Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan
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Book Reviews of Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
Book Review: Excellent!
Summary: 5 Stars
Francis Chan presents a provacative commentary for Christians who sense something "wrong" with westernized Christianity, but stuggle to put intuition to words. Crazy Love is an excellent resource for those thirsting for "more" of God in their walk with Christ, yet find themselves struggling to discern what "more" even looks like, let alone how it should be manifested in practical living.
Chapter One, "Stop Praying," describes the state of spiritual amnesia that the western church seems to exhibit regarding the qualities and nature of God. Namely, we forget about God's omniscience, omnipotence and holiness. In a word God is awesome! When we forget His divine otherness, people, circumstances, even our regard for self morphs out of proportion. Because we forget who God is, every other aspect of life becomes distorted and dysfunctional.
In chapter Two, "You Might Not Finish this Chapter," Chan stresses the sheer brevity of life (hence, you might not finish the chapter). Life is not about us, it is about God. Worry and stress are symptoms of a life lived without complete trust in the Almighty. You won't find clenched-fisted maliciousness here. However, phrases such as, "frankly, you need to get over yourself," serves the reader with a dose of refreshing candidness.
Chapter Three, "Crazy Love," explores the amazing yet unwarranted love God has for each of us. We are God's treasure - a prize he endlessly persues. The question - do we truly reciprocate God's love with hearts driven by gratitude or are we simply in love with God's stuff?
Chapter Four, "Profile of the Lukewarm," is my favorite. Chan spans sixteen pages with an extremely detailed description of the factors that mark the "lukewarm" Christian life. The term "lukewarm" is famously used by John the Revelator. However, outside of saying that lukewarmness exists somewhere on the thermometer between hot and cold, and therefore tastes bland, John doesn't go into very exhaustive detail about what exactly the term means in regard to practical living. As a result it is far too easy for readers to blow through Biblical passages like Revelation chapter three, identifying little or no connection between the text and themselves, erroneously surmizing the term simply doesn't pertain to them. Chan does an excellent job of systematically wedding the term with other passages throughout scripture that, together, provide a robust portrait of what "lukewarm" means and the indictment it brings to the table in the context of westernized Christianity.
Chapter five, "Serving Leftovers to a Holy God," Chan asserts that our level of obedience is often comenserate with our anxiety about salvation. The very nature of the questions we ask often betray the state of our hearts; "Can I get away with and still have the assurance of Heaven?" We've convinced ourselves that we give sacrificially when in truth we offer time, talent, money, and energy, as we deem the amount sufficient to "buy off" God. We give out of an abundance. God gets leftovers. A heart filled with gratitude that erupts with full surrender is a tragic rarity.
Quoting Tim Kizziar, Chan points out, "Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be failure but to succeed at things in life that don't really matter."
Chapter six, "When you're in love," helps readers understand that love for God flows from our hearts when we realize our incapacity to love without his powerful assistance. We love God because he first loved us. Indeed, God himself grants us the capacity to offer Him the love of which he is worthy. Loving God doesn't involve trying harder, but surrendering more.
Chapter Seven, "Your Best Life...Later," affirms that "our buisness everyday is to prepare for our final day." The real joy and power behind the Christian life is giving as opposed to accumulating, downsizing in the face of the "American Dream" which usually entails upgrading. Chan challenges us to consider what aspect of our lives truly requires faith in Christ in light of our general tendancy to play it safe when it comes to service before God.
Chapter eight, "Profile of the Obsessed," functions as a compliment to chapter four. Having offered an illuminating profile of the lukewarm, Chan paints a portrait of what the truly "God Obsessed" lifestyle looks like.
In chapter nine, "Who Really Lives that Way," Chan, either intuitively or intentionally, anticipates possible areas of resistance that may have built up in the reader's heart by this point in the book. One potential area of objection is the lack of readily apparrent models we have available for consideration in ecclesiastical circles. Chan answers that concern by offering profiles of fourteen individuals who have lived out "crazy love" according to their own particular calling and niche.
Chan covers a lot of ground in just under two hundred pages, due largely to his concise, lucid, poignant writing style. Readers might argue that "nothing new under the sun" appears here. True, but Chan's fresh voice is worth the price of admission.
Chan's message, which is really an attempt to reacquaint readers with the authentic value system of Christ, is counter-cultural. That is in part what makes it so attractive yet so uncomfortable. What we might label "crazy," Jesus names as both "normal" and expected.
Book Review: Not as crazy as you think!
Summary: 5 Stars
What could attract an otherwise rational adult, such as Francis Chan, to the "frightening picture" of evangelical Christianity?
