also leaves salvation itself in the hands of men, because we are the ones who must choose to act on prevenient grace.  Such a degradation to the character of God (and elevation of the work of man in salvation) is not sustainable when compared to the Scripture; therefore, the god of prevenient grace could not be the God of the Bible because He is always all-powerful and always able to save.  If God’s grace is not always effectual then we could not depend on Him for anything, because if He were to be inconsistent in one area He could and would be inconsistent in all areas.

Do you see the importance of searching through even the most subtle deviations from the true gospel?  We must be Bereans, dear readers, and filter everything we read through Scripture.  Otherwise, we will be taken in and changed by falsehood!

I could mention so many other issues that came up in this book, but I won’t get into details.  At this point, you should know that this is not a book I am recommending.  See below a list of the rest of the things I ran out of time and space to discuss further.  The lines in italics are my brief comments.  🙂

• Quoting Rick Warren and calling Albert Einstein a “theologian” – he used quotes around theologian as well, but I am unsure of what he means by the term
• “Safe places” are mentioned frequently and hinted as a function/purpose of the church; safe places are where Christians and non-Christians alike can “maybe even vent their anger toward God”
• Allowing a Jainist (Jainism is an ancient Indian religion) to share the gospel for you is questionable, whether or not you trust them to say everything you just shared with them accurately
• “Unbelief hampers the Holy Spirit’s ability to advance God’s kingdom through you” – We do not limit the character of God in any way, whether we believe Him or not
• Quotes from the Message Bible and NLT Bible, and recommends a movie “The Big Kahuna” which is rated R for pretty bad language
• “Acceptance does not mean endorsement” – I beg to differ.  Acceptance of gay marriage eventually becomes endorsement, even if that’s not the original intent.  Acceptance of sin in the church will eventually lead to endorsement.  We do not have to accept sin in other people to be able to minister to them.
• He mentions unbelievers as “victims of the enemy” – we are not victims of Satan, we are sinners
• He misquotes Frances of Assisi
• Ultimately, the focus of the book is so horizontal (man-centered) it gets the vertical (God-centered) aspects wrong

To read or not to read . . . 

Shallowness covers the shelves of our Christian book stores.  I have become increasingly disappointed with the doctrinal quality and Christian maturity exemplified in the books put before us by the “Christian” side of the mainstream media and our bookstores.  Many evangelicals can agree that speakers, teachers, and preachers like Joyce Meyer, Beth Moore, Kenneth Copeland, and Joel Osteen are, at the very least, inaccurate in their representation and presentation of the gospel (if not full-blown false-teachers which I believe they all indeed are.)  While these are dangerous people to listen to and read due to what might happen to your faith and understanding of the gospel, what is perhaps more dangerous is the less-popular, less-well-known authors who appear to be solid Believers.

Doug Pollock is not someone to read.  If you’ve read this book, I urge you, don’t feel guilty, embarrassed, or foolish.  We all must grow in our discernment, but now you are aware of issues found between the covers of God Space.  Use this knowledge to prevent falling into greater falsehood in the future!

In the meantime, find yourself a good book (War of Words by Paul David Tripp is an excellent choice for somewhat similar subject matter), go read it, and enjoy your Monday.  🙂