Customer Reviews

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A much needed view of Christianity in our current "Purpose Driven" individualistic culture. Sider points out that most evangelicals emphasize a one-sided gospel of forgiveness of sins without equal emphasis of repentance and discipleship. He goes on to state that evangelism is often defined primarily as "saving souls" calling that, "flatly unbiblical", since we are in the biblical sense "body-soul unities made for community". What a good point. Much is preached at least in my own Mennonite congregation about saving souls and coming to Jesus and little if anything taught about the costly obedience and radical discipleship of following Jesus and the social implications that brings. I agree with Sider in his statement that evangelicals need to grasp the biblical teaching that sin is social as well as personal. This is an excellent book which is easy to understand and deeply challenges the conventional evangelical wisdom of our time.

I first picked up this book, "scandal of the evangelical conscience: why are christians living just like the rest of the world," while browsing half-asleep at a Borders Book Store. Wow, did it wake me up! Over the years I haven't been much of a Ronald Sider fan, mostly because I felt he used his own social and political views to judge Christians for not holding to his own social and political views. But this book is really enough to win me over. It is so clear and just comes right out and says things that are obvious upon reflection, but not many people just come out and say, at least not many christian writers who want to sell books to the christian public, or christian speakers who want to get invited back to speaking engagements. he says that christians in this country think and act nearly the same as non-christians; and then he gives statistics to prove it. he then says that the main reason for this is a faulty gospel is being preached in christian churches that fails to produce truly converted people. the false gospel teaches that one need not actually turn away from sins and turn to christ, but that one need only believe in christ to be saved. and people are doing it but nothing profoundly changes in their attitudes and actions -- that's the problem. as a result, religion is up, morality is down. sider delivers a prophetic message that every christian leader as well as every christian should be alarmed about. it should cause us to rethink what we are really calling the gospel and compare it to what the new testament calls the gospel, and rethink conversion in the same way. as john the baptist says to anyone who claims a spiritual conversion: "bring forth the fruit that is keeping with repentance." if enough christian churches begin preaching and teaching true christian gospel conversion, maybe christians would begin to look different from the rest of the world. the book makes this very clear.

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience:

Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World


Author: Ronald J. Sider is professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy as well as director of the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also a president of Evangelicals for Social Action.

Thesis: Within evangelical Christianity there is a gross inconsistency between Christian beliefs and Christian living. Ronald Sider argues that for Christian faith to survive an understanding and an uncovering of the depth of this dichotomy is in order. Recognizing the rationale behind this crisis serves as a catalyst for a faithful corrective calling all to prophetic awareness, repentant obedience, vivid honesty, and compassionate love.

Structure: Ronald Sider introduces The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience by reciting a brief history of evangelical Christians. He explores the call of evangelicals as christianizing Christianity by living out fundamental Christian values. He begins to argue that this attempt was a huge success initially but as time continued it became increasingly evident that there was incongruency between evangelical values and evangelical behavior. This behavior mirrored that of the rest of world. This book begins examining the depth of the crisis by exploring evangelical behavior of values in which evangelicals find essential. He places importance of holding beliefs, values, and practices together to witness to a Christian God. He argues this as he examines the New Testament passages, philosophy, and theology. Primary themes that Sider argues in these pages to encourage disengagement between behavior and practices are the following:

* The Evangelical political agenda never includes the poor.
* Evangelicals fail to define the gospel properly (He presents that it is about the Kingdom of God and not the forgiveness of sins.)

Sider further argues that the evangelical community has two options, either live like the culture around them or live like the church. He argues for an ecclesial hope and offers affirmation that his research has also discovered that there are 2 or 3 % of evangelicals that are super saints that embody a kingdom ethic. He concludes by calling all evangelicals to mourn, repent, obey and trust in the God who transforms.

Specifics, Arguments, Answers, and Conclusions:
What does Sider mean when he says that evangelicals' are scandalous?
* The percentage of "born again Christians" who have divorced is higher than that of non-Christians. (26% vs. 22%)
* Though average incomes of Christians have increased, giving has decreased over the past several decades.
* Sexual disobedience is not as much of a concern today as it was in the past among evangelicals
* On issues of racism, evangelicals are lacking and do not express the importance of addressing racial injustices on a systemic level.
* There is a greater chance of domestic abuse in evangelical marriages

Though Sider does not say this explicity, it is ironic that evangelicals, who affirm the authority of the Bible, do not necessarily live biblically Christian lives. To make this point Sider works through various books of the New Testament showing the discrepancies between evangelical and biblical practices.
A few are as follows:
* The gospels show us how Jesus calls us to radical, costly discipleship.
* Acts presents an economic vision where there were no needy persons among the early church.
* Romans is very explicit about the importance of righteous lives and how faith in Christ engenders righteousness
* The letters to the Corinthians warn us about mixing sinners in the Body of Christ and caring for the poor.
* Sider notes that Tertullian acknowledged the contrast (in his day) between the Christian community and its enemies. Christians cared and loved believers, unbelievers, enemies and the marginalized.

