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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not recommended, August 16, 2011
This review is from: The Walk: Clear Direction and Spiritual Power for Your Life (Hardcover)
The Walk by former NFL star Shaun Alexander is apparently written for those Christians young in their faith, but its bland, trite style and theologically questionable premise make it a book only someone with a fairly mature understanding of Scripture ought to attempt to slog through. Even then, there would be very little reward in the end. Alexander's premise is this: Since "God is not a God of confusion but of peace" (1 Corinthians 14:33 - often translated as "order" rather than "peace"), that He has created a very specific path to maturity in Christ. That path consists of this series of stages: "Unbeliever, Believer, Example, Teacher, Imparter." (pg. 21) Up until this point in The Walk, I had actually been pleasantly surprised. I had fully expected it to be another Christ self-help book - "Here's how to get spiritual power for your life - to be everything you want to be!" It wasn't, and I was glad of that. However, Alexander completely lost me here. The passage he quotes as the basis for his sequence of spiritual maturity clearly relates to worship in the church - not the progression of a believer's growth. While it is true that 1 Corinthians 14:33 is a statement with broader implications, there is absolutely no Scriptural support for this order that The Walk is entirely based upon. Consequently, it took me about six weeks to read this short book because I felt compelled to continually question the author's credibility. And I continually found it lacking. He essentially invents his premise and tells the reader it's from God, and this plagues the entire book. There are notes of truth throughout the book, and I would encourage any believer from a non-charismatic background to read the final chapter with an open mind. Like Alexander, I believe that there are still miracles out there. We just don't see them happen because we have cut ourselves off from this kind of working of the Holy Spirit. At the risk of being too harsh, The Walk turns out to be a more or less useless book. I absolutely would not recommend it. I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review as part of the Blogging for Books program.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Insightful Read, February 22, 2012
I really didn't know what to expect when I received this book in the mail. I heard Shaun Alexander speak at a local church recently, so I knew a little bit about the book, and his views of religion, but I still wasn't sure what to make of the book. I must say that I was very impressed with this book. It is a very easy read that gives some very good direction for personal, spiritual growth. Shaun walks the readers through five levels of growth (Unbeliever, Believe, Example, Teacher, and Imparter. He utilizes personal experiences, as well as the biblical account of the life of Peter, to explain these levels and helps the reader to determine where he is on his own walk. The highlight of the book for me was the explanation of how the levels best interact with one another, as well as the dangers of skipping (or attempting to skip) levels of growth. This was especially pertinent to me as I realized through reading this book that in some areas of my life I have attempted to skip the Example level and go straight to Teacher, and this has caused setbacks for me time and time again. I would highly recommend this book. It is a great tool to use to monitor your own spiritual progress, as well as a great encouragement to continue pressing forward for greater relationship with God.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent Book, Sloppy Theology., February 6, 2012
What its all about: The Walk is an overview of the growth of a Christian into maturity as outline by the author. Alexander identifies five stages in life: the unbeliever, the believer, the example, the teacher, and the imparter. The book opens with a brief introduction that sets up the pattern for the work and the overriding principal: that God is a God of order therefore spiritual growth is orderly. This oversimplifies both what Alexander says and what he intends, however this is without flourish the basic idea behind the book. Each stage on the walk of spiritual maturity is outlined and fleshed out with illustrative stories and anecdotes. The best of these come from the author's own life and experience. After the general sketch of a given stage is complete Alexander proceeds to outline trails, traps and victories. Here he points out the pitfalls particular to one at the given step and points toward the next step in the triumph and victory for those who persevere. Each section closes with an example from the life of Peter that discloses and illustrates that leg of the walk. The final section wraps this all together in Alexander's discussion of his own spiritual maturity and the work of the Holy Spirit in his life and ministry. He sites a speaking tour which takes him all through the country with a group of protegees which he mentors. He expounds in detail the different signs and wonder God worked throughout this time. The Good: The Walk is easy to read and understand. Often the anecdotes are perceptive and insightful. The writing is clean and crisp, at times painfully repetitive. Unlike many modern Christian books The Walk is neither self-empowering self-help, nor does it tilt toward the over-amorous with semi-erotic descriptors for God. The book manages the ground between two frivolities without the tendency to be either. The book is light without being dribble, and instructive without being burdensome. Alexander manages to provide an illustrative manual of discipleship. In addition he captures these images of discipleship in active language, whether by football or war metaphors, that is not distasteful to the male reader nor incomprehensible to the sport illiterate (Guilty.). His conception of spiritual discipline, colored by his own experience with weight training, and his discussion of studying the Word of God as a teacher were both memorable and laudable portions of the book. The Caveat: Alexander's work is preeminently sloppy theology. Foremost is the strange contortion of 1 Cor. 14:33: "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints." (KJV) First the verse as the basis for a spiritual blueprint must be torn from its context. In his letter Paul is discussing the practice of the Corinthian church's fractured worship with many different people speaking in tongues, each with their own psalm, doctrine, tongue and interpretation. Were we to grant the translation of ''''''' (eirenes) as order and not peace, even the most basic syllogism reveals the equivocation: God is a God of order (as opposed to chaos), God is the God of man, therefore man is ordered (in relation to arrangement). This would not necessarily default the work, but Alexander sticks to his five step plan with a certain rigidity that disallows overlap. This is particularly the case with the Example, Teacher, Imparter dynamic. Experience reveals a picture that is much more messy and confusing than what is presented as clean and delineated. Rarely is creation ever so neatly segmented. More importantly the plan is not presented as a tool for understanding the working of God but as the fact of reality. For the mature believer there is little need for concern as one ought to be able to take the good and leave the bad. But for the fresh believer there is much to lead to confusion and stumbling. With that in mind there is much good to be had and I would be remiss to turn away the reader. We can applaud Shaun Alexander for his work, for there is no doubt that his heart is in the right place, but in the future I would hope to see a deeper theological foundation and framework that goes beyond the cherry picker's hermeneutics. Propter Sanguinem Agni, RS This book was provided by Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers as a complimentary copy for review purposes. They didn't even ask me to say all these nice things.
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