Christian Guides Rating System

I’ve gotten several requests to look at theological productions. I’ve decided to give it a shot, but in order to do so I had to reinvent my grading scale.

I will warn all writers of devotionals or scripture guides or “life guides” or whatever, that I am far more judgmental of theological material than fictional. Works of fiction are meant to be read and enjoyed, maybe teaching life lessons, where theological works are meant to be taken as factual and are often meant to change the mode of a person’s life entirely. I’m not a theological giant myself as I haven’t memorized the whole Bible, but I’m fairly well versed in pretty much every book save for a few of the Minor Prophets. Whilst if I were to expound upon my actual theological views, I’m not sure how many sympathizers I would have, I believe I’ve spent enough time in and around mainstream Christianity to discover what would be acceptable standards.

As someone who feels slightly disconnected from the church, yet still loves the Bible, perhaps I’m in a good position to give an opinion. Perhaps not. Nonetheless I have been asked. Thus there are a series of items that I grow tired of seeing in Christian works. Enough problems and I probably won’t even finish a study guide, devotional or otherwise theological work.

1. Sparse or no usage of the old testament

There are 66 books in the bible, not 27. To go into more detail, I’ll run the numbers. Some sources say the bible, I’m assuming King James version, has 773,692 words, of those, 592,439 are in the old testament, meaning that by skipping the old testament you skip around 77% or well in excess of 3/4ths of the bible. It would actually make more sense if the New Testament were less well known, however most people, even writers of Christian material, tend to know very little about the old testament aside from cute highly censored Sunday school lessons. (And of course the first two chapters of Genesis, thanks to the creationist movement.) I’m not looking for an analysis of every book in the Bible and if your devotional is specifically about Romans, I’ll adjust my sights accordingly, but this near fear of the grand majority of God’s written word needs to be addressed. I won’t drop a book cold for not bringing up the Old Testament, but I will deduct a point for it.

2. Mishandling of the concept of fate

“God has a wonderful plan for your life!” is not something most thinking people want to hear. How do modern Christians not get this? Sit down and think about the whole idea of predestination for just five minutes, really think about it. Does the idea of people who are NOT Christians being predestined for hell and damnation really appeal to ANY of your sensibilities at all? Does the idea that God plans out and forces every pin drop to occur, and then makes mere puppets accountable, really sound “wonderful” to you? A refusal to acknowledge that there is a problem with the concept of fate, especially one fully planned out to the finest detail, is alienating more than just non-believers, even some Christians are becoming desperate for an alternative belief. Opening your book with “It is so wonderful that God has a plan special for every life!” and then acknowledging the existence of HELL, is kinda like saying to some people “Remember your mother who never got saved? God planned specifically for her to go to hell and suffer for all eternity for reasons only He will ever truly know. Isn’t that wonderful?”. Look, I’m not a Calvinist, to say the least, I believe in a Great Plan for mankind, and even special destinies for some individuals, I just don’t think the plans are anywhere near that detailed. However even if you do believe in absolute predestination, you have to realize, the eternal plan is NOT a major selling point of the Christian religion any more than the Israelites decimating the entire Canaanite region to make a home for themselves, sells Judaism. Fate can be addressed, but it should be explained with care, not used to attract people. If you’re not sure what could possibly attract people to Christianity without using the “God has a plan for your life” line… maybe you should do some soul searching on why YOU are a Christian, and yet know so little about the belief.

3. Seldom referencing more than one verse from the bible at a time

The longest verse in the bible is Ester 8:9 at a whopping total of 81 words. The longest chapter is Psalm 119 at 2672 words. Which sounds like it might have more content? Can anyone tell me the point in summing up an entire chapter in one verse, especially if no one is meant to read the entire chapter to know why the verse was a good summary in the first place? I understand why preachers and ministers use single verse references, reading a whole chapter, or even just a whole section of a chapter out loud could take a good fifteen minutes of your half hour speech, but what’s the point if you’re writing a book, and not even copying the text into it? Why not just say what the context of a verse is or give references longer than a single sentence? Just in the interest of doing less work one would think it would be easier to speak on a longer passage than a shorter one. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how this kind of bashfulness about reading more than a few sentences of God’s word at a time, or presenting more than a few sentences, can be called anything but disrespectful.

4. Dubious doctrinal statements

I have my theories on the Bible, and some people have opposing views, but there comes a time when I have to roll my eyes and say “no… just no”. Statements like “every religion is right!” or “Christians who don’t sing hymns and sing mostly praise songs are paving the way for the anti-Christ”-no… just no. There’s a point at which, no matter how heart felt or wonderful you can make your ideas sound, or how educated you can make yourself sound, you’re just being, well… “wrong” is the nicest way to put it. So wrong it’s obvious and you should be called on that point itself. I don’t claim to be the arbiter of Biblical wisdom, but I can call “bunk” when I see it.