To answer why there is this discrepancy, Sider says that evangelical Christians have ascribed to "cheap grace" rather than the whole Gospel.
* Cheap grace is the reduction of the gospel to mere forgiveness of sins.
* Cheap grace says salvation is escape from Hell.
* Cheap grace reduces persons to mere souls.
* Cheap grace reduces the severity of sin.
* Cheap grace embraces individualism, materialism, and relativism.
* Cheap grace lacks a biblical worldview.

In order to answer to these problems Sider says that there needs to be better understandings of the gospel and salvation.
* The gospel is about the kingdom of God
* Forgiveness is just one part of the kingdom of God
* The Kingdom requires both words and deeds (i.e. confessing Christ and submitting to him as Lord).
* Salvation calls for a lifetime of costly discipleship.

Sider also argues that evangelical Christians have conformed to popular culture. The influences of modern and postmodern paradigms have greatly reduced the appearance of the necessity of God.

In response, he calls for the church to re-orient around six crucial points.
* Jesus is the source and center.
* The church is holy.
* The church is a community rather than an aggregate of individuals.
* The church is counter-cultural in lifestyle.
* Mutual accountability and responsibility are essential to sustainability of the church as a counter-cultural kingdom community.

In his closing arguments, Sider mentions that there is hope for evangelicals.
* Prayer can move evangelicals in the right direction.
* Re-establishment of unison between orthodoxy and orthopraxis.
* The Lord Jesus Christ is open and willing to transform his church.

Source Analysis: Sider's target audience and the choice of sources
* Audience: Possibly this book is intended to target less-educated people who may have or currently identify with evangelicalism in one way or another.
* Possibly the purpose for interchangeably using the terms `Evangelical' and `Christian' is to acknowledge that the scandal is much broader than the world of Evangelicalism, that perhaps the issue involves all Christians in at least the United States of America in some degree. Though the cohort that identifies as `Christian' is much too large to grasp any hold on, why he chooses specifically the Evangelical cohort above others in uncertain. His major categories under `Christian' are Evangelical, Protestant, Catholic, and non-denominational.
* Further, Sider notes that Barna (one of his major statistical sources) has a relatively narrow category for the `Evangelical' cohort (only 8% of all Christians in the U.S.). Yet, Sider is not clear of whether those who took their surveys were given specific questions that would qualify or disqualify their claim of identification with the Christian cohort. Therefore, it is unclear that Sider wrote specifically to Evangelicals, yet is clearer later when he implies with his regular reference to the `Christian' cohort that anyone identifying with this group might be a potential target for a book of this nature.
* Main Cautions when considering Sider's citations
o p. 28: Sider cites that non-Christians have a negative view of Christians. This claim, while necessarily valid, it serves as a point to imply to the reader that Christians needs to modify how they display their Christianity. Yet, as per the Christianity that Jesus talked about: hence in light of an upside-down kingdom (Kraybill) where what is normal in the heavenly order is likely abnormal hence radical in the earthly order. Has Sider ever heard of martyrdom?
o Sider uses Emerson and Smith's Divided by Faith as a main source for his thesis. Yet, it us unclear why he repeats only one point of Promise Keepers-that the P.K. movement is a demonstrator that most Evangelicals see the racial divide in the Unites States as an individualistic issue of relationship. But, Sider could have drawn more than just the P.K. movement from this source because it has so much more to show than this (regardless) major critique. Yet, I commend Sider's practice of checking other sources to validify Emerson and Smith. Most references to Emerson and Smith are surrounded by one or to references to other writings on the perspectives on the Promise Keeper movement.
o p. 81: Sider cites the Pope, apparently assuming that his own opinion regarding this citation is sufficient validification.
o p. 114-15 (ff. 16-17) Secondary source is used. The problem with this is that Sider depends on this secondary source to give him a valid identification of the words and point that the original source is making. In short, he quotes another person's quotation of John Calvin without showing in any extent the point that the purpose that the secondary source had for writing such quote. It is dangerously possible that if I were to look at this source myself that I would find a different point than then Sider tends to be convinced of.
o p. 126 (ff 7. 139): Sider needs to define what he means when he uses the term `a lot' as a figure of measurement.
o Regarding specific citations of Barna: Barna is not always clear as to how he defines his cohorts.
o A strangely interesting statistic that might disrupt only a small portion of Sider's argument on tithing and affluence of Christians is that a cohort of households with an annual income of 60,000 or more (in the United States?) is tied for third as a group with the largest percentage of its population that tithes (7%).
o Another strangely interesting statistic is that Barna has a cohort of `non-born-again Christians.' Would this be a category that would overlap into the cohort of Catholics?
* He only uses Barna research and not Gallup research to report on Evangelical and Christian practices. Barna is known for a negative emphasis (which could be argued to perpetuate evangleical dysfuntion by encouraging a reaction from evangelical Christians) instead of Gallup which normally has a positive emphasis on Christian reports. A use of both could have been used to balance his research out a bit.


