Forgotten God

In my previous blog post I introduced the author, Francis Chan, in that post I went on to review his third book, Erasing Hell. In this post I will be looking at the second of his books, which addresses the place of God’s Holy Spirit in modern-day conservative Churches. This book is sub-titled ‘Reversing our tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit’ and that is an apt description of what Chan attempts in this book.

Chan again writes in his easy-to-read style and has produced a book that is hard to put down, but being an easy read should not be the main objective when writing this type of book. Being Biblically sound and pointing people to God are critical objectives in writing a book on Christian living, and I feel that Chan meets these criteria also.

From the very first chapter Chan challenges the reader to live a more God shaped life. He begins by telling the story of how two JWs came to his door and after pointing out some Scriptural inaccuracies with their beliefs he sends them away with this challenging statement:

‘”There’s no way you look me in the eye and tell me that you sat down one day seeking to find God, read the Bible, and came to the conclusion that Jesus is the same person as Michael the archangel. No one could come to that conclusion. You only believe it because that’s what you were told…”‘

The question is, and the question Chan goes on to ask is have we ever sat down seeking to find the truth about God from His word or has our idea of God been shaped by others. In other words Chan is suggesting that he may have been a bit hypocritical when he sent those JWs away with their tails between their legs.

This questioning of what we believe follows on from Chan’s opening statement where he suggests that the modern-day Church needs to give more room for the Holy Spirit to shape us. I feel this point is the main theme of the book, he certainly doesn’t get involved in the debate about the validity of tongues, prophecies and other works of the Spirit, instead he focuses on the need for our lives to point others to God.

At the end of each chapter Chan tells the story of people who he feels are truly filled with the Spirit and in doing this he gives some real life examples which challenge the reader by showing them that leading a Godly life is possible. I felt this was a helpful addition to the book since it brought reality to an issue that is easy to trivialize and distance ourselves from.

Overall I found this book incredibly challenging, insightful, helpful and Biblical, which you don’t often find in a book that is so easy to read. I would highly recommend this to anyone, regardless of their position concerning spiritual gifts because it puts aside that issue and instead asks: Does your life bring glory to God?

Erasing Hell

Well this is scary, my first blog post but I’m not going to hang around, instead this first post is going to be a review of a book by Francis Chan called Erasing Hell. This book confronts what some people may see as a touchy subject in that he questions and addresses the reality of a place of punishment.

Francis Chan is an American preacher who was pastor at a Church in Simi Valley California. I think I am right in saying that he is no longer a pastor there as he feels a burden for central LA but he does still preach for Cornerstone Church. He has written three books for mature readers and a couple of children’s books. Erasing Hell is his third book for the older readers, I intend to review his other books but I have lent out my copies so we will go chronologically backwards through his books.

So to the book itself, Erasing Hell identifies distortion of the truth concerning a place of punishment as a real issue in the modern Baptist Church. Chan suggests that people don’t want to or can’t believe in a God who sends people to Hell. Using Biblical and historical reference points Chan succinctly addresses this distortion by finding the truth about Hell.

He identifies some areas that need to be investigated concerning Hell including:

• Does everyone go to Heaven? [Obviously you can reverse that to say-Will anyone actually go to Hell?]
• Who does go to Hell?
• What is Hell?
• Will Hell last for eternity?

Chan also includes an FAQs section which includes:

• Are there degrees of punishment in Hell?
• What about the person who has never heard the Gospel?
• How can God be loving and still send people to Hell?

He then goes on to answer those questions in typically readable and honest fashion. Chan clearly takes no joy in writing the blunt truth that people will suffer judgement but shows his great desire for people to be saved from this judgement and for God to be declared in his entirety.

Chan realises that the truth can be a bit hard to hear and that people don’t like the thought of Hell or of a God who would send people there. He also recognises that some Christian teachers try to explain away Hell and his response can be summarised in this quote:

“The fact is, Scripture is filled with divine actions that don’t fit our human standards of logic or morality. But they don’t need to, because we are the clay and He is the Potter” (This is a reference to Romans 9:20-21) “We need to stop trying to domesticate God…”

Personally I think this book is brilliant, Chan is not afraid to address what is a hard subject, but approaches the topic with the necessary precaution. I find his style of writing really easy to read and I am really not a good reader. My only criticisms are that in the first few chapters he spends a little too much time trying to argue against Rob Bell’s view of Hell rather than an independent Scriptural view (that’s not to say that his arguments are invalid, unjustified or unscriptural).

Also in the first couple of chapters Chan turns back time to gain a contextual view of Christ’s statements and in so doing his writing becomes a little less easy to read but he soon recovers his readability.

Overall this book is an excellent read; it is informative, constructive, Bible based and very hard to put down.