DashBooks
July 2007 Archives
God hates religion. He even the Christian religion, according to The End of Religion, written by Bruxy Cavey. Cavey is a popular speaker and teaching pastor of The Meeting House, a rapidly growing multi-site church in the Toronto area.
According to Cavey, we have forgotten that the Bible is a "holy hand grenade" which points to the coming of Jesus, who put an end to religion and leads us to a "non-institutional, deeply relational approach to Scripture." The End of Religion is written for skeptics and seekers who are tired of religion but would like to connect with God.
Cavey defines religion as "any reliance on systems or institutions as our conduit to God." He outlines the legacy of religion, which he calls a "Chamber of Horrors." The Christian religion gets its own chapter. "Eventually, the institutional church severed itself from its head [Christ] and, in the process, became one of the most violent religions in history." The chapter does not mention any of the positive contributions of Christianity.
Cavey's solution is a radical commitment to the teachings of Jesus. In his ministry, Jesus contested the popular understanding of the main identity markers of the religion of his time. He overrode Torah by breaking its rules, trounced tradition, undid tribalism, redefined Temple, and subverted symbols. According to Cavey, religion died when the veil of the Temple was torn in two at the death of Jesus.
As a result, "religion does not bring us closer to God – it gets in the way." We live by love instead of law, and guard against dependence on tradition and routine.
Cavey raised several issues in my mind he did not fully answer: for instance, the role of the Law under grace. I am not sure everyone will agree with his dichotomy of spirituality and religion – others define religion as a system of faith and worship, which would include, I suppose, Christian spirituality. I also wonder if some will read "The End of Religion" as "The End of Church" when Cavey is really calling us to a Biblical view of church as the people of God.
Nevertheless, The End of Religion is provocative and easy to read. Cavey does a good job of showing how scandalous Jesus' teaching and actions were to the religious people of his day, and reminds us of the centrality of relationship with God through Christ. His book is an effective invitation to those who are turned off by dead religion, and a wake-up call to those who may be "Christian" but have missed Jesus.
Note: This review covers the original self-published version of The End of Religion, published by Essence Publishing. A new version is being released by Navpress in August 2007. Links to the new version are below.
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Anyone who has heard Andy Stanley preach knows that he is an effective communicator. Now, Stanley and coauthor Lane Jones let us in on the secrets of effective preaching in Communicating for Change.
The first half of the book is a fable about a discouraged preacher, Pastor Ray Martin, who is desperate for help. He meets with an acquaintance, a successful businessman, who flies him by helicopter to meet Will Graham, a truck driver who has just the answers that Ray needs. By the time Ray leaves, he has a new approach and new hope for his preaching.
The second half of the book explains this model of preaching, covering topics like the goal of preaching, how to outline the message relationally, and how to engage the audience.
The model offered by Stanley and Lane has two main strengths. First, it centers preaching around one central idea, taken from the text. This is more effective than other approaches, which fail to capture the central idea of the text. In trying to communicate everything, they communicate nothing. Haddon Robinson and others have also written on the importance of the big idea in preaching.
Second, Stanley and Lane also present a relational outline approach to preaching. Their outlines are built around "the communicator's relationship with the audience rather than content." They remind us that "the way we organize material on paper is very different from how we process information in a conversation." This relational approach can lead to better communication of the Biblical idea of a passage.
The book is not without its problems. The leadership fable, in which an unlikely hero rescues a hapless practitioner, may be an overused approach. Also, this book is not a homiletics text, and preachers would be wise to look beyond this book for a full understanding of the task of preaching.
Stanley and Lane argue that the purpose of preaching is to "teach people how to live a life that reflects the values, principles, and truths of the Bible." They imply, however that this can happen by giving people application points. I am not so sure that application points always lead to life change; they can instead lead to application fatigue and moralism if the preacher is not careful. Preachers will want to wrestle with the larger issue of how people grow into spiritual maturity.
Communicating for Change reminds us of the importance of engaging interest, communicating a single big idea, and honoring relational dynamics in our preaching. It may be what discouraged preachers need as they work to improve their preaching.
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