so i managed to start and finish a book without ever posting about it…
i guess its partly because i’ve been fairly busy lately, but also because i made it through the book pretty quickly. following sunday morning service, i was approached by a lady in our fellowship who asked me if i had read this book yet, which i hadn’t. she said she had an extra copy, so handed me the copy she had. you can view the book on amazon.com by clicking here. its called ‘faith undone’ by roger oakland.
i got home on sunday and started into it and didn’t put it down until i was 100 pages in. just so you don’t think i’m some kind of super-reader, i’ll tell you right now i’m not. in fact, i’m notorious for dragging books out over a month or more. somehow, though, this book really grabbed my attention. why? well, i guess this is where i should tell you one reason it took me so long to make it through the josh mcdowell book. i was two-timing josh. yes, i admit. while i was reading his book, i was also reading another book. you’ve probably heard of it. its called ‘the emerging church’ by dan kimball. sorry, josh.
but seriously, i just finished that book a week ago and immediately following was given this roger oakland book. and just to clarify, i wasn’t reading the dan kimball book because i’m thinking of entering the ‘emergent conversation.’ i’ve found myself in the past months in several conversations about the emerging church and felt that i was really lacking in my ability to speak intelligently about it, since i didn’t know exactly what it was about. reading dan’s book helped me understand a little more about the emerging approach.
alright, i digress. enough about dan’s book. back to ‘faith undone.’ i won’t get into the details here due to lack of space, but i would say if anyone is flirting with the idea of entering into the emergent conversation, they should definitely put ‘faith undone’ in their reading list. study up on the emerging church, see what they’re about and what approaches they take. maybe even read some books by dan kimball or brian mclaren, but follow them up with this book. have i stressed that enough? good.
as always, your comments are welcomed.
My old church in california was becoming an emerging church. We never used our bibles… in fact all we did was play Halo 2! And that’s only the begining. It was horrible. Not to say that God can’t work through something like that, bu there were some doctrinal (did i spell right?) issues. Needless to say, we left that church.
Unfortunately Bean, the emerging church is becoming much more dangerous than Halo 2. In fact, I think they’ve moved up to Halo 3! Just kidding. In all seriousness, rather than just being a different approach, its becoming a new gospel (read Galatians).
Ben,
Great observation on Faith Undone. After coming home from the mission field, I stumbled across this new doctrine. Roger Oakland has some great material on the subject. Anyways… the moment God opened my eyes to the EC was the moment that I realized that there were people that I was serving alongside that bought into it.
All I can say is pray up, bro. The moment you start to sharing with those in the church about the dangers of the EC, is the moment that you will begin to face opposition. My prayers are with you and glad you liked the book!
By the way… EM Bound on Prayer is on my nightstand too. God Bless.