unChristian
Category: Books
unChristian by David Kinnaman – Baker Books, 2007
Reviewed October, 2008
“Christians are supposed to represent Christ to the world… (but) something has gone terribly wrong.” (1)
Over the past few years the Church has been through some of the most difficult times it has ever faced here in the Western World. No, we don’t have armed terrorists coming into our churches gunning everyone down. No, we don’t live in society where being a Christian is outlawed and punishable by death. No, something far more dangerous has happened… we have fallen asleep.
Apathy, complacency, ignorance, and even the “me” mentality of the world, have infiltrated the church body, lulling many into a deep slumber. And from personal experience I know just how difficult it can be to wake believers and rally them to evangelize, fight the good fight, and win lost souls to Christ.
What we need is a good wake up call!
And that is what books like unChristian are, wake up calls. In the past year I have become somewhat of a student in the field of emergent Christian thought on this issue, reading many books on the state of the Church and what can be done to shake things up. Books like Your God Is Too Safe, Lord Save Us From Your Followers, The Slumber of Christianity, and now unChristian, focus a good deal of time on asking, what can be done to awaken the sleeping giant?
unChristian was written by David Kinnaman, the president of The Barna Group, a ministry that provides research in key areas of church and Christian life. And this book is no exception. Filled with facts, figures, and actual interviews, this book, in my humble opinion, was a long time in coming.
Looking at issues like hypocrisy, homosexuality, judgmental attitudes, and politics, this books differs in that it asks non-Christians what they think of Christians in these, and other, categories. And the comments and feedback is enough, hopefully, to wake and inspire some believers to rise out of their comfort zones.
Although the book can at times be a somewhat heavy read, the book is easy enough to navigate through if you only wanted to read about one of the issues discussed. Also, each chapter dealing with an issue is followed by another chapter of essays and reflections from more than two dozen leading Christian voices, which I thought was just as eye opening given the amount of honesty and humility that came through in many of them. This is exampled by what pastor Jud Wilhite wrote regarding his home town of Las Vegas, “…the culture war is over. We lost… WE LOST. Now our calling is to love and accept people one-on-one.” (2)
I very much appreciate books like this as they get me on my spiritual knees praying that I will not succumb to complacency and apathy, forsaking my calling and those around me needing to heard and experience the truth.
However, the hard truth is that if we, the Body of Christ, don’t begin to wake up and smell the coffee, we too will find that we have lost the culture war, and possibly millions of souls, in our towns and cities. That is, if it’s not already too late.
Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
Image sourced from Amazon.com
References:
(1) unChristian - Taken from back cover
(2) unChristian - p.62
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