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Richard Stearns, The Hole in Our Gospel (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 2009). $22.99, 303 pages.

Richard Stearns is the president of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization. Prior to that, he was the CEO first of Parker Brothers Games and then of Lenox, Inc., maker of fine china. The Hole in Our Gospel is, in part, the story of how God called him to leave the business world and embrace the work of helping the world’s neediest people.

But in greater part, this book is about the hole in the gospel preached in many American churches. American evangelicals believe that God forgives our sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, enabling us to live eternally in his presence. Stearns strongly believes this message himself.

A close reading of the Bible reveals, however, that the gospel is more than just a message promising individual salvation. “[B]eing a Christian,” Stearns writes, “or follower of Jesus Christ, requires much more than just having a personal and transforming relationship with God. It also entails a public and transforming relationship with the world.”

Skillfully blending personal memoir, biblical study, international statistics, and heart-wrenching stories, Stearns challenges evangelical Christians in America to use their tremendous material and financial blessings to serve the world’s neediest people rather than themselves. It is a prophetic message, but Stearns delivers it with humility, love, and an inspiring call to action.

The book is written for the average reader, and it comes with study questions, which will enhance its use by church small groups and Christian book clubs.

John Stott, Christian Mission in the Modern World (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2008). $8.00, 191 pages.

In 1975, InterVarsity Press published Christian Mission in the Modern World by John Stott. It recently reissued the book as part of the IVP Classics series. Like almost everything Stott has written, the book repays careful reading.

Stott, who is British, is the type of evangelical Christian that we do not often see in America. In America, evangelicals generally work outside the structures of the so-called mainline churches. Stott is a priest of the Church of England and a participant in ecumenical dialogues. He is a pastor, theologian, activist, bridge-builder, and public intellectual. American evangelical leaders tend to specialize in one or two of those areas. Indeed, I cannot think of a precise American counterpart to Stott.

Christian Mission in the Modern World grew out of the 1975 Chavasse Lectures in World Mission that Stott delivered at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. It investigates the meaning of five words in conversation with then-current trends in both evangelical and ecumenical missiology: mission, evangelism, dialogue, salvation, and conversion. As should be expected in a book published more than thirty years ago, some of the persons, events, and documents Stott discusses are no longer current. Even so, however, Stott’s insights into the meaning of these words still provoke thought. Let us briefly take a look at them.

First, mission: What is the mission of the church? It is common to distinguish evangelical and ecumenical missiologies by saying that the former is concerned with evangelism and the latter with social action. There is an element of truth in this, although Stott points out that evangelicals are concerned with social action and ecumenicals with evangelism—at least according to the leading documents of their respective movements. Turning to John 17:18 and 20:21, Stott argues that Jesus sends the church into the world to do the same kinds of things the Father sent him into the world to do. Stott therefore defines mission as “Christian service in the world comprising both evangelism and social action.”

Second, evangelism: If Christian mission comprises both evangelism and social action, is there nonetheless a priority between them? Stott argues that there is, specifically, that evangelism takes priority over social action. But what is evangelism? Stott defines it as “announcing or proclaiming the good news of Jesus.” This proclamation centers around five things: (1) the facticity and significance of certain events, namely, Christ’s death and resurrection; (2) the reliability of the witnesses of these events—both the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles; (3) the affirmations that Jesus is both Savior and Lord because of these events; (4) the promises Jesus makes to those who come to him in faith; and (5) the demands of repentance and faith that Jesus requires of those who come to him in faith.

Third, dialogue: Given that evangelism is announcement or proclamation, is there any room for religious dialogue in evangelical missiology? That all depends on what you mean by dialogue. As an evangelical, Stott argues that entering into dialogue with others is a mark of authenticity, humility, integrity, and sensitivity. Dialogue neither requires us to abandon Christ or our faith, but it requires us to identify ourselves as sinners and the people we are evangelizing as the image of God. The goal of dialogue is “mutual understanding,” but for the Christian dialogue is also “a necessary preliminary to evangelism.”