For Francis, "it had much do to with [his] relationship with [his] own father: dad, and DAD. The concept of being wanted by a father was foreign to [Francis]. Growing up, [he] felt unwanted by [his] dad" ("Crazy Love," p. 52).
Francis Chan was therefore a PERFECT candidate for devotion to a pretend Dad in the sky--a Being who loves you the way a Father ought to love an unwanted child; that is, a Father who treats you kindly; and who hurts other people instead, people who don't really care for Him all that much:
"In Matthew 25," writes Francis in CRAZY LOVE, "we get a frightening picture of the coming Judgment. In this passage, Christ condemns people to eternal punishment because they did not care for Him during their lives on earth" ("Your Best Life, p. 115).
Consider the alternative: "If eternity DOESN'T come, and God does NOT exist, then, as Paul says, 'If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men' (1 Cor. 15:19). If there is no God, then Paul and all the martyrs throughout history lived short lives full of needless suffering" --just like children whose Father hurts them instead of hurting others (2 Cor. 6:4-10) (ibid., p. 115).
--because like, hey, What's the whole big point of turning Christian unless God the Father comes through with an eternity of bovine bliss for the children He is able to forgive, and with incredibly painful, everlasting, NEEDFUL suffering for such people as Tom Cruise and Bill Clinton and Courtney Love, and for some Jewish schmo and Muslim gal and Buddhist monk who never cared for Jesus all that much?
Francis Chan is the first to admit that it ain't easy to love a Father in the sky who hurts His children forever and ever just because they believed the wrong way, or because they paid compliments to the wrong patriarchal deity. But Francis comes up with some excellent tips how to do it--how to love even a psychopathic, morally bankrupt god such as Yahveh, the Father of Jesus.
Before one can be loved by the Father, Francis explains, one must love, and want to be loved by, the Son. We should try to love Jesus, and be loved by Him, using approximately the same words that a sixteen-year-old boy would use in the back seat of his father's Chevrolet when he wants to love, and be loved by, his girlfriend:
"Tell Him you want to love Him more than anything on this earth. ... Tell Him what you like about Him, what you appreciate, and what brings you joy. ... 'I need You deeply and desperately. I believe You are worth it .... I WANT You. And when I don't, I WANT to want You. Be all in me. Take all of me. HAVE YOUR WAY WITH ME!'" ("When You're in Love," p. 109).
If Jesus doesn't let you get to first base after THAT kind of talk, well, then, all Francis Chan can say is: "OUCH. To me that is like a stinging, unexpected slap in the face" ("When You're in Love," p. 109).
The whole crazy book, in brief:
Chapter one: "STOP PRAYING" (Those are the first two words in CRAZY LOVE--"Stop Praying"-- and they're the best advice I've read in a Christian book since St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.)
Chapter two: "YOU MIGHT NOT FINISH THIS CHAPTER" (He's right: I didn't.)
Chapter three: "CRAZY LOVE" (I know what you're guessing: Francis Chan's chapter on "Crazy Love" is about some sado-masochistic sexual perversion! And your guess is WRONG ... sort of! Chap. 3 is about the love of YAHVEH: Imagine a Father who cannot forgive his children for the least peccadillo until He first NAILS one of them to a board! Then it's like: Okay, NOW I can forgive you other kids! (Francis Chan explains that God is "holy" and not just "crazy," which means that He gets to punish most of His children with unspeakable torments, forever and ever, and no one had better criticize Him! Because it's, like, CRAZY, man!)
Chapter four: "PROFILE OF THE LUKEWARM" (God wants hotness! Get on fire for the Lord, or after you're dead, He'll SET you on fire!)
Chapter five: "SERVING LEFTOVERS TO A HOLY GOD." (Pastors: you have a microwave oven. USE IT.)
Chapter six: "WHEN YOU'RE IN LOVE" (Compares [a.] Christian faith to [b.] sexual bliss. This is an interesting theory, but I've tried both, and [b.] is better, trust me.)
Chapter seven: "YOUR BEST LIFE ... LATER." (For the true Christian, "Life's a bitch, but then you die--HURRAY!")
Chapters eight, nine, and ten: (Relentless.)
That said, let me add that I know Francis Chan. He's a wonderful man. Unlike most Christians, he gives a share of his income to the poor. I like him, a lot, despite his crazy religion.
--L.
Book Review: Wake Up call
Summary: 5 Stars
I had read "Crazy Love" last week and been perusing the website (did you know he resigned from his pastorate?). It definitely shakes up the status quo thinking about the trappings of Christianity and religion in general. It reflects the obvious internal struggles of a very successful pastor to come to grips with the implications of "church" success versus spiritual success. Still, it made me feel hopelessly inadequate, even though I don't think that's not what the author intended. It just sets the bar so high, so fast, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to sell everything and go to Africa next week or probably even this year, if ever. I know that the book was an outpouring of his struggles with the mediocrity of Christianity as practiced by our church, and most of us, in those churches. Here's my question though - Is that the right bar to set?