Critique:
The main point of my critique is that this book is not a prophetic word to the evangelical community. A person who is not involved in immorality and tithes regularly would read this book and pat themselves on the back for being "a cut above the rest." Yet, in my opinion, they would have in no way escaped the scandal that is evangelicalism (but they could still be the "super saints" he refers to at the end).

The scandal of the evangelical community is not the fragmented pieces of immorality, greed, consumerism, and bad theology that Sider brings to light. These are the symptoms of the real problem: Evangelicalism abandoned the poor and when it did so, it ceased to be Christian. Why, then, should we be surprised that statistics reveal it to be a failed project?

The Great Reversal : This is a huge point and Sider does not even touch on it. In the introduction he indirectly references it when he quotes Barna, "American Christianity has largely failed since the middle of the twentieth century." The fact is, with the social gospel came the evangelical desertion of the poor and of social justice in general. The Great Reversal corrupted their theology and their behavior. Without the accountability of living and ministering among the poor, it is no wonder that evangelicals began to give less and began to become increasingly influenced by culture. Self-sacrifice and incarnational ministry are safeguards against getting polluted by the world (See James 1:27).

Nationalism: How could there be a book about the scandal of the evangelical conscience that does not mention the word "nationalism" even once? This is untenable. Cavanaugh's book is a good corrective to this phenomenon. How can it possibly be that by and large evangelicals would gladly give their lives "defending their country" even if it meant taking the life of another Christian? This is a confusion of allegiance, it is itself a brand of racism, and it is positively un-Christian. The problem of nationalism should not have escaped the scope of this study.

Power: Along the same lines as nationalism, the heart of the problem requires a discussion of power. Sider really does not get into the issue of power at all. He talks a lot about racism, and even social sin, but never about the burden of power. He never talks about re-distribution (except for a removed discussion of Jubilee) or privilege that is only given so that it can be used for the sake of others. The scandal of evangelicalism is largely an ignorance of their power. Ignored power allows for continued urban and Third World poverty.

Wealth: Sider does give a good deal of time and a good discussion to Christians with wealth in a world of poverty. On the other hand, he is very "soft" with readers. He talks about how it is wrong to serve Mammon; but he never goes so far as to equate having riches, in general, with serving Mammon. It would have been a stronger point had he done so.

Sider's conclusion: If indeed evangelicalism is no longer particularly Christian, then the conclusion of the book cannot just be "renewal" or "revival", it must be a call for a brand new movement. The grandchildren of evangelicalism must discover anew the distinctives of Christianity and, amid repentance for past failures, they must humbly embrace the ancient faith in a new post-Christian sort of world.

Ron Sider is dismayed that Christians commit adultery and divorce their wives and beat them just as much as non-Christians do. He is concerned that the Evangelical movement in this country will suffer unless we repent of our worldly attachments to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.

Chapter one discusses the depth of the problem. It gives statistic after statistic showing that we are just as sinful as our unsaved neighbors. Some of the statisitics are compelling, and Sider works hard to show that they are. But some of the statistics can be read in different ways. For example, he notes that over 90% of born again Christians who got divorced did so after they were saved.

But what this statistic does not tell us is whether or not the irreconciable differences which led to the divorce were in play prior to the said person's salvation. I am always leery about conclusions derived from polls and surveys, because this information does not always tell the whole story.

Yet Sider is correct to note in this chapter how few evangelicals joined hands with liberal Protestants and Jews to fight for the civil rights of African-Americans. He also cites Bill McCartney's conclusion that attendance at Promise Keeper's events went down because it was becoming increasingly multi-ethnic.

