Some Great Christian Books

I don’t read as much as I should, but I try to weed out books based on bad logic or false premises in their main ideas.  In other words, my opinion is that there are probably only about 10 books worth reading in any given bookstore, and the rest is either fluff, or a waste of time. I’m pretty hard to please.  Speaking of books worth reading, here are two of them:

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, and Jesus of Suburbia by Mike Erre.

 

 Most of the really good books on the Christian faith were written like a hundred years ago by people who are now dead.  Thankfully these guys are still alive and kickin, and I hope they continue to put out books like this that really challenge your faith in a contemporary way. 

 Many Christians are disenchanted by the church today – it feels like an unrealistic idea, something that looks good in paper but can fall apart in practice.  These books challenge your notions of what faith should look like in today’s world.  Many get scared of what may seem ‘liberal’ theology or ‘modernized christiantiy’ however the reality is that times change.  MORALS, do not change, it is just as wrong to murder someone today as it was 4,000 years ago, however people are different, culture is different, Jesus is the same, but old notions of what Christianity is are getting in the way of people coming to know Christ.  Dogmatism, strict theology, all-or-nothing versions of the gospel, simply aren’t reaching people today - they are falling on deaf ears. 

For example, if you are witnessing to someone (in the natural course of conversation, not a stranger on the street) and they tell you that they would believe in God, but they find it hard to believe (fill in the blank here).  This is not the time to tell them that they have to believe in all the core doctrines at once – this is the time for you to say “Well, I know that might be hard to believe, the truth is, I find it hard to believe myself sometimes.  I have doubts sometimes.  But God gives me peace and joy in my life, and He has made Himself known to me in ways that prove to me that He is more real than anything.  So, if that part of the bible causes you to be doubtful, put it to the side in your mind, and keep reading.”  

They may need to put several things to the side in fact, but if you force the issue, you are trying to force a decision about salvation, and I hate to break it to you, but your argument is never going to convince anyone that they need to become a Christian.  Conviction is the job of the Holy Spirit.  You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink – and the same analogy applies here.  You can lead someone to scripture, and you can explain your personal experience, but you can’t cause them to become a Christian, it simply doesn’t work that way.   

So to recap, the reason I like these books is that they challenge us to think about our faith in a new way, to be a little more humble and acknowledge that the truth is, we don’t have all the answers.  As Rob Bell says, “we can let God be God” so we don’t have to have all the answers.  We just need to know how to ask the right questions, and we need to get other people to do the same.