Fourth, salvation: The crucial issue in both evangelism and dialogue is salvation, but what is salvation? Stott begins by stating that it is not psychophysical health or sociopolitical liberation. These options were common among non-evangelical theologians in the late 1960s and early 70s. Rather, salvation is “personal freedom” along the following three spectra: “from judgment for sonship,” “from self for service,” and “from decay for glory.” I think it appropriate to use the theological terms justification, sanctification, and glorification as synonyms for what Stott is talking about when he uses the words salvation or personal freedom.

Fifth, conversion: Pluralism is the religious attitude of both modernity and postmodernity. Such an attitude has, as Stott puts it, a “distaste for conversion.” But the message of Jesus was conversionist in nature. He preached, “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). Biblical conversion, according to Stott, has five elements: repentance, church membership, social responsibility, cultural discernment, and reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit.

As an Assemblies of God pastor, I find Stott’s discussion of Christian mission useful as a corrective to missiological tendencies within my own fellowship that privilege evangelism at the expense of social action. Moreover, the theology that underlies Stott’s missiology refuses to accommodate itself to a narrow understanding of conversion that focuses on decisions for Christ at the expense of discipleship in Christ. God’s grace requires a two-fold response of faith and works, for authentic Christian belief produces changed behavior.

By the same token, however, I believe that ecclesiology is the missing element within Stott’s formulation of Christian mission. It is not merely the individual Christian’s mission to serve the world through evangelism and social action; it is the church’s. It is not merely the individual Christian who practices evangelism and dialogue; it is the church. And when individuals receive the gift of salvation and choose conversion to Christ, they do so within the context of a church. The church, in other words, is God’s mission. It is both the effect of God’s mission to the world through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and the agent of Christ’s continuing mission in the world.

Ecclesiology was not as prominent an issue in the early 1970s when Stott wrote Christian Mission in the Modern World. Thirty-four years ago, the church was still a quasi-Constantinian institution in both England and America; in other words, it was a respectable pillar of society. In 2009, we can no longer make that assumption about the church’s role. Consequently, we must focus on the churchly character of mission, evangelism, dialogue, salvation, and conversion. But of course, no one should anachronistically fault Stott for failing to take into account these new conditions.

Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009). $15.00, 228 pages.

While reading The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah, my emotions went through three stages: anger, acceptance, and ambivalence.

First, anger: The thesis of Rah’s book is that the evangelical church in America must be liberated from its “Western, white cultural captivity” and replaced by “the next evangelicalism,” which is multicultural. According to Rah, Western, white culture is individualistic, consumerist, materialistic, and racist. And it pervades Anglo evangelicalism, both in America and wherever Anglo evangelical influence has spread. The Anglo evangelical church focuses on buildings, bucks, and butts in the pew rather than on the holistic, transformative power of the gospel. To be perfectly frank, as a middle-aged, American, white male, I was none too pleased to see my church, my country, and my culture run down in this way.

Then again, as a pastor, I’m used to taking vociferous criticism in stride. I always try to hear the truth behind my critics’ words, not matter how much they’re making me angry. And that brings me to the second stage my emotions ran through: acceptance.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t escape the conclusion that Rah—to a significant degree—is right. The American evangelical church is declining, or at least its Anglo component is. David T. Olson documents this fact in The American Church in Crisis. But as Rah points out, the non-Anglo component of the American evangelical church is thriving. This is true in my own denomination, the Assemblies of God. Our anemic growth as a denomination is largely explained by the explosive growth of the Hispanic churches within our denomination.

Not only is the Anglo evangelical church in America declining, it is guilty—in various parts and to varying degrees—of practicing an individualistic, consumerist, materialistic, and racist form of Christianity. Why do we focus on personal evangelism rather than also on social transformation? Why do we think the three B’s—buildings, bucks, and butts in the pew—are indicators of a church’s success, if that’s even an appropriate word for a church to use? And why do we presume that non-white culture is a mission field that needs our contributions and competence, rather than the other way around?

Third, ambivalence: The Next Evangelicalism piqued my anger, at least in part, precisely because it hit so close to home. But if I could take off my middle-aged white guy hat for a moment, and remove my pastoral collar too, I’d like to put on my academic robes and point out three flaws in Rah’s analysis. It is overbroad, tendentious, and inconsistent.