However, it may just be that the Promise Keeper's movement fizzled out because more and more churches were picking up the work that the movement began. Not all movements are meant to stick around forever, hence the term 'movement.'

In chapter two, Sider gives the biblical vision for how God wants us to live, but he only gives us the New Testament vision. He never consults the Old Testament at all. Nevertheless, what he says is sound and spupportive of his thesis that God has called us to live holy lives. He cites Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount saying that we cannot serve both God and Money. He quotes from 1 John, that his whole person for writing this epistle is so that we would not sin and that we would not love the world or anything in the world.

He also refers to Hebrews 10:26-27, showing that if we continue to sin after receiving a knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but a fearful expectation of judgment. Wow!

He also wistfully notes at how the early church did a much better job at living up to the teachings of the New Testament than we are doing today, but again, I think Sider is painting with a broad brush. Sure, there have always been people in the church who have failed to live for Christ as they should (I number myself among), but there are others who have lived consistently selfless, Christ-centered lives.

In chapter three, Sider declares that we must beg God to show us what to do to make things better. He notes that evangelicals have reduced the gospel to personal forgiveness of sins, fire insurance from hell, and a simplisitc sloganistic viewpoint that says "Jesus loves and I'm saved no matter what I do." He also contends that we have elevated justification by faith at the expense of progressive sanctification by the grace of God. He notes that we have often focused on people as souls to be saved rather than a person with a variety of needs.

He also says that salvation is not just about winning the world one person at a time, but redeeming the social structures of society so that societal sin can be repented of and eliminated. He uses Wilbur Wilberforce as an example of someone who worked hard to overthrow slavery, and how others are working hard to get abortion outlawed, and how some of us are currently working hard to get a marriage amendment passed that will recognize it as a union between a man and a woman. He says that we need a more wholisitic gospel that will include of all this. I am glad that Sider takes the time to show how we as evangelicals are doing more of these kinds of things today.

The next chapter decries the evangelical emphasis on a privatized relationship with God, when in reality, He created us to be in fellowship with Him AND with one another. He created us to share in each others' joys and sorrows, and to give of our resources to thoseamong us with need. He laments the increasing materialism of the Christian culture. He states that the church ought to be "one vast community of accountability and mutual responsibility. He recommends three ways the church can recover this teaching: 1. By implementing stronger accountability structures in the church and by practicing loving church discipline if necessary, and 2. By repenting of our materialism and using our resources in ways that God would have us to, chiefly by giving sacrificially to the church locally and internationally. 3. He wants us to come up with ways that parachurch organizations like the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship can be more mutually accountable to the larger body of Christ. I think that in a sense, they are accountable because their workers have to come into the local churches to raise support for their ministries, and if the church is not satisfied with a ministry or is not led to support them, they can vote with their pocketbooks not to give. Nevertheless, I found much in this chapter with which I agreed wholeheartedly.

In the last chapter, Sider says that there are rays of hope in that God has sent revivals among us in the past and that there is every reason to hope and pray that this will happen in our day. He says that we need to do what Jesus told the Laodicean Christians to do in Revelation 3: Repent and open the door to Christ as Lord of every area of our lives. He notes that the polls and the surveys are more promising when we distinguish devout Christians from nominal Christians (which is something I suspected right from the get-go, and is why I do not trust polling data much of the time).

Yet this is a stimulating book and a stirring challenge to the complacent Christian community to get up and work together for the cause of Christ, to stop living like the world and to start living for the Lord. Amen, and Amen.

In an increasingly self-centered society, Christians fail to follow the admonition of the Apostle Peter to be the "peculiar people" (1 Peter 2:9) set aside for God's work. As Mr. Sider did in his "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger", the average American Christian is taken to task for his/her lack of distinction from the rest of society. Mr. Sider provides a vast ammount of data to prove that the true tragedy of our time is the inability of Christians to act and think differently from unbelievers. The scope of this tragedy is reinforced by Mr. Sider's use of scripture to underline just where today's Christians have fallen short and how far we must go to change things. The book's shortcommings are only that some of the material is clearly reused from other books by Mr. Sider, and it is somewhat short incomparison to the depth of the subject matter.

This book is a short, easy read...but is challenging at the same time. It is a much-needed indictment of evangelical Christianity in America. Our faith does not seem to be influencing our everyday life. Statistically, evangelical Christians are involved in just as much sin as non-believers. In fact, according to the book, sometimes the behaviors/attitudes of evangelical Christians are actually worse than the world!

