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70 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Little Pastor Has Truth - Listen Up,
By
This review is from: This Little Church Stayed Home: A Faithful Church in Deceptive Times (Paperback)
It is sad to realize that Pastor Gary Gilley's new book will never come close to outselling Rick Warren's book "The Purpose Driven Life." The Christian Church in America would be far better off if it did. Makes perfect sense in this upside down society and Christian church that junk outsells truth by a factor of 1,000. American wealth and prosperity has dulled the church's collective gift of discernment.
Pastor Gilley starts his book with an excellent analysis of how the evangelical church of America in 2006 has arrived at its current status of downplaying doctrine, emphasizing worldly measures, and redefining the gospel message. Pastor Gilley provides a historical perspective of how the church has slowly lost its distinctiveness and has adopted the practices and worldview of the society. The discerning reader should quickly recognize the slippery slope that apostasy in the church is very subtle and happens slowly over a period of time, rather than in large chunks. The centerpiece and strength of the book are Chapters 8-11 in which Pastor Gilley so accurately describes the approach and methodology of most American pastors. These pastors will utilize any pragmatic, secular marketing device in order to attract numbers and a crowd. They fail to recognize that the gospel is inherently offensive (1 Corinthians Ch. 1:18 and following). They use paraphrases of the bible that are highly suspect and claim them as authoritative scripture. In their quest to evangelize the world to the gospel, they end up changing the gospel. My biggest misgiving about the entire seeker-sensitive movement is that pastors may be providing false assurance to millions of people who attend church, but never really hear the offensive gospel of the necessity of God becoming a man who had to die to redeem those who chose to believe in his death, burial and resurrection. The book ends with big challenges facing the church, namely the mysticism that has invaded the church. Typically, the mystics are Catholics or Gnostics who deny that rational bible study is possible and God can only be known through some form of feelings, imagination, personal visions, inner voices, or some repetitive practice that will provide enlightenment. The emergent church is also described in the book. These are "churches" or groups in which there less organization and structure. Many of these meetings are avant-garde groups informally discussing spirituality and drinking their lattes. These groups are hard to describe clearly but they basically say that the bible is not to be relied upon and that truth is more of an individually determined process. Like Gilley writes, if there is no truth, then everyone's version of the truth is correct. Take that tenet to its logical conclusion and the outcome is scary. Clearly, the American church is waist-deep in apostasy as predicted in both 1 and 2nd Timothy, among other places in the bible. The American Church of 2006 is best represented by the church of Laodicea (Revelation Ch. 3:14-22). Will the American church turn the tide and get back to the bible, or will the remnant holding to biblical truths be raptured out of the world first?
58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great for understanding some trends blowing through the church today,
This review is from: This Little Church Stayed Home: A Faithful Church in Deceptive Times (Paperback)
If you have attempted to read through books like the series David Wells wrote (No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, Losing Our Virtue, and Above All Earthly Pow'rs), but found them cumbersome and difficult, a shorter and easier-to-read option is Gary Gilley's two works This Little Church Went to Market and This Little Church Stayed Home. The second of these two is what this reviewer has recently completed. Gilley has subtitled this book, A Faithful Church In Deceptive Times. Good choice. Let me say at the outset that both books should be read. They will open your eyes. While not as in-depth and thorough as the work Wells has done, the audience Gilley will speak most effectively to is the average lay person, not the scholar or professional minister who is more the target of Wells. That being said, many pastors who have been caught up in "fad Christianity" would benefit from This Little Church Stayed Home.
This Little Church has four sections dividing up fifteen chapters. Section 1 (chapters 1-5) explains postmodernism and how this philosophical outlook has impacted the church's view on propositional truth. Section II (chapters 6-8) deals with the church's responsibility to build up the body of Christ, giving attention to biblical church growth. Section III (chapters 9-11) has to do with the Bible, specifically, and how that is currently being misused and misinterpreted by some in order to push their distorted concepts of the gospel. Section IV (chapters 12-15) explains current challenges to the church: mysticism and the Emergent Church. There is more to these chapters than I have touched on, but these descriptions are only broad summaries. Not enough good things could be said about This Little Church. Gilley takes on the dangers of the current fad of mysticism sweeping through the church, and calls the Emergent Church movement what it is: false teaching. Most commendable is his absence of fear in naming some of the biggest names in evangelicalism (and some not so big) in an effort to warn the church of heretical teaching. Some examples include Robert Schuller (p. 74), a poster boy for false teaching, Rick Warren (pp. 89-100), Dallas Willard and Richard Foster (p. 117), Karen Mains, wife of radio teacher, David Mains (pp. 137-38), David Seamand, who has appeared on Focus on the Family with James Dobson (pp. 138-39), Greg Boyd (p. 139), and George Barna (pp. 174-78). Other names are mentioned as well, but are not as readily recognizable. I wish there were more Christian leaders like Gilley who had the backbone to say what needs to be said and point out who specifically has strayed away from orthodoxy. Leaders are so often afraid to do this for fear of being accused of being judgmental, that they cower away from carrying out their God-given responsibility. Examples of this in Scripture include 1 Timothy 1:20, 3 John 9, and 2 Timothy 2:17, where Paul compares the influence of Hymenaeus and Philetus to the spreading of gangrene. An example of his straightforward style is found in this quote: "Celebration of Discipline alone, not even referencing [Richard] Foster's other writings and teachings and ministries, is a virtual encyclopedia of theological error. We would be hard pressed to find in one so-called evangelical volume such a composite of false teaching" (p. 119). Bold and accurate! Other examples are found when he confronts Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Church and The Purpose-Driven Life: "Both, for instance, offer some good sound advice, helpful biblical insight and practical suggestions---and both are riddled with errors throughout" (p. 89); "In Warren's gospel presentations no mention is made of sin, repentance or even the Cross" (p. 90); "I found forty-two biblical inaccuracies, eighteen out-of-context passages of Scripture, supposedly used to prove his point, and another nine distorted translations" (p. 91). In the chapter in which these quotes are found, Gilley has a subsection entitled "Torturing Scripture," where he lists ten specific examples where Warren has clearly misrepresented the Bible. This is a great read for any Christian who wants to understand some of the modern winds currently blowing through the church. It would be highly profitable to use this book for a Sunday School class or mid-week group discussion. Buy it, read it, pass it on. - Ray Hammond, www.ChristianBookPreviews.com
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Prophetic Cry For A Return to Sound Doctrine (Titus 2:1),
By
This review is from: This Little Church Stayed Home: A Faithful Church in Deceptive Times (Paperback)
I must admit that I was intrigued by Dr. Gilley's book from my reading of his first two books THIS LITTLE CHURCH WENT TO MARKET and I JUST WANTED MORE LAND (a book on the prayer of Jabez). Both books were excellent in both their content, they were short but detailed reads, and Dr. Gilley always seeks to help the reader grasp what the Scriptures teach against the tide of error.
In this book, Dr. Gilley continues this biblical tradition by exposing both the errors of false exegesis from postmodernist to the errors of mysticism (charismatics) and the emergent church movements. Throughout his book, Gilley is seeking to point the reader (and the Church) to the authority of Scripture. In fact, in this book you won't find a book full of Dr. Gilley's thoughts but you will find sound biblical teaching (1 Timothy 4:16). Ovearll I highly recommend this book especially to church leaders (Titus 1:5). In an age full of false doctrines and misleading voices, we must stay grounded in the Word of God (John 10:27-29). Thankfully Dr. Gilley's book helps us do just that.
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