Book Review: Don’t Call It A Comeback

“Don’t Call It A Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day” ed. by Kevin DeYoung

I’ve read several multi-author books before, but this was something new: 22 authors in under 240 pages! It was a whirlwind of topics and voices, but was edited together with surprising cohesion and clarity.

There’s an awful lot to like about Don’t Call It a Comeback. I loved the concept of the project, which had the aim of introducing “young Christians, new Christians, and underdiscipled Christians to the most important articles of our faith and what it looks like to live out this faith in real life“. This book delivers on that promise, and is an excellent introduction to a wide variety of topics — ranging from church history to systematic theology to contemporary issues such as social justice, gender confusion, and abortion — for those who have not read widely or deeply (which describes many, if not most, of the professing believers in my generation).

The book also has a secondary benefit in that it introduces readers to a lot of pastor/blogger/authors (all of whom were under 40 at the time of publishing) who represent an up-and-coming wave of leaders for the Church. Each chapter ends with a short selection of books suggested for further study on the topic. In short, if a young, new, or underdiscipled Christian were to want to delve into a serious study of theology and cultural issues, he would do well to start with the books, authors, and blogs mentioned in this book.

Though the writers have a variety of styles and approaches, each chapter is very accessible for inexperienced readers. The authors do not assume that readers have prior knowledge of the terminology and historical figures typically mentioned in books of a theological nature, yet the tone is never condescending. Neither does it come across as elementary; experienced and knowledgeable readers have much to learn here as well!

While it is a given that in any book by multiple authors some chapters are going to be better than others, there were no chapters that felt sub-par. Even the “weakest” link (and I couldn’t tell you who that might be) is pretty darn strong! But there were a few chapters that stood out to me as favorites. Kevin DeYoung’s chapter “The Secret to Reaching the Next Generation” is worth the price of the book all by itself, and Russell Moore’s chapter on the Kingdom (“Heaven after Earth, Heaven on Earth, or Something Else Entirely?”) is predictably excellent given his work on the equally excellent book The Kingdom of Christ.

Overall (as you can probably tell), I loved the book, but it wasn’t perfect by any stretch. Sometimes one of the most difficult things to do in a book review is to judge the book that was written, rather than the book I wish had been written. I’ve tried to do that, but there are a few things I really wish had been a little different.

The nature of this book required brevity on each topic, leading to a necessary lack of depth. As I said, it’s meant to be an introduction. Still, in many instances I felt adding just one clarifying word, phrase, or sentence would have made a big difference without adding to the length or readability of the book. For example, Tullian Tchvidjian’s chapter “Worship: It’s a Big Deal” (which appeared previously as an article by the same title at worship.com) is a truly great introduction to the value of corporate worship. However, it says nothing about expressions of worship as a way of life outside the context of the Body of Christ gathered on the Lord’s Day. Granted, Ted Kluck’s chapter largely dealt with this side of worship earlier in the book, but given this book’s intended audience, I would like to have seen something to the effect of telling readers that “worship” is a concept not limited to Sunday services. Honestly, simply adding the word “Corporate” to the front of the chapter’s title probably would have been sufficient to make this distinction.

I also came to the end of the book expecting and hoping for some sort of charge. The foreward by D.A. Carson is wonderful, and I thought it deserved an opposite bookend after the final chapter. Something to tell the young, new, underdiscipled Christians where to go next to continue their studies, and to encourage them to find someone to help with their discipleship. Those things were mentioned in the foreward and introduction, but I would have liked to see them reiterated once more.

These few minor reservations aside, this is a great book. It’s one I will gladly place on the short list of books I’d recommend to a young, new, or underdiscipled Christian. Buy it here.

Why We Love the Church

This Friday evening, author Ted Kluck will be speaking about his book Why We Love the Church here in Cookeville. I’m really looking forward to hearing him! I read and loved the book (here’s my review), which Christianity Today named “Book of the Year” for the “Church” category in 2010.

I’ve never met Kluck, but have heard from many that he’s a really engaging and humorous speaker. He’s certainly a wonderful writer, whose work has touched on a lot of topics which are of particular interest to me. Of note is this recent article about the rock star culture in church music today, and his book The Reason for Sports: A Christian Fanifesto. I’m anticipating a great time, and hope that many of you will join us!