I think any of us of conscience or moved by God (in any religious context) are faced with the struggle of being in the world, but not of the world. Life Survival vs Servant Life. Vows of poverty, self-sacrifice, and self-deprevation for individual and greater good are universal in almost all religions, and even socio-political movements (Socialism, Communism). I've been in many institutions devoted to service, especially spiritual service, served on boards and lived in monastic communities, and they are all ripe with mediocrity. So why does the bar set by "Crazy Love" not work for the most part - even for Mother Teresa, Martin Luther, other Christian spiritual icons, and apparently the author?
Caught back in the loop of "nothing I do will ever be good enough" after reading "Crazy Love", I was lucky and came across "The Naked Gospel" by Andrew Farley. WOW! I get it now. I get GRACE!!! Grace sets us free from the bar, Grace has no bars at all because Jesus Christ already jumped the bar, set an unbeatable record, and freed us from the game. We're FREE! There's a bright line that was set forever the moment that Christ died on the cross, the moment that the Old Covenent of the Law was fulfilled and the New Covenant was ratified by God: "One thing about distinguishing the Old Covenant from the New - the New ALWAYS liberates." (Naked Gospel, pg. 87). It liberates us from the "never enough" to the "all sufficiency" of God - if we can only be present and hear the "small, quiet voice of God" manifested in the Holy Spirit one moment at a time. The institution of the church is mediocre because it talks about Grace but is still teaching (modeling) the "not good enough" theory either openly or implicitly. Not enough service, not enough tithing, not enough sacrifice, not enough worship, not enough obedience...not enough. It doesn't really help us to rely upon an intimate relationship with God and Christ and the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in our daily lives, in every moment. It doesn't model intimacy with God, it models dependency on effort. It always falls back to the wide, easy path of the bar - rituals and rules and prodding and not enough. The "church" can never really have enough of what God is not asking for.
Buddhism and other Eastern Traditions use intensive meditation methods to help the practioner hit the wall of the limits of self-effort. Farley points out the true purpose of the law, to teach us as quickly as possible the hopelessness of self-effort. Unfortunately, humans are hard eggs, in love with the illusion of self-control, so thank God - He had a better plan. Christ punched a hole right through all the static and muck of human effort and gave us the narrow way to fellowship with God and filled that open space with the Holy Spirit! A direct link, the main line, no stair-steps or secret passages or giant hurdles to Heaven. What could be more elegant?
I like this from "The Naked Gospel":
"But often our idea of grace boils down to nothing more than mercy... Grace is the system that the Holy Spirit uses to counsel and teach us on a daily basis. Grace is in place, whether or not we've sinned recently. The law excites human effort. It encourages us to depend on resources outside of Christ. But unconditional acceptance deactivates human effort and allows the Holy Spirit to be all that he wants to be through us...Grace isn't merely a response to sin. Grace is the core of the NEW. It allows Jesus to produce through us what's needed in the moment... Jesus will produce what we cannot." (pgs. 90-92)
In other words, when we're in Grace, we're out of a job - Jesus does all the work! WHEW, I never really liked that job anyway! Maybe you already know all this, but I can't tell you how exciting it is to really understand it after 50 years of Christianity and 30 years of Zen/Buddhism/Advaita! I just had to respond.
Book Review: A Paradigm-Shaking Book
Summary: 5 Stars
There are many voices critiquing the North American church today. The voices come from both within and without; from those who love the church and those who hate it. We all know that there is something wrong. But what? In many cases the prescription is the same while the cure varies widely. In his new book Crazy Love, first-time author Francis Chan, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California, regular speaker at Passion conferences and other events, and the guy who recorded that "Just Stop and Think" evangelistic video where he walks for miles holding a surfboard, takes his opportunity to challenge the church. "This book," he says, "is written for those who want more Jesus. It is for those who are bored with what American Christianity offers. It is for those who don't want to plateau, who would rather die before their convictions do." It is a book that is meant to change the way Christians live their lives.
There are two ways of critiquing the church. We can critique out of love or out of disgust. Chan is committed to critiquing the church as an act of love. In a recent interview, when asked about the emergent church, he said this: "As a pastor I hear a lot of emergent leaders talk about what is wrong with the church. It comes across as someone who doesn't love the church. I'm a pastor first and foremost, and I'm trying to offer a solution or a model of what church should look like. I'm going back to scripture and seeing what the church was in its simplest form and trying to recreate that in my own church. I'm not coming up with anything new. I'm calling people to go back to the way it was. I'm not bashing the church. I'm loving it." And his love for the church is obvious throughout this book.
