I’m Fine with God… It’s Christians I Can’t Stand: Getting Past the Religious Garbage in the Search for Spiritual Truth by Bruce Bickel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I just finished this fine book and must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. First of all though, the authors identify themselves as Christians, so don’t get too worked up before you know this fact. A lot of the reviews I’ve read for this book state they don’t know who the intended audience is. Man, that blows my mind! I am most certainly of the intended audience. For years — for decades — I have been saying the title to this book literally over and over again to whoever will listen. It’s not about God — it’s about his idiot representatives, or at least the majority of them! Talk about driving people away from God….
The authors of this book cover Christians who
* impose their morality on others
* are paranoid
* think they are correctly right and everyone else is wrongly left
* think science is the enemy
* are convinced God wants them to be rich
* fixate on the end of the world
* make lousy movies
* don’t know what they believe
* think they have a monopoly on truth
* give Christ a bad name.
Wow, that covers a whole lot of people, doesn’t it? The chapters that especially spoke to me were on the getting rich quick Christians (prosperity Christians) and the anti-science Christians, because these two drive me nuts more than most of the others. I guess I could lump in the ones that believe they have a monopoly on truth too. I wish some Christians could lighten up, not be such assholes, get a clue, etc., et al. This book really spoke to me, and it spoke some real truths to me as well. (It didn’t hurt to see Pat Robertson get taken down a notch. LOL!) There are so many people out there — avowed Christians — who I would love to give this book to, but I know deep down that if I did, I would be met with Christian hostility, and that saddens me. Cause sometimes you have to look in the mirror and even though it hurts, it’s often best to do.
One passage toward the end of the book stuck out for me. It said, “If Christians are going to restore the perception of Christ as he is portrayed in the New Testament, we need to be more thoughtful about our faith. Instead if spending our time lashing out at the culture …, we should put our time to better use by trying to conform ourselves to God.” That’s a powerful statement, and I think it’s right on. Frankly, society as a whole could benefit from America’s Christians reading this book all together, and ultimately acting on what they read. Finally, the only reason I’m giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 is that I think each chapter could have been more in depth than they were. This book was clearly intended for the TV generation of those with short attention spans. Other than that, I was happy I read it.
hankrules2011 