The event begins at 7:00 p.m., Friday, October 28, in Cody Hall at Nashville State Community College (located on Neal Street). Doors open at 6:30, and admission is free. This lecture is presented as part of the Humanitas Forum.

Where Rock Stars Go To Die

I love this article for at least three reasons:

1. It starts off in Ft. Wayne, IN, which is my old stomping grounds.
2. It’s written by Ted Kluck, who is brilliant AND funny… two things I often try but fail to be.
3. He has some great thoughts about worship and worship leading, from the standpoint of someone who isn’t a worship leader (but is a worshiper!).

Here’s a quote:

I’m visiting a church in small-town Ohio.

The lights are off, and there are candles burning somewhere, I think. There’s a giant screen up front with the Relevant magazine willowy font that is requisite for churches trying to appear “hip” and “edgy.” In front of the screen is a worship band in which every member has his/her shoes off, and is standing on an area rug, John Mayer-style. This is the kind of thing that would normally be snicker-worthy, except that the band is great and the lyrics are meaningful.

I know full well that meaningful to one guy may not be meaningful to another, but by meaningful I mean lyrics that remind me of my sinfulness/brokenness yet show me a Redeemer. They aren’t the sort of worship songs that make me feel like I’m skipping through a field of poppies with the kind of 80s-bearded Jesus who looks like he played third base for the Phillies in 1984. Nor are they the kind of songs that make me feel like I’m solving Africa’s groundwater problems with bandana-wearing Activist Jesus.

“Your blood has washed away my sins, Jesus thank you.”

They’re the kinds of songs that remind me why it’s important for me—a 30-something white guy from the Midwest—to stand in a church and sing. Something I would never normally do.

“The father’s wrath, completely satisfied. Jesus thank you.”

They’re important because the singing is an act of worship—an act of remembering what Christ did for me, what it means, and why it’s important.

It’s important that somebody lead me in this, because I wouldn’t do it on my own. It occurs to me that when the lyrics are significant and the intentions feel pure (worship), that I care very little about what the person doing the leading looks like. It could be a 92-pound guy in painted-on jeans (like it is today), or a Ken lookalike in khakis and a golf shirt like it was in 1989.  Or neither.  I appreciate what you do, worship leaders, even though you’re sometimes easy fodder for jokes, and you’re also usually the first guy at church to get complained-to about something (see: not being able to make everyone happy, all the time).

It also occurs to me that I enjoy this, without irony. That this isn’t just the thing I must endure before the 45-minute sermon. I’m having an experience (whoa), and what’s more, I like that experience. I’m being reminded that you can like something and have it also benefit your soul. This has to be at least a partial definition of joy. There’s joy in the fact that my sin is paid for, and that I’m invited to the table.

Read the rest.

Oh yeah! There’s a fourth reason I love this article! It gives me a chance to plug the fact that Ted Kluck will be speaking in Cookeville on Friday, October 11, as part of the Humanitas Forum on Christianity and Culture. He’ll be speaking on topics related to a book he recently co-authored with Kevin DeYoung called Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion. The book is excellent (read my review here), and I’m super excited to get to hear him talk about it in person! As with all the Humanitas events, admission will be free. I hope you’ll come! I’ll post more details about this and the other speakers lined up for this Fall very soon.

Book Review: Why We Love the Church

“Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion” by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

The back cover reads, “These days, spirituality is hot; religion is not.” The last decade has seen countless books published by those who have left the church, and who encourage others to do so as well. Many who have grown up in church are disenchanted, disillusioned, and otherwise disinterested in attending church services.

In response to the dearth of anti-church literature that has hit the shelves in recent years, Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck have written this book to four groups of readers: The Committed (faithfully attending and involved), The Disgruntled (committed but frustrated), The Waffling (attending but uninvolved and dissatisfied), and The Disconnected (those who have left the church in their quest for God). DeYoung is a pastor in East Lansing, MI, and Kluck is an author who is a member of DeYoung’s congregation. The two men alternate chapters, approaching topics from different angles. Both are gifted writers, balancing theological insight with wit and humor throughout the book.

The book addresses four primary reasons given by church-leavers, responding at each point with reasons why the visible, institutional, organized church is still the appropriate place for the believer. These four reasons are “Missiological” (the church isn’t accomplishing its mission), “Personal” (I’ve been hurt by Christians or by the church), “Historical” (real or perceived crimes committed by the church throughout history), and “Theological” (different definitions of what the church should be).