Overbroad: Here’s a joke that makes a serious point:

An older Jewish man and a younger Chinese man are sitting in lounge chairs on the deck of their cruise ship. The Jewish man rolls up his newspaper, gets out of his chair, walks over to the Chinese man, and proceeds to repeatedly hit him over the head with the newspaper. Triumphantly he proclaims, “That’s for Pearl Harbor!” The younger man angrily asks, “Why did you do that? I’m Chinese!” But the older man replies: Chinese, Japanese—they’re all the same.” A few minutes later, the younger man rolls up his newspaper, gets out of his chair, walks over to the older man, and proceeds to repeatedly hit him over the head with the newspaper. Triumphantly he proclaims, “That’s for the Titanic!” Bewildered, the older man angrily asks, “Why did you do that? I’m Jewish.” To which the younger man replies, “Iceberg, Goldberg—they’re all the same.”

Rah speaks of “Western, white culture” as if the various histories, cultures, and traditions of the historical epochs, people groups, and nation states within it are all the same. Is there a direct line of descent between Plato and Britney Spears, between high culture and popular culture? Are there no differences between the French, the Greek, and the English, let alone among the British, Scottish, and Irish? Is traditional Southern agrarianism the same thing as traditional Yankee industry? If I wrote a book describing, let alone critiquing, “Asian” culture with such overbroadness and lack of historical nuance, my guess is that Rah would cite me as an example of Western, white insensitivity.

But icebergs and Goldbergs are not the same.

Tendentious: Rah identifies the harmful aspects of Western, white culture with the culture itself. Are individualism, consumerism, materialism, and racism part of Western, white culture? Sure. So are socialism, volunteerism, asceticism, and egalitarianism. Why doesn’t Rah mention these countervailing tendencies within Western, white culture? Why is the picture of that culture unrelievedly negative? Would Rah accept an unrelievedly negative portrayal of African culture, of Asian culture, or of First Nations culture?

Furthermore, haven’t some goods arisen out of Western individualism, consumerism, and materialism? (You’ll notice I leave racism off this list.) Critique individualism all you want, but if you’re going to be overbroad, don’t fail to mention that human rights is a Western preoccupation. Critique consumerism all you want, but if you’re going to be overbroad, don’t fail to mention that the number one food crisis of the American poor is obesity, not starvation. Critique materialism all you want, but if you’re going to be overbroad, don’t fail to mention that Western culture has elevated the living standards of the poor to historically unheard-of levels.

In my opinion, this doesn’t come up in Rah’s analysis. If it did, it would significantly change the picture he is drawing of Western, white culture.

Inconsistent: Rah’s portrait of Western, white culture is overbroad and tendentious. It’s also inconsistent.

At the end of the book, Rah implores White, western evangelicals to listen to African American, Native American, and immigrant Christians. I think this is both reasonable and right. They are brothers and sisters in Christ, and they are increasingly the face of evangelical Christianity in America. We have much to learn from them about holistic ministry and the inequities of the American experience. They also can teach us about how to practice church as a community, not just as a gathering of individuals on Sunday morning.

So, on the one hand, I again agree with Rah. But on the other hand, why is the portrait of Western, white culture unrelievedly negative while the portrait of these other cultures is unrelentingly positive? Perhaps it is because Anglo evangelicalism is the dominant partner in the American evangelical enterprise, and as the dominant partner, needs the greatest correction. But correction does not mean the total negation of the one culture nor the total affirmation of the others. It requires a balancing off of weaknesses and strengths.

Speaking of imbalance, I haven’t been balanced in my criticism of Rah, have I? I dedicated a far greater proportion of this review to critique rather than concurrence. So, for the record, I do concur with Soong-Chan Rah. American evangelicalism is changing. And that can be a good thing, if we experience liberation from cultural captivity and walk freely in the paths of Jesus—humbly, openly, and together.

Manfred T. Brauch, Abusing Scripture: The Consequences of Misreading the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009). $18.00, 293 pages.

