Upon coming back to America, I’ve had my chance already to be in a few church services and step into the christian cultured bible belt. I haven’t been away for all that long, but long enough to feel like an outsider and raise my eyebrow at a few things. I picked up two books recently that I believe should be read together. One diagnoses a symptom in our churches and the other suggests a theological remedy.

1. Jim & Casper Go To Church: Frank Conversation About Faith, Churches, and Well-Meaning Christians

The guys at ChurchRater.com put their observations about the most influential evangelical churches in America into this great little book. Jim has been a pastor for 30 years and Casper is his atheist friend. Together they travel and Jim asks for honest reactions and interpretations to what Casper sees going on. People who are used to the christian subculture in America may get offended at some points in this book, but I have to say that the insights and descriptions in this book are not exaggerated. Jim and Casper try to come to terms with what they are seeing in church services across the country. This book is not written to make fun of Church but instead invite the reader to hear what outsiders think about insiders, their theology, and their church services.

As I read this book with April, we found that it made us talk about things that we typically do in church services that would come off as inauthentic and off-putting (even excluding) to our friends who aren’t steeped in the christian subculture. I really want to encourage pastors and church leaders to read this book and reflect on how what they are doing on Sunday morning does or does not point people towards the mission of Jesus. I believe that this book’s approach helps underscore and diagnose an epidemic in evangelical churches across America, which in turn export it to the rest of the world through their “mission work.”

If the first book that I’ve recommended points out the problem, what’s the solution?

2. Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision – N.T. Wright

It might seem strange to combine both of these books but I really do believe that this book here points us in the direction of what’s missing in our churches. This  book is more academic than the first one, but it does reveal what is missing theologically in each of these churches–and it’s not non-christians, but a robust understanding of paul’s vision.

N.T. Wright is responding to attacks in this book launched by guys like John Piper, whose reformed theology and preaching has influenced the majority of evangelical churches. But in responding to Piper’s attacks, I began to make connections between this book and the first one mentioned above.

This book is not for the weary, but it does touch on alot of what’s wrong with evangelical preaching. In Christian love, Wright steers the rudder of the flagship back into a direction that won’t lead the Church over a waterfall:

“Justification is more than simply the remitting and forgiving of sins, vital and wonderful though that is. It is the declaration that those who believe in Jesus are part of the resurrection-based single family of the one Creator God. Any preaching of justification which focuses solely or even mainly on Jesus’ death and its results is only doing half the job. Justification is not just about ‘how I get my sins forgiven.’ It is about how God creates, in the Messiah Jesus and in the power of the Spirit, a single family, celebrating their once-for-all forgiveness and their assured ‘no condemnation’ in Christ, through whom his purposes can now be extended into the wider world” (248).

Make sure and pick up both of these books for your summer reading. You won’t regret it.