Christianity in Crisis: The 21st Century
Christianity in Crisis was not what I expected. I was not impressed with the Calvinist worldview portrayed by the author, nor the simplicity and repetitiveness of his points, and detailing only some aspects of the prosperity doctrine/Word of Faith movement. Scattered throughout the book were references to Calvinism, especially when the author writes his arguments against the movement. Likewise, I found it difficult to continue reading the book partially due to its simplicity and repetitiveness; it took me several days to read through from beginning to end. The Word of Faith movement and the prosperity doctrine movement go hand-in-hand; although the author does detail what is wrong with the Word of Faith movement, I wish he would have focused more attention on the scriptural references used to preach the prosperity doctrine. I have been to numerous churches who, although they have not bought into Joel Olsteen and crowd, have bought into this false doctrine; several of the scriptures they have used to defend their position were never mentioned by the author, much to this book’s detriment.
However, I will say that it was a useful reference when I had a young friend of mine send me an email about how wonderful Joel Olsteen was; the very fact of its simplicity in argument made it easy to pinpoint all my scriptural complaints against the false doctrine that he preaches.
