Book Review: Christianity in Crisis – The 21st Century

I recently read Christianity in Crisis: The 21st Century by Hank Hanegraaf as part of a blogger reviewers program with Thomas Nelson Publishing.

The majority of the book included an item-by-item rebuttal of many “Christian” preachers that promote a Gospel message that is not congruent with the actual New Testament, including Texan Joel Osteen. I thought that this breakdown was a bit longer than it needed to be; however, if you’re a subscriber to one of religions quasi-based on the Gospel or are trying to engage someone in debate who is a subscriber, Mr. Hanegraaf’s detail will be very much appreciated.

The final section of the book attempted to answer the question “So, if all of these ways are wrong, what’s the right way?” While a fine attempt, I believe the author was too limited in his scope of what is a proper way to practice Christianity. The author’s assessment resulted in what seems to be the typical response by fundamentalists (i.e. “a Bible-believing church”, which is a veiled attempt to basically say any church that acknowledges the role of Tradition is excluded).

The Catholic Church, the faith I subscribe to, is a Bible-believing church, by our own understanding of the role of Scripture and Tradition; however, from my upbringing in the Bible Belt, I know far too many would exclude me from grace for this assessment. I believe the author’s work would be more inclusive, accurate and provide greater assistance to the Christian world trying to faithfully following the message of Jesus Christ in a world where prosperity and faith preachers derail authentic Christian thought far too often.

With that limitation noted, I still believe the majority of the text is quite fine and worth a read. Additionally, I think a shorter, summarized version would also make for a great tool for the armchair theologians in the United States who are trying to get a quicker answer to why these preachers “don’t seem right” to them.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

Comments

Leave a Reply

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)