The format of Crazy Love is straightforward and effective. Chan dedicates three chapters to renewing our understanding of the character of God and seven chapters calling Christians to examine themselves. Within the book are two ongoing themes that are going to get people talking.
The first theme is that we must painstakingly examine ourselves. We cannot assume we are saved, or to use the biblical metaphor, we cannot assume that we are the good soil. Chan calls the reader to a serious self-inventory through a chapter that provides a profile of the lukewarm. He concludes, "a lukewarm Christian is an oxymoron; there's no such thing. To put it plainly, churchgoers who are `lukewarm' are not Christians. We will not see them in heaven." God wants all or nothing.
The second theme is deeply counter-cultural, going against the stream of both Christian and secular culture. It is this: live your best life later. Chan wants to see Christians living differently--living in a way that is markedly different from those around them. He wants to see Christians forgoing much of what we consider necessary, what we consider our due, in order to focus on treasures that are eternal. He wants us to get outside the realm of what is comfortable to us and focus instead on radical obedience. "God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through."
These two themes and a focus on the Scriptures serve to create a powerful and deeply challenging book. There is a very obvious commitment here to teach Scriptural principles from the Scriptures and to invite the reader to verify what he is writing from those same Scriptures. Not surprisingly, the book's weakest chapter is the one that depends least on the Bible. It is a chapter providing examples of men and women who have made radical choices to live radically different. At least a couple of examples are of people who are probably not the best examples overall because as they've jettisoned their old lives, they've also jettisoned too much good theology.
That small critique aside, I found that this is a paradigm-shaking book with a message that Christians desperately need to hear. Too many of us are living too safely and too easily. But for the brief moments we spend at church each week, we are practically indistinguishable from the unbelievers around us. This is not the way it is meant to be. The church could use a loving exhortation and Chan delivers well.
Book Review: New Christians Should Read This Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I started reading Crazy Love, I saw a review here suggesting that new Christians should not read this book as they would be discouraged by Mr. Chan's interpretations and that he misses the point on God's Grace. I couldn't disagree more. Mr. Chan intelligently and quantitatively demonstrates through Scripture the foundation and the path that all Christians should follow and for some, that message isn't convenient or easy to digest. He is spot on in his assertions that during our journey here on earth, we have two paths to follow - and the one we as Christians should aspire to, and WANT to venture down is the one, unfortunately, less travelled for many.
Why is that? It's because it's not controllable and takes us out way of our comfort zone, which is counter to what our feelings and emotions at times say to us. It feels reckless. And that makes it all the more difficult for us as human beings. But, that's why it's called a leap of faith.
This is not to say that we should all, en masse, sell off everything we own and hit the missionary road. But what Mr. Chan is suggesting is for each and everyone of us to examine our personal relationship with God and to put that first before everything else, before our jobs, our family, everything! To without question or reservation, place our trust in His plan for the reason behind our individual existence. And that runs counter to our human instincts for self-preservation here on earth. Even Jesus's disciples, while in the midst of his profound teachings and miracles, and firm in their belief that He is the Messiah, experienced moments of doubt. And even though we are many generations removed from the time that Christ walked the earth, His message of salvation has NOT changed, nor His directions to us. This message for some Christians, however, is simply inconvenient and doesn't fit into their earthly plans.
God's plans for some people may very well be, through His gifts, to earn boat loads of money so that they can fund His good works, for others, to use their spiritual gifts of teaching to spread His Word. And to do so because you joyfully and sincerely WANT to, not out of a sense of obligation or as proof of your devotion. We spend much time, energy and money preparing for our worldly careers. Mr. Chan suggests through Scriptual evidence that we prayfully do the same for Him. That we seek God's direction and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, discern His purpose for us in carrying out His business here on earth. And once we do, to do so not out a sense of duty, but enthusiastically, willingly and lovingly.
Another toughie is that Mr. Chan aptly points out Jesus's direction to us to love one another. Unconditionally. Even your enemies. No matter big or small, from the serial murder committing absolutely heinous and unspeakable acts to the lady front of us in line at Subway ordering lunch for the entire office. This indeed is a tough concept to wrap your brain around. And, God calls on us to forgive, period. He doesn't set a timeframe for us to arrive at this forgiveness, but rather instructs us as to its necessity. We are not to sit in judgement, that's God's job.
Mr. Chan's righteous indictment of lukewarm Christians is from their perception that tra la la la la, OK, now that you've accepted Christ as your Savior, everything's going to be just hunky dorey (imagine this sentence being spoken by Dana Carvey's Church Lady). Believing in Him is Step 1. Step 2 is really, really living the Word.