Okay, I hate to be picky, but this is bothering me just a little.
In general it’s a good book, it’s interesting, but I feel so much negativity in it, it just annoys me.
Hemant Mehta is an athiest, who went to some churches. He went initially to hold up his end of the deal with the auction, and went to more to do research for this book. He goes into it all saying he has an open mind, and that if someone can give him good enough evidence, maybe he’ll change his mind about God.
He is writing the book to point out positives and negatives in churches, things that push people away, and things that effectively pull people in. It’s definitely cool to hear his opinions on some of the little things churches do, things I hadn’t seen in that same light.
A lot of what he says I can actually agree with, I wasn’t a Christian until I got to high school, so my perceptions of church we’re mostly negative until I was saved. And things some churches do would make me reluctant to come back. I’m lucky enough to be at a church that I fit in at, and I feel does everything it can to accept people as they are. We talked quite a bit about C3 today at Community Group, so I’m feeling pretty blessed right now. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to have this community of faith. Anyway, back to the book.
I have a few things that are just bothering me. He says he has done a lot of research, and asked questions, but he poses a lot of questions in the book. I can see them as legitimate questions, but why didn;t he just ask someone at the churches he was at? In some cases he did, and he provided the answers given to him. But he puts up a ton of questions that I’m sure someone could have explained to him. Like “What is the point of so much repetition?” in the music. There are plenty of reasons for that, but he leaves it as a question, leading the reader to think there is no answer and it’s pointless. He does that a lot and I think he could have explored it further if it really bothered him.
I’m only about halfway through the book, I bought it last night, but there we’re some things that made me think in here. One thing he had an issue with was churches reading Bible verses in the sermons. He does later go on to appreciate and like the way Rob Bell does it at Mars Hill, but before that point he isn’t a big fan of hearing the Bible verses that the pastors are pulling from.
“I have heard some Christians say they prefer to attend a church whose pastor makes heavy use of verses from the Bible in his or her sermons. To them, preachers such as Joel Osteen may appear “watered down” due to the fact that he doesn’t mention Bible verses as frequently as other pastors. My response to would be that Osteen’s messages come across more clearly to a wide audience because he limits the quotes from the Bible. His listeners know he’s using the Bible as his reference, so he doesn’t need to remind them every few sentences.”
That bothered me. I understand from his point of view, but as a Christian, if a pastor doesn’t reinforce what is being said with scripture, then it’s easy for them to twist it to thier own view. I don’t mean to say the more verses you recite, the more Godly the service or whatever, I just mean that it’s dangerous to just take what the pastor says without examining it yourself. Personally, I trust my pastor, but I won’t just take what he says and that be the end of it, those verses are a starting point to look at it myself, to get more out of it, and to make my own interpretation, with his help. Just listening to the pastor isn’t enough.
As an example, in high school we read MacBeth (and several other stories and plays ahrd to follow), we sat there and read them. Our teacher didn;t just tell us what was going on, we read it ourselves, he was there to help us understand it, to share what he knew about it to help us understand it ourselves. That’s what pastor does, to just take his words without the scripture behind it is foolish.
A lot of the things he critiqued we’re actually things that really don’t represent Jesus, they represent religion, tradition, rules, the boring annoying things. The majority of the things he liked and encouraged we’re the things that looked most like Jesus. The passion of the people, true community in the congregation, the pastor being real with the church, and little things like parking attendants helping him out.
I haven’t read all of this yet, so I will probably finish talking about tomorrow when I finish it, but there are just a few other things I wanna pick apart.
I am a bit bothered at him saying he is open minded, and he seems kind of negative and close minded to me.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s very open minded of him to give church a try period, but when he is there he questions everyones motives, and looks at everything negatively rather than positively. His reviews are usually all negative with a hint of “there was this one redeeming quality”. Which is fine, it’s his opinion, but reading it he doesn’t feel open minded. At certain points he even seems to portray Christians as illogical thinkers. Which bug me to no end because I’m an extremely analytical thinker and logical person. This is just how I’m reading it, so I’m probably not taking it the way he intended, but you can’t feel tone when you read. You lose that from spoken to written word.
The cool thing about reading this is really seeing flaws that churches have, whether I agree with his opinion or not, he brings up valid points about things churches do that bother people. each church he describes will remind me a little of a church I’ve been to in the past. So far, none have reminded me of C3, which I’ll take as a good sign. Reading this, as a Chrsitian, he hasn’t gone to a church yet I would have liked very much. I’m seeing some very interesting and different forms of worship reading this. I agree with some of the things he critiqued, he said that at the churches that have these ritualistic things going on, he would feel totally out of place, not knowing when to do each thing. I had the same worries back in middle school visitng a frinds church, I didn’t know thier rituals, so I felt so confused and out of place. Church shouldn’t be about rituals at all. So I agree with that one. There are actually a lot I agree with, the main one I totally disagree with is scripture, I don;t think churches should remove scripture.
Okay, last thing that bugged me, it was technically the first thing that bugged me reading it. He has a beef with Kirk Cameron, and by beef I mean he was on his radio show and he felt Kirk insuted him. Which I suppose happened, if you feel insulted, then you we’re insulted, the persons intent doesn’t change the result. But I also don’t think he was fair to Kirk in the story he told. He complains a lot in the book about pastors only sharing part of stories, or not really giving all the facts about things. I think he did that with Kirk. I know how he functions, I’ve seen how his ministry works. I personally like the guy, he can be intense, but in general I like him. So anyway, he says in the book that they insulted him and made them out to sound really really mean. But I listened to the interview. They lsitened to him, told him he was very mature and big to do it. They we’re polite. I think they we’re actually supportive. Kirk told him about how he grew up an athiest, and tried to witness to him. I think hemant was just bothered because he was directly being ministered to. He can’t be mad at Kirk for that, so him bashing Kirk in the book bothered me. If anything, Hemant came off as a bit defensive. I like something that was said in the interview by the way “You don’t think that the creation screams that there could be a creator” “no”. What? He says he is a logical thinker, but that’s illogical.
I think I just get confused by athiesm, because I am logical, it’s MORE logical to believe in God than not to.
Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble.” – Albert Einstein
“I could prove God statistically; take the human body alone; the chance that all the functions of the individual would just happen, is a statistical monstrosity.” – George Gallup
Two brilliant minds, that admit that intellect points to God.
Anyway, the book is certainly thought-provoking, and I enjoy it, because it’s actually re-inforcing my faith. The things he says to try to shoot down God only make me believe it more. I don’t think his intention was to dis-prove God or anything, he just seems to think the whole idea is stupid. He gives that vibe to me anyway.
Rob Bell wrote the forward in the book, he said he feels Hemant is just after the truth, I totally agree. I just feel he is going about it the wrong way. He seems a little closed off, but I can’t blame him for that. The things he’s writing make me think critically about my life, the way i present myself to people that don’t know Christ. And it’s pretty helpful. I have an atheist friend, it’s helping me understand him, and understand how I need to be to help him, and not just push him further away.
So, anyway, I’ll finish reading it tomorrow before work and try to blog some final thoughts.
**I hope I didn’t sound too negative, I like the book in general.