The first article of the Assemblies of God’s Statement of Fundamental Truths concerns Scripture: “The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct.” This “high” view of Scripture is a hallmark of theological conservatism and unites the Assemblies of God with the larger evangelical community. It also differentiates the Assemblies from the mainline Protestant community, which—under the influence of biblical criticism—often has a “low” view of Scripture as the culturally relative and fallible record of human spiritual longing.

Unfortunately, a “high” view of Scripture in theory does not guarantee the correct interpretation of Scripture in practice. In Abusing Scripture, Manfred T. Brauch examines “the consequences of misreading the Bible,” in the words of the subtitle. His intended readers are not mainline Protestants, however, but theologically conservative evangelicals—including those of us in the Assemblies of God. We routinely critique the “speck of sawdust” in mainline misinterpretations of the Bible, while wholly ignoring the “plank” in our own. Brauch refuses to ignore the plank.

Brauch is past professor and president of Palmer Theological Seminary (formerly Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary), as well as the author of Set Free to Be and Hard Sayings of Paul. The seminary has been described as “conservative, yet progressive” because of its combination of theological orthodoxy and social activism. The primary example of this conservative progressivism is undoubtedly Ron Sider, Palmer’s best-known professor. Brauch is also an able exponent of that tradition.

Abusing Scripture offers a sixfold taxonomy of ways evangelicals (including us Pentecostals) are guilty of “doing violence to” Scripture:

The abuse of the whole gospel through a failure to address human need for salvation in both “personal and social dimensions”

The abuse of selectivity, which “is not an outright distortion of the meaning of given texts” but rather entails “ignoring or rejecting…other parts or passages of Scripture that support a different teaching, or present an alternative perspective, or advocate an opposing view”

The abuse of biblical balance by means of “emphasizing certain biblical doctrines, perspectives, teachings, themes or mandates, while ignoring or minimizing the equal, or even greater, importance of complementary ones”

The abuse of words, “when words and expressions are decoded (by teachers or readers) in ways that are not in keeping with the original encoding [by the biblical authors]”

The abuse of literary and theological context, in which the meanings of specific passages are not derived from “the immediate textual materials that surround them” or from “the overarching theological concepts in broader literary contexts”

The abuse of historical situation and cultural reality, which is really a failure to discern between “those things in Scripture that are culturally or historically relative, and, therefore, limited in their inspired authority to the people and situations addressed at that time, and the things that are transcultural and transhistorical, where the authoritative Word of God ins binding for all Christians at all times and in all cultures”

Throughout his discussion of this taxonomy, Brauch returns to three illustrations of these kinds of abuses in practice: “(1) the use and justification of force and violence in human affairs; (2) the relationship between men and women in home, church and society; and (3) the concern for justice and the sanctity of life in all areas of human relationships, institutions and culture.”

Brauch avoids low-hanging fruit with his choice of examples. He easily could have written a multi-volume account of, inter alia, the abuses of Scripture by dispensational premillennialism, the so-called “Prosperity Gospel,” and Christian Zionism. Instead, he focuses on attitudes and practices that are deeply entrenched in the evangelical community: its reflexive patriotism and knee-jerk support for America’s wars, its still-too-common defense of patriarchy, and its privileging of evangelism over social concern.

The Assemblies of God has a slightly better, though still mixed, track record on these very same issues. As Paul J. Alexander documents in Peace to War, the Assemblies of God moved from being a pacifist church to a card-carrying member of the so-called “religious right” for patriotic rather than biblical reasons. (As an advocate of just-war doctrine, I think the Assemblies made the right decision but for the wrong reason, but that’s an argument for another day.) The Assemblies has ordained women to the ministry since its founding, but it still has local churches that refuse to let women preach to men (and because of our practice of local church sovereignty, there’s no way for district councils or the general council to force the issue). Finally, some in the Assemblies are reluctant to address social issues other than abortion and gay marriage, lest we fall prey to the theological errors of the Social Gospel Movement.