5. Claims of divine inspiration

Why oh why, doesn’t this go without saying? If God spoke to you directly and dictated a book to you, IT WOULDN’T NEED PROOF READING! Get a clue, not every book worth reading was written by the Almighty Himself, most likely, yours included. In the old days, claiming divine inspiration meant your book should either be accepted as absolute fact, or burned because the author is a blasphemer. If God did not tell you to write or say something, don’t say He did. I will accept that God may have “lead” you to write or say something, which essentially means you had a pleasant feeling about it that may or may not have had supernatural origin, but saying that God told you something specifically should carry some weight. If I feel the need to shout “PROVE IT!” at a book after so many claims of divine inspiration… yea I’m probably not going to finish it, let alone review it.

6. Bad information about other religions passed on as fact

This may come as a shock to many people, but Mormons do NOT believe that black people are the result of demons being mixed into spirit babies. “Who would ever be surprised by that?” a non-believer might ask. Welcome to modern Christianity my friend. There are large groups of Christians who seem to be of the attitude that no matter our insipid, stupid or outrageous what they’re saying is, as long as they’re saying it about someone outside of their particular Christian group, it’s okay. No, atheists do not favor genocide as a solution to over population. No, if I see anything along the lines of this crap I will neither finish nor review your book.

7. Ultimately useless or ambiguous morals

“The reason your life is so hard to understand and feels so wrong, is because you’re not in God’s will!” A thousands versions of this statement are strewn throughout Christian literature, yet I defy any one of those authors to give me satisfactory explanation for what on earth it actually means. Just how does one know “God’s will”? And what is supposed to happen when we do live in “God’s will”? Will all of our taxes spontaneously be paid or something? Will all the mysteries of life suddenly reveal themselves? See if I believed in absolute predestination this is actually quite a ridiculous statement, as living outside God’s will would then be absolutely impossible, however even as I don’t, it’s too ambiguous to help with anything in life. How about telling people the reason they feel a loss of control over their finances is because they’re not saving their money and spending it only on the things that are valuable? The Bible does speak on such things after all. Why not tell parents that the reason they can’t get through to their children is because they refuse to discipline them? Why instead repeat sayings and proverbs that don’t mean anything and just temporarily make people feel good, as though the Christian faith were nothing more than a series fortune cookie sayings? Again, I won’t toss your book away immediately upon seeing this, but I will deduct a point for it.

8. Poor representations of opposition doctrines passed on as factual

Look, I’m not an Open Theist either, but no, they never say God has no divine authority, they just say His knowledge of the future is limited. The Catholic Church does not say the Pope is a god, he’s just the head, in fact there are seven popes that they openly admit never should have been given the position. Do some homework if you’re going to comment on other people’s beliefs. If I see something like this, I WILL put down your book and not pick it up again upon seeing it once. I’m sick and tired of believers being set at each other’s throats.

9. Statements about non-believers that make them seem inhuman

Galatians 5 gives an explanation of the fruit of the spirit. A simple math problem of sorts in 1 John 4 is given that you will know the children of God by their fruit. These passages are often combined by Christians to not only to say that you can spot a fake Christian by his actions, but that non-believers also must not be able to produce the fruits of the spirit because they do not know God the way we do. Just to clarify, the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The bible never says anything along the lines of “non-believers cannot have these emotions or behave these ways with a genuine spirit”. Once you say non-believers can’t love or even be kind, essentially you have just said they aren’t even human. I suppose then it only makes sense that some believers never question when they’re told that atheists want to allow human experimentation, they don’t think of atheists as human in the first place. No wonder burning people at the stake was once justified. Non-believers are human and I refuse to read something that tells me they can’t even have basic human emotions or even be nice people. Really, with believers that push this kind of crap, do we really even need a devil anymore?

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Being an individual who feels a love for God and the Bible, but that the mainline of Christianity abandoned intelligent interpretation of the word long ago, I actually had to think rather hard about what I would be looking for that would be GOOD. I have to remember that as a reviewer, I have to be open to a work being acceptable, meaning I have to think about what I would actually appreciate. Thus here we go:

1. Actual uplifting material

Give people a hope for a better after life than their current situation. Tell them about a God that loves them personally, regardless of their beliefs, and who is willing to give them a chance regardless of the mode of their life up until now. Tell people that they can change for the better and give them the tools to do so. In other words, tell people things that will actually attract them to our beliefs and actually stand a chance at making them really listen to what you’re saying because they want to, not because they’re afraid not to.

