Customer Reviews

The End of the World...As We Know It: Clear Direction for Bold and Innovative Ministry in a Postmodern World

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This book hits it on the head. As a ghost in the machine of Generation X - I can completely understand where Mr. Smith comes from and feel he has a firm grasp on the cultural / spiritual / individual drivers of those that share my age group. In this book, Chuck Smith Jr. exposes the antiquated and fledgling structure of the postmodern church much in the way Martin Luther exposed the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation. I rate this work as one of the most important true Christian works of our age and an absolute necessity for any other "X-er" that is searching for truth. Do not let the sins of our parents dissuade you from seeking Christ. While most Americans pracitice "churchianity" and stand in shocking denial of their own hypocrisy - listen to what Christ says. Chuck gets it.

This is one of my most underlined and highlighted books, very insightful, well-written, very reader-friendly, from the son of Chuck Smith Sr, of the original Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa.

It discusses the roots of Postmodernism, the current scene, and what the church can do to blunt the negative aspects, and to foster the positive effects. The book instructs, encourages, illustrates, analyzes, and urges the church (that is, the people of God) to be aware of and involved in the coming trends that postmodernity is bringing our way.

As John Fischer's review says, This is "a must-read for people who want to communicate to their generation or simply understand their own kids (or their parents, for that matter)"

It succeeds admirably!

Note that there is now a new release of this book, entitled "There is a Season". I do not know if there is any updating or not, but THIS edition is available used, and I recommend it highly.

This is a great book for ministers and students of the gospel in the 2000's. I appreciated most the challenge to live among other belief systems without seeing them as "sinful." We as Gen-Xrs are helped by that challenge. I feel God is really using Chuck Smith Jr. to assist young people (and old people who are open to change) to strive and bring a real God to a lost world in a new way. Anybody who's ever been "beaten up" by Christians (or by non-christians) can find a healing way to the cross through this book and through Chuck's ministry. I think writing this book took much bravery. It enlightens the reader to a formidable sociological change that has occurred and still is occurring in our culture. Chuck has indeed made us a "road map" to see the road toward what's to come. Is anybody up for a great adventure? If so, I highly recommend this book.

This book requires a lot of thought and produces a lot of revelations about today's generation of Church-goers. An interesting read to say the least, even if you do not agree with everything, you must respect Smith's opinions. Smith married my wife & I, so I picked this book up just for that reason, and am glad I did, because it was a great read.

"I am fortunate enough to attend the church pastored by Chuck Smith Jr. in Capistrano Beach, CA. I began attending his father's chuch, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa in 1982 and attended for many years until moving closer to Chuck Jr.'s church in the 90's. Pastor Chuck Jr. is a very humble and down-to-earth person. Very accessible to all with an, "I'm no better than you" type of attitude. I feel that he gives Christians a great road map with which to navigate the world in which we now find ourselves. As with every thing else in life, having a map makes the journey easier, more direct and allows us to understand why we go in this direction versus another. It's difficult to understand where we are going unless we know from where it is that we came and where we are today. This book should be an invaluable tool in helping anyone understand why, the world as we knew it, is gone forever. I recommend it very highly. I say this in a very unbiased fashion because I do not always agree 100% with Pastor Chuch or anyone, for that matter, but, in this book, I can find little with which I disagree."

We can be grateful that Chuck Smith Jr. has given us a well-written, easily digestible, and profoundly insightful analysis of "The End of the World As We Know It." His depiction of the cultural changes underway in postmodern times is one of the best in print. However, the overall strategy he urges Christians to employ amidst these changes is marred by its lack of consistency with what the New Testament contemplates. You would be hard-pressed to find the Apostle Paul "re-visioning" the church in many of the ways Smith suggests. While his program may be helpful in rooting out the peculiar cultural and "modernist" errors of American fundamentalism, he seems to replace them with another set of peculiarities. (Post-modernist ones...) ______________________

The bottom line: We applaud his acknowledged personal efforts to learn from the failures of his "fundamentalist" past. However, we think his "road map" for the future fails to sufficiently root out the same kinds of errors. Like so many other books in this genre, its moments of true brilliance are undermined - ultimately - by an underlying accommodation to postmodern culture.

It is time for something truly revolutionary to meet the challenge of these revolutionary times. Unfortunately The End of the World As We Know It does not meet the criteria sufficiently.