Mike Glenn's The Gospel of Yes is a tough book to review. The book contains many wonderful statements that are true and can be profitable to many believers, but at the same time, I found certain chapters and comments that are very questionable. In one sense I would recommend it to mature believers who have enough discernment to take the good from the bad, but since many different kinds of people read this site, I would have to say that overall, I don't recommend it.
Glenn is senior pastor of a mega-church in Tennessee and for what I can tell, he really loves and wants to help people. But of course, zeal alone is not helpful. The first thing I would say is that when a book has "gospel" in the title, then the reader is left to assume that the material covered will be gospel-saturated. Sadly, this is not the case. The majority of the book deals with how our lives can become better. This of course is in contrast with a gospel-centered book which would state that as believers, because of the gospel, our lives already are better. What could be better than spending eternity with God, our maker, redeemer and savior? In my view, the premise of the book is distorted.
Like I said, there are many good things in the book. Glenn does dedicate a section in one of the chapters to explain the gospel to an unbeliever who approached him, but again, this is one section in a 200 page book that is supposed to talk about the gospel of yes. I hope I don't come off as nitpicking, but I expected more gospel in a book with the word gospel in the title. Continuing with the title, then we get to the "yes" part. I understand that this is the entire premise of the book, how God said yes to us in Christ, and I agree with that, however, I believe that Glenn takes it to the extreme.
Glenn admits, thankfully, that when we say yes to God, then by default we say no to other things, like sin, Satan, etc. However, later in the book, this idea that by saying yes to God means saying no to other things is discarded completely. Glenn makes it seem that Christians shouldn't focus on opposing anything. In fact, he says about the apostle Paul and his preaching, that he "wasn't waging war against the pagan religion that held sway in the Roman Empire." Obviously he was because it got him imprisoned. Obviously when we say yes to God, we wage war against the empires of our world. The Christian life is one of warfare, hence we are supposed to put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18).
In the opening pages of the book, Glenn shares about one traumatic experience in his life when he was mad at God and felt disillusioned. I appreciate the honesty of the pastor. However, later in the story, we see that Glenn becomes angry because God didn't do things according to his expectations and even defies God. Glenn gives God an ultimatum. God better show up at the lake house or else. Of course, according to Glenn, the next day God showed up and spoke to him in apparently an audible way. Now, I'm always careful when I hear a story about someone saying the heard from God directly. I'm not denying this possibility entirely, God is sovereign and can do as He pleases, but one must be careful, especially when the "revelation" came after giving the Sovereign God of the universe an ultimatum. There was no mention of repentance or a hint of humility for this approach.
Furthermore, Glenn makes the case that Christians are known more for what they are against, than for what they are for. Looking at our culture, this may be true, but is this Christianity's fault? Does this means that "we have missed the most important thing about God" as the subtitle suggests? As believers, redeemed by the sacrifice of Jesus, we ought to love others as He commanded us. Of course, we are not perfect and we don't always succeed. And going back to the yes and no premise, when we say yes to something, then we are saying no to something else. If we say yes to life, then we say no to abortion. Notice that we are saying yes to something good; to life. However, if the world paints us as "pro-life radicals" then that's their judgment on us, not because we are negative or seem to be against everything, but because the world hates the light (John 3:20). In other words, if Christians are known by those in the world as "being against" is because we are indeed against what is evil (Romans 12:9)
There are many other things I could say about the book, but I think these aspects are enough to give you a picture as to why I don't recommend it. It had a lot of potential, but in the end, while reading the pages from "The Gospel of Yes," I found myself saying "no" too often.
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This book was furnished by the publisher in exchange for my honest, unbiased opinion.