2. Correctly using scripture

Give complete references from both the new and old testament as appropriate. Don’t twist the words of God to say what you want them to say. Be faithful and tell people the truth, even if you know they’re not going to like it.

3. Obvious intelligent study into at hand subject matter

Mao had no ties to atheism, even though yes, denying freedom of religion and mass persecution of the religious continues to be his legacy. No, atheists en-mass do not support mass murder. However many psychiatrists have found a connection between the belief in serving a higher power, I.E., God, and the ability to modify and control one’s behavior. As though having a meaning and purpose beyond oneself is a true driving force, a driving force that has to have a cause. Instead of trying to make people scared of a specific person or groups for made up reasons or loosely connecting ideas, why not use history and let the real patterns behind events speak for themselves? Do some real research and use it to guide, not scare.

4. Allowing the reader to think for himself

I was going to say that “scaring people into believing” was a big no, no, for me, however that’s actually the purpose behind many of the things I object to, so that would have been redundant. The reason for passing along scary stories about opposing groups and for dehumanizing them, is to make not believing what you believe seem like a horrible idea and scary itself. Essentially, “the Nazi’s hated Christians” (in actuality Hitler had no real problems with the Church and was able to endear himself to many faiths, like many conquerors before him, such as Alexander the Great) and “so do Atheists!” and eventually “Nazi’s were atheists!” translates to “you can’t dislike Christians, or you’re a Nazi or at least like them!”. Truth is, and thank God for this, a lot of people don’t respond well to attempts to herd them like sheep, trying to scare them in the right direction. Telling people that what you’re saying came from God Himself is also a way of trying to control people. Look, unless God really did speak to you, or unless you really did find a massive conspiracy connection between the atheists and the Nazis, how about telling people what’s on your mind for them to hear and using your research to guide them to the truth and show them the light in an honest fashion? I will recognize good research.

5. Unambiguous message that can actually be applied to a real person’s life

No more dumb sayings and proverbs that aren’t even from the Bible, or verses taken out of context that sound nice by themselves, but ultimately don’t say anything. How about giving people real financial advice and giving them real ideas about adding meaning to their lives. Telling someone to “walk in God’s will and thus find their meaning in life” means nothing, where as telling someone that giving to the needy actually helps them feel better about themselves, and suggesting how to do that on a regular basis without breaking the bank, gives a person a means of improving his life and the lives of others in a positive way that you can bet God would be behind.

6. Treats non-believers like actual people even if the book is not written for them

Non-believers are not aliens. For that matter, believers are not aliens. There is no genetic difference between Christians and non-Christians. When telling people how to approach non-Christians, how about telling them to treat them like actual people? How about not trying to convince Christians to be afraid of one group or another, and simply behave like Jesus did, deliberately consorting with the lowest of the low or the most hated, or those in power, or even the everyday person? How about telling Christians to freely talk to wiccans, even about their beliefs, (after all, you want to talk about yours) and just not take part in séances?

7. Acknowledge life has other missions besides spreading the gospel

Usually I have no problem with Christians trying to spread the Gospel, no matter how off that Gospel is from how I understand it (though if you’re too far off in one direction I may have an issue). I also accept that most Christian works are going to have that mission at their center. However one thing that bothers me is Christians failing to talk about our mission to help the needy, to encourage moral standards in society at large, to educate, to defend, to assist the impaired, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things God admonishes us to do in the Bible, not the least of which is the Great Commission, but it is not the only commission. Am I the only one who notices that most of Jesus’ miracles were focused on satisfying mortal needs?

8. Acknowledging BOTH the human and God elements of fate, if the subject is brought up (usually it is)

Predestination is a popular subject and has to be addressed. However one should realize that they’re not talking about the fates of characters on a TV show, but rather the destinies of human beings. It’s hard to understand why bad things are allowed to happen, even if you’re like me and DON’T necessarily think God is always directly responsible. Whatever God does or does not force or allow, His ultimate role cannot be denied. Not everything about destiny is pleasant, not every piece of God’s plan for mankind is wonderful, indeed some elements are fearful. Address the issue with maturity.

9. Respect shown to opposing doctrinal beliefs

Even if you are looking to prove Open Theists wrong, how about having your sources be people who actually have beliefs in that area? How about, even if you are trying to ultimately discredit Day Age Creationists, you still speak well of their studies and of their lives as believers? How about, and I know I’m going out on a limb with this one, NOT bringing up opposing beliefs simply to prove them wrong, but rather acknowledging what Christians around the world are doing for good, regardless of whether they believe in Calvinism or a limited God? How about you, as a Baptist, acknowledge the good work of a missionary sent by the Presbyterian church, or even, dare I say it, suggest people support him?