BOOK REVIEW!

Clyde Fant, dean of the chapel at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, is former professor at Southwestern Seminary and a former Texas pastor. He has written a new book published by Smyth & Helwys, which was quoted in The Mosaic, the newsletter of Royal Lane Baptist Church of Dallas. Ray Vickery is pastor and wrote this short review in his column.

My friend, Clyde Fant, has written an important new book entitled The Misunderstood Jesus and subtitled “10 Lost Keys to Life.”

The following is a passage from the book:

“Our desire for success drives us into such tragic nonsense. The church growth movement feeds our prejudices by assuring us that we are commanded to reach the whole world, generally quoting the Great Commission: ‘Go into all the world and make disciples.’

“It never notices that the emphasis of the command is for the church to be inclusive, not successful. Jesus emphasized that his all-Jewish followers were to go to every nation, race and group, not just our own. Nothing is said about results. Who knows? Maybe Jesus really meant it when he said Christians were to be the small pinch of leaven in the loaf, not the large lump of dough.

“Actually, the church growth movement has said very little to use that the devil hasn’t already said to Jesus on the mount of temptation. Whenever the church has moved out of its minority quarters into majority status, it also has moved promptly out of the church house into the state house. Then it seizes advantages for itself from the state, which of course it pays for by crawling into bed with the prevailing government, whatever it may be.

“This principle has been true from Constantinople to Rome to Nashville. Compromises may make organizations grow, but they can never make the church grow.

“The law of Christ is the law of liberation. No liberation can please masters as well as slaves, bless comfortable social structure as well as oppressed minorities. We—the church—cannot be both masters of the world and servants of Christ.”

August 1996