How can this be? The author gives various ideas and possible solutions. For instance, too often we present a one-sided gospel. We only emphasize God's forgiveness and love. And fail to mention the importance of repentance and obedience in the Christian life. There is "cost" in being a true follower of Christ. We need to start preaching a more complete gospel message. We also need an increased emphasis on accountability, within denominations and among individuals.

I highly recommend this book. I actually bought two copies - one to keep and another to give away. I gave the other copy to my pastor.

Ronald Sider is very concerned about a scandal that is undermining Christianity. In almost every conceivable moral category, the behavior of Christians shows no statistical difference from the rest of society. This scandal is especially shocking for evangelical Christians who have traditionally held that transformed lives are the best proof of the reality of the gospel.

Sider writes, "To say there is a crisis of disobedience in the evangelical world today is to dangerously understate the problem. Born-again Christians divorce at about the same rate as everyone else. Self-centered materialism is seducing evangelicals and rapidly destroying our earlier, slightly more generous giving. Only 6 percent of born-again Christians tithe. Born-again Christians justify and engage in sexual promiscuity (both premarital sex and adultery) at astonishing rates. Racism and perhaps physical abuse of wives seem to be worse in evangelical circles than elsewhere. This is scandalous behavior for people who claim to be born-again by the Holy Spirit and to enjoy the very presence of the Risen Lord in their lives" (page 28).

After laying out the depth of the scandal, Sider walks through the New Testament texts that call us to live a life of holy dedication to God. He then turns to causes of the scandal. Sider sees two basic causes of the evangelical scandal. First is a reduction of the gospel message to the forgiveness of sins. We must reclaim justification and sanctification as both central to the gospel. The second cause is cultural syncretism. Christians are being conformed to cultural individualism, materialism, and consumerism rather than living as a biblical community that subverts these "isms".

With the very public scandals that have surfaced within evangelical Christianity, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscious is a very timely book. If Christians read it and take it seriously, then Sider's hope that "this book will renew evangelical resolve to live what we preach" just might be achieved.

Sider is one more voice calling out to the church in America saying, "come out" from the culture! Sider states his case clearly: Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. I personally find statistics boring. The worldly kingdoms and its culture are dead. Yet, I understand it helps in establishing the major problem evangelicals are facing. There are other smaller issues I disagree with, but I still believe every Christian should read this book. However, I do want to take Sider's message a bit further. Christians should spend little to no time involving themselves in politics. The great temptation that Jesus resisted, we too often embrace. The Christian should acknowledge the doctrine of the two kingdoms and withdraw from the idea that making laws and restraining sinners is the work of the Kingdom of God. Sider is right that "the world is passing away." We would do well to notice its full implications on our lives as we usher in a kingdom "not of this world." I strongly agree that churches today would strengthen if they made it harder to join. I disagree that denominations are advantageous to the cause of Christ. However, I too acknowledge the need for supervision, guidance, accountability, and unity among the church today. The church in America needs something more authentic to early Christianity. I believe overall Sider is pointing us in the right direction.

This book is a relatively good primer that brings to light many of the problems that evangelical Christendom has been facing since the mid-twentieth century. It is a quick read that may help many western Christians to re-direct their religious beliefs from within the confines of their intellect and continually-sinning nature and out into the decaying landscape of North America to exhibit true obedience to Christ and his gospel.

I felt that Sider's identification of the personal AND social nature of sin was a timely and much-needed revelation. Like Sider, I agree that, too often, evangelicalism focuses on personal conversion at the expense of understanding the surrounding social climate, which must also be formed in the image of the kingdom of God. I also appreciate Sider's honesty about the abundance of "cheap grace" that many evangelical pastors espouse to the masses in this day and age.

One thing that bothered me was that Sider's oft-espoused "faith alone" passages sprinkled throughout the book were presented somewhat inconsistently. He often presents justification as "faith alone", but then goes on immediately to explain the importance of obedience. I understood what he was trying to say from his Protestant view of soteriology, but it seemed a rather sloppy exposition.

Overall, the book is average. It is too short to truly get into a detailed study of the problems described within, and because Sider tries to cover so much ground in so few pages, it feels somewhat amateurish. It's a decent introductory piece, to be sure, and if you can get this book cheap, I would recommend it. Coming from a college professor, however, I expected a bit more.

Sider is probably best known for his book Rich Christians In an Age of Hunger, which ranked seventh on Christianity Today's list of "The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals". However, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience is the only book of Sider's I have read at the present time, so all of my conclusions will be based solely upon this book, not his overall system of thought, as represented throughout his other works.