Although I do not agree with every reading of Scripture Brauch offers in this book, I do think his sixfold taxonomy and three illustrations of abuse identify real problems within evangelicalism generally and the Assemblies particularly. But read this book, and decide for yourself!

John Townsend, Leadership Beyond Reason: How Great Leaders Succeed by Harnessing the Power of Their Values, Feelings, and Intuition (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009). $22.99, 179 pages.

Leadership is influence. And influence is a rational process. Leaders analyze their situation, strategize a way forward, and incentivize others to move in the right direction.

Influence also draws upon nonrational factors, however. Nonrational does not mean irrational. The former is against reason, the latter beyond it. In Leadership Beyond Reason, John Townsend addresses the nonrational side of leadership by looking at values, thinking processes, emotions, relationships, and the experience of transformation.

Townsend is a Christian clinical psychologist and author of several best-selling books, including Boundaries, Who’s Pushing Your Buttons?, and It’s Not My Fault. His interest in emotional well-being is evident throughout the book. Indeed, the book’s thesis is that “[g]reat leaders succeed by harnessing the power of both the external world and the internal world,” that is, “the world of objective reality and the world of subjective response.”

In my opinion, the chapter on emotions is worth the price of the book. Feelings, Townsend writes, “alert you that something is going on, something you need to pay attention to and deal with. That something may be an event outside of you or one inside.” Whether negative or positive, emotions signal you that something needs to change. A successful leader listens to his emotions and makes the right changes.

Most of Townsend’s examples in this book are drawn from the business world, but what he writes is applicable to leaders in all kinds of organizations, including churches and non-profits. To be successful, leaders should know their “business,” but in addition, they must know themselves.

Matt Baglio, The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist (New York: Doubleday, 2009). $24.95, 288 pages.

What should a modern Christian make of exorcism?

New Testament scholars agree that exorcism was a crucial component of Jesus’ ministry. Mark 1:39 summarizes his ministry this way: “So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.” Those same scholars disagree as to the nature of exorcism. Conservatives understand it literally, as the casting out of a demonic spirit. Liberals interpret it metaphorically, as the healing of a mentally ill person.

Modern Christians must choose between these two options.

Matt Baglio’s The Rite is the fascinating story of how one Roman Catholic priest made his choice. Father Gary Thomas was a parish priest in northern California until his bishop appointed him diocesan exorcist. Like many American and European priests, he sided with a more liberal interpretation of Gospel texts, but he was open-minded. So he traveled to Rome for instruction in the theology and practice of exorcism. Part of his instruction was an apprenticeship to a veteran Italian exorcist named Father Carmine de Fillipis. The instruction opened his eyes and changed his life.

As a Pentecostal pastor, I was interested in reading this book for a number of reasons: learning more about possession and exorcism, seeing how modern Christians deal with the supernatural (and, frankly, weird) aspects of their faith, learning what the Catholic church teaches on the subject. The Rite ably satisfied my thirst for information. It also provoked the following thoughts:

Father Gary’s instructors taught him to use exorcism as a last resort and only with the permission of the bishop. They encouraged him to provide ordinary pastoral support—counseling, prayer, and confession—to those seeking exorcism before performing the rite of exorcism over them. This support could also include referral to psychologists and doctors, who would be able to confirm that the person’s behavior was not psychological or physical in nature. Additionally, the bishop had to grant permission for the exorcism to occur, adding a layer of accountability to the whole procedure. All of this seems reasonable to me. If modern Christians believe in exorcism because we are Christians, we also believe in biochemical and psychological causes of strange and deviant behavior because we are modern. It seems that the only responsible thing to do is to determine whether the cause of “demonic activity” is actually demonic—as opposed to manic-depressive—before an exorcism takes place. The Catholic rite is a model of the integration of faith and reason in this regard.

And yet, I was troubled by specifically Catholic understandings of exorcism. Performance of the rite is limited to priests who are obedient to their bishops. While this provides a layer of accountability to the process, it also reflects the post-biblical concentration of believers’ spiritual gifts into the hands of the clergy.

