by Aaron Armstrong
Last week, I shared five books I would encourage every new
Christian read. In that post, I mentioned that in my first years as a believer,
I read a lot of books I simply should not have. At all. Which ones were they?
Here are five… well, four and a half:
1. Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. I picked
this up because Bell was the hip teacher at the time. Lots of folks at our
church were into the NOOMA videos, and we were all gaga over them. And kinda
dumb for it. This book really messed with my head at a time when I was trying
to begin figuring out what it meant to be a Christian. In the end, it seems
I’ve come out better for it. But would I recommend anyone follow my path? Gosh
no.
2. Just like Jesus by Max Lucado. This was the beginning of my
life-long whatever the opposite of a bromance is with Lucado. As a new
believer, I found this book to be sappy, sentimental pap, an opinion that’s
carried over into pretty much anything I’ve read of his. While I’m sure he’s a
lovely man, I can’t help but hate myself a little when I read something by him.
2.5. Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. This
one’s the half book because I never finished reading it. I made it about
halfway before I gave up. Terrible writing combined with a weird “frontier man
meets mystic” idea of what it means to be a Christian man.
3. The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. This, again,
was one of the super-hot books of 2006, and easily one of the most pretentious.
For a book advocating a “simple way,” it came across incredibly arrogant and
condescending. Basically it read like, “If you’re not driving a van running on
vegetable oil, living in a monastic community and not bathing, you’re doing it
wrong.” It also didn’t help my wife with her ongoing issue of mocking authors
in a sing-songy voice.
4. The Future of Justification by John Piper. This was actually
the first John Piper book I ever read, and it’s a really good one. So why’d it
make this list? Because I understood it and, as a believer for only a couple of
years at the time, I didn’t have the emotional and theological maturity to
handle that well. I already had some pretty serious pride issues by that point,
and that only served to make them worse.
There were others, of course. I read a Brian McLaren book
around the time I was gaining doctrinal convictions and threw it against a wall
(it was either The Story We Find Ourselves In or The Last Word and the Word
After That) because of its irritating hypothetical anecdotes about hypothetical
people becoming hypothetical Christians. I read memoirs by Mark Driscoll and
Craig Groeschel that did nothing to help me get a clear picture of the
challenges of pastoral ministry (or, in hindsight, the character of an elder
for that matter). I remember really enjoying a lot of Don Miller’s books, but
failed to see some of the significant theological problems in them
(particularly Searching for God Knows What).
But you get the idea. Reading books is good for new
Christians, but our reading is only as profitable as the books we’re reading
are helpful. When the content is beneficial and we’ve got the maturity to
embrace it humbly, it’s a good thing. When the content is awful and we have the
acumen to critique it thoughtfully, it’s a blessed thing. But when we’re
reading anything and lack either the maturity or discernment to appropriately
process it, it can lead to disaster.
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