This book clearly seeks to identify and address one particular problem within Christianity. In the Introduction, Sider identifies the problem, as he sees it:

Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.
His purpose is to "understand the depth of the crisis, discover why it has happened, and develop obedient, faithful correctives."

These goals are quite lofty for a relatively short book; I do not think he completely achieves his aim, but he does take his readers most of the way to this end.

The book is compiled of five chapters which represent the structure of the book. Each chapter represents the next step in his process of proclaiming, understanding, and correcting this scandal. He begins, in the first chapter, by attempting to convince readers that most Christians have strayed from our true calling. Furthermore, not only have we strayed, but an overall wandering and secularization of the church has become one of the defining characteristics of American Christianity. He did succeed in thoroughly convincing this reader of these facts. A simple glance at the divorce rates among church members or the subscription list of most pornography websites will quickly prove his claim.

The second chapter attempts to further illustrate the extent of this scandal by contrasting contemporary American Christianity with the teachings of Christ, the writings of the Apostles, and the practices which characterized the early Christian community. This comparison is extremely sobering. The present departure from biblical expectations becomes devastatingly apparent when we read the writings of the Apostles and Early Church Fathers. Both initial chapters, are not only convicting, but are also very well documented and have proved to be quite useful.

The real work begins in the third and fourth chapters. Here, he starts assessing how and why the American church has gotten into this scandalous position. His first and primary assertion is that:

The heart of the problem is a one-sided, unbiblical, reductionist understanding of the gospel and salvation ...most evangelicals do not even define the gospel the way Jesus did...we have propagated the heretical notion that people can receive forgiveness without sanctification, heaven without holiness.

I will firmly join him on this stand; this assertion is undeniably accurate. Although, I think there is a larger problem at the core of his data.

Next, he claims that American Christianity has followed our present culture in living out a gospel of self-fulfillment in which, "The individual [has] replaced God at the center of reality." This has caused Christians to abandon the Bible as their moral compass and despise biblical practices such as Christian accountability and church discipline. He believes the church has abandoned a New Testament understanding of the church and embraced the process of secularization in which churches are simply "comfortable clubs of conformity" and are destined to become carbon copies of the fallen world. He calls this blatant heresy. Once again, while I agree with his conclusions, I also believe there is a prevailing dilemma which should be central to his entire discussion.

Finally, in the culminating chapter, he departs from rebuking and correcting to offer some rays of hope. This encouraging chapter primarily makes the point that whenever pollsters or researchers have looked past the answers on paper and dug deeper into the lives of profession Christians, there is a much different story to be told. He believes, and I agree, that there is no way to tell from mere polling alone if a person has truly experienced the new birth that must initiate a Christian life. He follows George Barna in identifying a subcategory within Christianity, those Christians with a biblical worldview: "Barna has discovered that only 9 percent of all born-again adults have a biblical worldview and only 2 percent of born-again teenagers."

One of the major complaints I have with this book, and with Barna's polling, is this sloppy and probably even heretical use of the label "born-again." Born-again is a label created by Jesus himself during his dialogue with Nicodemus in the third chapter of John's Gospel. If you read this dialogue, then it is clear that being born-again by the Spirit, putting faith in Christ for salvation, and becoming a new creature are all different descriptions of the same event which initiates the Christian life. Such a person will be changed and will diligently, albeit imperfectly, strive to live a life modeled after Jesus Christ and the principles set forth in Scripture. Such a person will look different than the rest of the world. Despite his misuse of such an important biblical term, what is encouraging about this fact is that, as he proclaims, "the small circle of people with a biblical worldview demonstrate genuinely different behavior."

In the end, Sider offers a valid critique of the prevailing version of Christianity that has been created in our present culture. He clearly proves the stark contrast between what Christianity should look like, according to Scripture, and the lives being lived by the vast majority of Americans who categorize themselves as "born-again Christians." Furthermore, he clearly identifies one of primary causes of this predicament: a grievous misunderstanding of the gospel.

This book should persuade all people who claim the name of Christ to examine our lifestyles, because we have all strayed from our true calling to some degree. However, I would add that the chief factor that must be understood is the fact that the majority of professing Christians are not truly born-again. This book would be more accurately subtitled Why Are Professing Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? As Jesus stated, "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matt 7:21) Our savior also told his disciples that he was the good shepherd and, "he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow" (John 10:4-5). As Christians we are called to be followers of Christ, not mere name-claimers.