“Most people spend their lives trying to make their heart’s fondest dreams come true… We never imagine that getting our heart’s deepest desires might be the worst thing that can ever happen to us.” –Timothy Keller
Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller
I have a fondness for Tim Keller primarily because he was the first preacher that I ever heard preach the Gospel. Granted, that is an exaggeration. What I really mean is Tim Keller was preaching when Jesus Christ opened my eyes, ears, and heart to the truth of the Gospel. My wife (girlfriend at the time) had started attending Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan because she was familiar with his preaching. I had grown up going to church but had fallen away through college and my early 20′s. It was a period when God persistently and forcefully reclaimed his rightful place as Lord of me, unraveling years and years of my own effort to replace him (primarily done out of spite after my mother passed away). So I consider myself quite fortunate that I got to hear Keller preach every Sunday during the crescendo of God’s redemptive work in my life. Anyway, I digress.
Keller has tremendous insight into the truths of the Kingdom of God and Jesus’s redemptive work in the world. And he has a remarkable ability to speak those truths in a away that clears away a lot of the clutter (be it our own baggage or the religiosity of many parts of the church) creating a clear path from your eyes (for his books) or your ears (for his preaching) into your brain and deep into your heart.
Counterfeit Gods
Why idolatry is a problem.
According to Keller (well, according to Jesus, the Word of God, and revealed to us through the Scriptures), humans were made to worship. We are designed to reflect and be filled with God’s glory. (Simply stated) that is the point of creation.
Because of sin, we chose to exult ourselves to the supreme position that is God’s and thus are separated from God’s glory and love. However, our nature has not changed, we still need to worship. It is how we are.
Separated from God, our heart establishes idols, focusing its worship on something, be it a career or relationships or money or approval. We all worship something. And our blind pursuit of these “false gods” draws us farther and farther from God’s presence, opening us up to more and more sin.
Only God’s love can truly satisfy our heart’s desires, can truly fill us. Everything else ultimately leaves us empty (and in the process, further remove us from God’s love). This is idolatry.
What to expect from the book
In the first five chapters, Keller describes some of the most prevalent idols in today’s culture: Love, Money, Success, and Power. In each chapter, he provides current examples and shows how different people in the Bible struggled greatly with these idols. He ends each chapter pointing out that these Bible stories are stories of redemption from idol worship, that God’s grace and mercy is the only thing that can break the power these idols have over us. The exclamation point of each chapter is that God’s grace and mercy have been manifested in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, alluding to the hope that he represents for the reader’s struggle with their own idols.
Starting at chapter six, Keller turns his attention to applying our new awareness of the dangers of idolatry. He then proceeds to address how to identify your personal idols and how faith in Jesus will transform your heart, freeing you from the bonds of slavery.
Implications for a Kingdom Strategist
Idolatry is a force that affects every person. Personally, we must be on guard because we are susceptible to this tendency in our own lives. Even though we, as Kingdom Strategists, are striving to serve God, our hearts are still idolatrous. Counterfeit Gods
In our work as Kingdom Strategists it is beneficial to think about the challenges we’re working to overcome in terms of idolatry. Thinking about the idols in peoples’ lives can help shine light on their motivation. All of which make us better at anticipating challenges and outcomes from our efforts. It also helps to orient our solutions to the underlying problems of the heart which will increase the effectiveness of the solutions we develop.
I highly recommend Counterfeit Gods
…Just so you know, all the links are affliiate links. So if you click them and purchase the book, I’ll get paid… like $0.04.
]]>“We often speak about wanting to be light in the darkness. America… has plenty of darkness, although it masquerades as light. Are we really providing illumination? Could we do a better job of being love in the midst of ambivalence, hostility, and fear, or of delivering wisdom in the middle of a confusing and distracted culture?” –George Barna
The Seven Faith Tribes by George Barna
I am not sure what George Barna set out to achieve by writing “The Seven Faith Tribes” given that the book is a combination multiple themes: a segmentation analysis of the American population based on spiritual beliefs and behaviors, social commentary on the decline of American culture, a call for Christians to live differently by embracing love and service to others, and laying a foundation for a vision of how society can be restored. My challenge with this book was that Barna addresses each of these themes with a different tone (stark and alarmist when decrying the decline of America’s culture, analytical and moderated when discussing statistical differences between the faith tribes) and their juxtaposition made the book feel inconsistent.