Second, while the rite of exorcism itself is Christ-centered, the experience of exorcism involves an undue emphasis on the saints. Baglio interviewed many of the exorcized after the fact. They reported seeing visions of Mary, John Paul II, and various other saints, and these visions provided comfort to the exorcizee. No one seemed to have had a vision of Jesus.

Third, the exorcisms were not one-time affairs but could stretch out over lengthy periods of times and many visits to the exorcists. In the Gospels and Acts, Jesus and the Apostles exorcize demons “at once,” not over the course of months and even years.

Fourth, all of the exorcizees were baptized and confirmed Catholics. In Catholic theology, a Christian believer can be possessed. As a Pentecostal, I have a hard time swallowing that belief. How can a person filled with the Holy Spirit be filled with a demonic spirit as well?

Now, I fully understand that many people reading this review—especially my atheist and agnostic friends—are sure I’ve gone off my rocker at this point. The mere fact that I believe in supernatural beings has them laughing, let alone that I go on to pick fights with Catholics over the finer points of exorcism. To them, I say, “Read this book!” It may change your mind. Reporting on De Fillipis and Thomas up close awoke Baglio from “cultural Catholicism” to a more authentic practice of the faith. And as Hamlet told Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth / than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Hank Hanegraaff, Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009). $23.99, 427 pages.

If Hank Hanegraaff is to be believed, one of the most popular movements in American Christianity is not authentically Christian. Rather, it is grossly heretical. Its gospel is variously known as Word of Faith, Positive Confession, Health and Wealth, Prosperity, and Name It and Claim It (or Blab It and Grab it to critics). The gist of its gospel is that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy, that faith is the key to both, and that sick and poor Christians have only themselves to blame.

In 1993, Hank Hanegraaff published Christianity in Crisis, an exposé and critique of the Word of Faith movement. Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century is a revised edition of that book. Hanegraaff’s core critique is the same, but he has updated the “cast of characters” to incorporate newer Faith teachers (Osteen, Meyer, Dollar, Jakes, and Parsley) alongside the older ones (Kenyon, Hagin, Copeland, Hinn, and Hagee).

Hanegraaff is host of The Bible Answer Man syndicated radio show, as well as president of the Christian Research Institute. Both were founded by The Kingdom of the Cults author Walter Martin. Neither man was a stranger to controversy, being regarded as “defenders of the faith” by their friends and “heresy hunters” by their enemies. (According to William Lobdell, Hanegraaff also engaged in some less-than-above-board financial practices when CRI was located in southern California. It has since moved to North Carolina.)

Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century is no more likely to endear Hanegraaff to Faith teachers than the 1993 edition did. It identifies five critical F.L.A.W.S. in Faith teaching:

F = Faith in faith
L = Little gods
A = Atonement atrocities
W = Wealth and want
S = Sickness and suffering

As a fairly well read Pentecostal pastor, I was aware of the almost magical view of faith among Prosperity preachers. I was also aware of their biblically deficient understandings of poverty and sickness. I was appalled, however, by their strange views of God and their tortured interpretations of the atonement. Hanegraaff has opened my eyes to these errors of prominent Faith teachers. If Hanegraaff has reported them accurately, they are indeed heretical departures from the historical Christian faith.

However, I also know a few followers of the Faith teachers, and while I think they are in error regarding faith, poverty, and sickness, I’m not sure they go the entire distance with prominent Faith teachers in terms of these other errors. Hanegraaff seems to agree. His target is the Faith leaders, not the Faith followers.

Hanegraaff concludes this exposé and critique with five basics Christians need to focus on:

A = Amen (or prayer)
B = Bible
C = Church
D = Defense (or apologetics)
E = Essentials (doctrine)

On the whole, I agree with Hanegraaff’s exposé critique of the Faith teachers and his prescription for getting back to Christian basics. His exposé and critique is documented with several hundred footnotes, so his claims can be checked against the facts. At best, Faith teachers are seriously in error but within the boundaries (just barely) of Christian orthodoxy. At worst—and Hanegraaff makes the case for the worst)—they have crossed the line of orthodoxy into heresy.

If you are interested in the Word of Faith movement, Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century is a good resource.