Neither author denies that many of the criticisms are valid, and that there are some very real problems which must be addressed; they simply argue that running away from the church is not the solution, and caution against many unseen problems with the critiques themselves. The church is not perfect, but it’s also not nearly as bad as most of its detractors believe it to be.

In fact, one of the primary reasons people get so fed up with the church is that they have unrealistic and unbiblical expectations of what it should be able to accomplish. We have a tendency to have the expectation of a perfection unattainable by those who Luther called simul iustus et peccator — at the same time justified and sinner. The Bible is clear that one day Christ’s church will be perfected, and there will be no more war, disease, death, or any of the other effects of the Fall, but it is also clear that this only happen when Christ returns. Until then, the church is populated by sinning sinners, who will make mistakes and fail to live up to the standard set by our Lord. However, the church is also the chosen vehicle by which Christ’s kingdom is announced to the world.

DeYoung writes,

The fact of the matter is we are not going to “transform the face of planet Earth to a place of justice, peace and equity, a place without suffering.” It’s no coincidence that disillusionment is such a big theme in the church-leaving literature. Many of these passionate, well-intentioned youngish church-leavers have a vision for the world that is so unlike anything promised on this side of heaven that they can’t help but feel disappointed and angry with the church for not getting the world where they think it could go.

The best part of the book, in my opinion, is its epilogue, titled “Toward a Theology of Plodding Visionaries.” Here DeYoung posits that what is most lacking in today’s churches — and most responsible for our poor understanding of the nature and role of the church — is a proper comprehension of the doctrine of original sin. The modern evangelical tendency to shy away from teaching about sin and man’s inherent sinfulness has led to a generation with unrealistic expectations about Christians’ individual and corporate ability to change the world. When these expectations go unfulfilled, cynicism and disenchantment toward the church often result.

What we need instead, as DeYoung rightly states, are “plodding visionaries”: humble, grace-filled believers with a biblical understanding of both the limits and the possibilities of the church and of individual Christians, who live lives of “long obedience in the same direction.” Far from being boring and insignificant, the lives of such visionaries are marked by the joy of their salvation and exultation in God’s glory. They realize the immense privilege it is to be vessels of mercy; a part of the Body of Christ, his beloved bride, the church.

In summary, this is an excellent book, and one which has helped me to overcome some of my personal frustrations with the church. I pray that many more would have a renewed love for the church as they come to see afresh the way God’s glory is manifested in the church, and to see the irony in the arguments of those who claim to be followers of Jesus but will not follow him in love for his bride. As the book concludes: “Don’t give up on church. The New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christianity. The invisible church is for invisible Christians. The visible church is for you and me.”

Buy the book here.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” ~ Ephesians 3:20-21

Critiquing the Critics

This week I’ve been reading an excellent book called Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. Here’s an excerpt from a section where DeYoung is sharing a word of caution for the church’s many postmodern critics:

Consistency is not a postmodern virtue. And nowhere is this more aptly displayed than in the barrage of criticisms leveled against the church. The church-is-lame crowd hates Constantine and notions of Christendom, but they want the church to be a patron of the arts, and run after-school programs, and bring the world together in peace and love. They bemoan the over-programmed church, but then think of a hundred complex, resource-hungry things the church should be doing. They don’t like the church because it is too hierarchical, but then hate it when it has poor leadership. They wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to meet in a coffee shop with other well-educated thirtysomethings who are into film festivals, NPR, and carbon offsets. They want more of a family spirit, but too much family and they’ll complain that the church is “inbred.” They want the church to know that its reputation with outsiders is terrible, but then are critical when the church is too concerned with appearances. They chide the church for not doing more to address social problems, but then complain when the church gets too political. They want church unity and decry all our denominations, but fail to see th irony in the fact that they have left to do their own thing because they can’t find a single church that can satisfy them. They are critical of the lack of community in the church, but then want services that allow for individualized worship experiences. They want leaders with vision, but don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or how to think. They want a church where the people really know each other and care for each other, but then they complain the church today is an isolated country club, only interested in catering to its own members. They want to be connected with history, but are sick of the same prayers and same style every week. They call for not judging “the spiritual path of other believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people,” and then they blast the traditional church in the harshest, most unflattering terms.

They’d like to have their cake and eat it too.