But, Barna does tie the points together and reflecting on the book I do feel that the message of this book is good and important, even if that wasn’t always clear during the process of reading it.
The point
The point is (in retrospect) very straightforward:
- American culture is declining; the composition of America’s society contributes to the decline AND influences how the problem might be addressed;
- addressing the problem needs to begin with aligning the values and worldviews of the different segments of society;
- from there, leaders must be selected based on the values that they must embody;
- changing the culture and role of the media in society will be necessary;
- the role of American families is crucial and many family-specific challenges need to be addressed;
- success depends on all of society working together, building on the success of the past while preserving the opportunity and potential of the future.
What to expect from the book
The book is 195 pages long. Barna has a fairly straight-forward writing style, though he does attempt to reach the reader at an emotional level and introduces a variety of tones (alarmist, voice of doom, down to earth, conciliatory, harmonious, etc.). My fear is that because the different sections are not consistent in theme and tone, it is difficult for most readers to maintain the attention span necessary to explore Barna’s argument from start to finish. Only focusing on one or two sections of this book isn’t dangerous; however, on their own, the sections do not achieve what they do when put together.
For example, the first chapter “America Is on the Path to Self-Destruction” is intentionally alarmist (as you can tell by the title) in order to (I assume) draw the reader in and evoke some reaction that compels them keep reading and to assign a level of importance to what Barna has to say. All fine and good. However, isolated from the rest of the book, the chapter sounds very similar to the morally superior and self-righteous rants of “Christian” pundits that have shaped most of the opinions that non-Christians have of Christianity. Absent of the plea for love, humility and service that is represented in later chapters, this chapter paints a very cold picture.
Which wouldn’t be a problem (who cares if George Barna is a crotchety naysayer? — he isn’t) except that Barna very clearly positions himself as a Christian in this book. Thus, the attitudes in the first chapter become representative of Christian attitudes. Fortunately, Barna presents a more accurate representation of how a Christian is called to address the problem of a declining society in chapter 13 “Faith Tribes Must Pull Their Weight”. Again, you have to read the whole book to appreciate to see the picture Barna paints. I’m not optimistic that most people will read the whole book.
Implications for a Kingdom Strategist
First, this book incorporates an excellent framework for developing a kingdom strategy. It addresses key issues such as:
- what is the environment in which we’re operating and which considerations have the greatest influence on our ability to achieve our Kingdom goals;
- what type of leadership is most effective for creating the kind of revolutionary transformation in peoples’ lives, in society, and in culture that results from seeking God’s Kingdom;
- how do understand others’ worldview and values so that we can share the Gospel in a way the contextual relevant; (to give an example of this, a missionary friend in Thailand describes the importance of Karma in the people’s faith system there. So when sharing the Gospel, they tell how Jesus came to wipe everyone’s Karma clean forever. Sharing the Gospel in this context helps the people they are trying to serve both hear the message and comprehend the power within it.)
- how to incorporate aspects of history and culture without becoming slaves to them.
Second, this book presents research on American society segmented by spiritual beliefs and behaviors. This research helps us to better understand the people we are called to love and serve. Such research should always be the first step in developing a Kingdom strategy. Research creates a foundation of knowledge from which we can determine the best ways to achieve the Kingdom goals we are striving for.
More importantly, we are called to love our neighbor as we do ourselves (Matthew 22:39) and to love each other as Christ loved us (John 15:12). How did Christ love us? By engaging us, knowing the condition of our hearts and lives, speaking truth in love, and giving infinitely of himself for us. In life, in ministry, in business, in whatever, research is how we are able to engage others, to gather information and insight about their lives and situations, and to understand their worldview, values and beliefs so that we can speak truth in love. Making the effort through research demonstrates that we value the other person, who they are, what their story is. It gives us opportunity to know them and thus love them and treat them with the same dignity as God, our Father, who knows each one of us perfectly because he created us.
Perhaps the most significant value of Barna’s book is that the core research presented in it equips us with knowledge and insight needed to fulfill our calling.
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