I am not ashamed [no pun intended] to admit that John MacArthur is one of my favorite preachers and writers. I rank him right up there with Charles Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd-Jones for penetrating analysis, thoughtful insight, and an almost prophetic grasp of the contemporary issues that face the church. So it is with great pleasure that I offer a review of Ashamed of the Gospel.

This is an updated edition of a book that was first published in 1993. Despite almost being 20 years old, this book has lost none of it relevancy or importance. In fact, it may even be more relevant today than when first written because of all the changes that evangelicalism has undergone in that time frame.The underlying premise of the book is that evangelicalism has become so infected with pragmatism and worldly methodologies that it has become utterly useless in reaching the world for Christ. Rather than follow the principles and precepts of Scripture, large segments of the church have chosen to follow worldly marketing and consumer-driven fadism. Throughout the book, MacArthur likens the present day situation with what Charles Spurgeon faced in the final years of his life as he dealt with what is known as the Downgrade Controversy.

As I stated earlier, MacArthur is one of my favorite authors and this is one of his best books. It does not hold the same place as The Gospel According to Jesus, but it is not far behind. Perhaps the best way to give you a taste of what the book is like is to share a few quotations:

A well-known preacher was venting his own loathing for long sermons. January 1 was coming, so he resolved to do better in the coming year. "that means wasting less time listening to long sermons and spending much more time preparing short ones," he wrote. "People, I’ve discovered, will forgive even poor theology as long as they get out before noon."  (26)

Unfortunately, that perfectly sums up the predominant attitude behind much of contemporary ministry. Bad doctrine is tolerable; a long sermon most certainly is not. The timing of the benediction is of far more concern to the average churchgoer than the content of the sermon. Sunday dinner and the feeding of our mouths takes precedence over Sunday school and the nourishment of our souls. Long-windedness has become a greater sin than heresy.  (26)

Nevertheless, an overpowering surge of ardent pragmatism is sweeping through evangelicalism. Traditional methodology–most notably, preaching–is being discarded or downplayed in favor of newer means, such as drama, music, dance, comedy, variety, side-show histrionics, pop psychology, and other entertainment forms. The new methods supposedly are more "effective"–that is, they draw a bigger crowd. And since the chief criterion for gauging the success of a church has become attendance figures, whatever pulls in the most people is accepted without further analysis as good. That is pragmatism.  (27)

By downplaying the importance of doctrine, modernism opened the door to theological liberalism, moral relativism, and rank unbelief.  (30)

"False doctrine and worldliness" … Always go hand in hand, with worldliness leading the way.  ( 37)

The new philosophy is straight forward: the church is in competition against the world, and the world is very good at capturing people’s attention and affections. The church, on the other hand, tends to be very poor at "selling" its product. Evangelism should therefore be viewed as a marketing challenge, and the church should market the gospel in the same way all modern businesses sell their products. That calls for some fundamental changes. The goal in all marketing is "to make both the producer and the consumer satisfied." So anything that tends to leave the "consumer" unsatisfied must be jettisoned. Preaching–particularly preaching about sin, righteousness, and judgment–is too confrontive to be truly satisfying. The church must learn to couch the truth in ways that amuse and entertain.  (37)

Marketing principles have become the arbiter of the church’s message and agenda.  (37)

Unfortunately, the market-driven ministry philosophy appeals to the very worst mood of our age. It caters to people whose first love is themselves and who care not for God–unless they can have Him without disrupting their selfish lifestyles.  (41)

Let’s face it–right now preaching the Word is out of season.  (46)

There are thousands of supposedly evangelical churches worldwide that cannot stomach sound doctrine. They would not tolerate for two weeks strong Biblical teaching that refutes their doctrinal error, confronts their sin, convicts them, and calls them to obey the truth. They don’t want to hear healthy teaching. Why? Because people in the church want to own God without giving up sinful lifestyles, and they will not endure someone telling them what God’s Word says about it.  (49)

That selection of quotes comes from just the first portion of the book and establishes very well the foundational premise of the book which is that large sections of the church today have compromised the teaching of the Truth of God’s Word in a pragmatic attempt to generate numerical growth. It is undeniable that the results have been devastating just as it was in Spurgeon’s day during the time of the Downgrade Controversy when church after church succumbed to the call of modernism and replaced the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will all sorts of gimmicks and amusements meant to appeal to the flesh.

In the final chapter, which was added for this third edition, MacArthur take the time to look back since Ashamed of the Gospel was first written. He then offers the following concluding comments on the relevancy of this book.

We fast forward now more than fifteen years since the preceding chapters were first written, and what lessons can we glean from the state of the church today? The message that stands out above all others is this: several decades of nonstop talk and strategizing about relevance, contextualization, and clever methods for engaging the culture have had no perceptible positive spiritual effect on the world in which we live. The influence of the church within our culture continues to diminish; our society has grown steadily darker; and the message the church is now giving to the world is more confused and confusing than perhaps any time since the Dark Ages. (205)

The truth has been overthrown by mythologists and storytellers. The one remedy for the mess we are in would be a return to the truth. And that can happen only if church leaders will fulfill the central duty Paul set forth in his instructions to Timothy: "Preach the word..in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching" (2 Tim. 4:2).  (209)

If you take just lesson away from this book, let it be this: the church needs to get back to the Word of God.  (210)

Here’s the supreme reason for making sure the proclamation of God’s Word is the heart and focus of our ministry, and it makes sense even from the perspective of a pragmatist: Scripture always accomplishes what God intends.  (213)

The preacher’s duty, quite simply, is to put the meal on the table without messing it up.  (213)

This is an excellent book and a must read for all believers who truly care about the church and the truth of God’s Word. I highly recommend this book without hesitation or reservation.

