Friday, May 29, 2009

Christianity in Crisis 21st Century

Christianity in Crisis 21st Century is a book written by Hank Hanegraaff who is updating his previous book Christianity in Crisis. In this book, Hanegraaff examines the claims and teachings of false teachers, particularly the Word-Faith, health and wealth teachers. When I started looking at it, I was unsure of what to expect, but it is an interesting and engaging. I never really looked into what some of these teachers said. I always figured it was merely God wants you to be rich. Hanegraaff does a good job at showing what these teachers teach using their own words. The book is filled with quotations, if not in the text itself then in the end-notes. It really blew my mind the twisting of Scripture that occurs and not just in the realm of money. God is a powerless God. Jesus was rich. Faith needs to be in Faith itself. Words shape the world. What is spoken comes into existence. Hanegraaff does go a little over board with acronyms for my taste. Everything has an acronym. FLAWS looks at the errors of the false teachers. ABCDE looks at corrections to those errors. Each of those has other acronyms inside them. But some people like acronyms, so it isn't completely a bad point. Overall, this is a good book, not a heavy read, but one that will strike you as you see some of the errors that exist in the world.