Rating: [Rating:5/5]

This book was written by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis who are the cofounders of the Crowded House, a church planting initiative in Sheffield, U.K., and codirectors of the Porterbrook Network, which trains and mentors church planters. Total Church grew out their experiences in planting churches to be gospel and community oriented. The front cover of the book uses the phrase "a radical reshaping" to describe the principles that are put forth by Chester and Timmis. Much of what they write is radical in the sense that it goes against so much of what is written today about the church and especially the matter of church growth. At the same time, however, much of the book is not radical when you compare it with what is found in the New Testament. The authors do a very good job of taking their readers back to the Word of God, especially the New Testament, as the objective basis for the principles they present. So in one sense the book is radical, but in another it is not.

As I proceed with this review, I would like to point out what I believe to be some strengths of the book as well as some weaknesses. At the end, I will give my assessment.

Strengths:

I found that the book has a number of strong points and the greatest strength of the book is that the authors make a very concerted effort to find a Biblical foundation for all that they propose. The principles they put forth are not given as the product of human ingenuity, but as having an underlying Biblical foundation. I found this to be quite refreshing as so many treatises on the matter of church growth are nothing but the ideas and opinions of man with little or no Biblical support.

Another key strength is the fact that the authors keep bringing the reader back to the centrality of the gospel in the life of the Christian. A few quotes from the book should suffice to establish this point:

• Evangelism is not an activity to be squeezed into our busy schedules. It becomes an intention we carry with us throughout our day.

• The church exists both through the gospel and for the gospel.

• The challenge for us is to make the gospel the center of our lives not just on Sunday mornings but on Monday mornings. This means ending distinctions between "full-timers," "part-timers," and people with secular employment in our team and leadership structures. We need non-full-time leaders who can model whole-life, gospel-centered, missional living. It means thinking of our wokplaces, homes, and neighborhoods as the location of mission. We need to plan and pray for gospel relationships. This means creating church cultures in which we see normal, celebrating day-to-day gospel living in the secular world and discussions of who we can use our daily routines for the gospel.

• We are in a missionary situation, and all that we do must be missionary.

A final strength I would point out is the entire chapter that deals with children and young people. The call from the authors is to put an end to the isolation of children and young people from the rest of the church body. They call for an intergenerational church and that is something with which I wholeheartedly agree. 

Weaknesses:

Unfortunately, the book also suffers from a few weaknesses.

The first thing that struck me about this book was a negative that actually has nothing to do with the content of the book. Among those endorsing the book is Mark Driscoll who is the Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. Driscoll has achieved quite a bit of fame/notoriety for his proclivity for profanity from the pulpit. I realize that pointing to an endorsement as a weakness can be easily perceived to be an acute case of nit-picking [and it may well be], but a figure such as Mark Driscoll is certainly polarizing.

I question their exegesis of several New Testament passages. In particular, they make assumptions regarding the ministry practice of Paul that are only assumptions. For instance, on page 92 they make the following statement about Paul and his ministry in Corinth:

"So in his time in Corinth Paul presumably oversaw the establishment of a number of household churches within the city. The point is that he chose to establish a number of smaller churches rather than create one large congregation."

Then in the following sentence they make this statement about Paul in Ephesus:

"In Ephesus Paul used the hall of Tyrannus but only for public discussions. Meanwhile he taught the believers from "house to house" (Acts 20.20)."

In both cases the authors are making assertions that are not plainly spelled out in Scripture. In fact,when they write of Paul in Corinth they go from presumption in one sentence to fact in the following. While it is clear that the practice and pattern of the New Testament was that the early church met in the homes of believers, what is not clear is whether or not these constituted separate household churches as the authors assert. The reference in Acts 20 to Paul’s activities in Ephesus has to do with the preaching of the Gospel to unbelievers as Acts 20.21 makes clear:

solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21 NASB)  

Paul went from house to house preaching the Gospel to unbelievers.

Another area of exegetical weakness has to do with their interpretation of Jesus’ words in Matthew 18.19-20. On page , they say, "It is when two agree that Christ promises to be with us."  Jesus spoke those words in the context of church discipline and they are a promise to His church that when the steps of church are followed, Christ will be in agreement with what the church does. It has nothing to do with the presence of Christ only being with a group of believers, but being absent when believers are alone. After all, every believer is indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, and, therefore is never away from His presence.

Finally, I was greatly bothered by the stories/illustrations that were scattered throughout the book that, in some or other, advocated the consumption of beverage alcohol and/or the frequenting of pubs in an attempt to establish relationships with unbelievers.Such stories/illustrations can be found for instance on pages 53, 55, 58, 65. I must confess that this was almost enough to bring me to stop reading the book. It is far, far beyond my ability to understand how sharing distilled spirits with unbelievers is a help in sharing the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with them. I have a great deal of difficulty fitting a mindset that say, "Let’s go down to the corner bar and have a beer, watch the football game, and talk about Jesus" into the framework of the New Testament. It seems to me that this would be a great hindrance to reaching an unbeliever. At any rate, it would certainly give the unbeliever an erroneous impression of what it means to belong to Christ.

Assessment:

Is this a book that I would recommend to other Christians? In spite of the weaknesses that I mentioned and some others that I did not, I would recommend this book but only with the exhortation to read it carefully and with discernment [which is how we should read any book]. While there are certain matters with which I disagree, I find the book to very challenging, insightful, and thought provoking.

Rating [Rating:2/5]