The Explicit Gospel (Re:Lit) [Kindle Edition]

So, we have another book on the gospel. The Explicit Gospel is authored by Matt Chan­dler, pas­tor of the Vil­lage Church in Dal­las, TX. The book is sched­uled to be released on April 30, 2012. Is this just "another book on the gospel" -- basic the­ol­ogy retweaked by a megachurch pas­tor -- or is this some­thing worth read­ing and pon­der­ing? Let's take a look.

The Big Idea of The Explicit Gospel
The book claims that too often, the gospel is assumed, not explicit. The explicit gospel oblit­er­ates man-centered reli­gion -- the moral­ism, idol­a­try, and reli­gios­ity that cor­rupts true Chris­tian­ity. Chan­dler describes this explicit gospel, gen­er­ously sprin­kling in plenty of pas­toral appli­ca­tion along the way. Merely assum­ing the gospel leads to dan­gers -- big dan­gers. Chandler's cogent appli­ca­tion of the explicit gospel strikes deep at the insipid idio­syn­crasies of evan­gel­i­cal­ism, deliv­er­ing a mes­sage that is both solidly the­o­log­i­cal and lov­ingly confrontational.

Overview of The Explicit Gospel
Chan­dler orga­nizes the book in three sec­tions: 1) The Gospel on the Ground, 2) The Gospel in the Air, and 3) Impli­ca­tions and Appli­ca­tions. Even if you've been to sem­i­nary, you've prob­a­bly never heard of a "ground gospel" or "air gospel," so lets explain what Chan­dler means. Ground and air, as he describes them, are van­tage points for view­ing the gospel. The gospel from the ground is the view of the gospel in our own lives. The chap­ters "God" (ch. 1), "Man" (ch. 2), "Christ" (ch.3), "Response" (ch.4), dis­cuss the gospel from this per­spec­tive. Chan­dler describes the gospel in the air as "the big pic­ture of God's plan of restora­tion from the begin­ning of time to the end of time and the redemp­tion of his cre­ation" (pg. 9). This sec­tion of the book deals with "Cre­ation" (ch. 5), "Fall" (ch. 6), "Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion" (ch. 7), and "Con­sum­ma­tion" (ch. 8). Although the entire book con­tains plenty of impli­ca­tions and appli­ca­tions, Part Three of the book is com­pletely devoted to appli­ca­tion and impli­ca­tion. Chap­ters 9 and 10 deal with the dan­gers of get­ting too wrapped up in either a "gospel-on-the-ground" or a "gospel-in-the-air" approach. Finally, in chap­ter 11 he turns to "moral­ism and the cross" to round out The Explicit Gospel's most force­ful application.

Is The Explicit Gospel Explicit?
Mak­ing a good book title is a bit like good mar­ket­ing. It has to both describe the "prod­uct," while grab­bing people's atten­tion. The word explicit grabs our atten­tion like a Driscoll ser­mon series. Of course, The Explicit Gospel is about the gospel, so there's noth­ing alarm­ingly offen­sive about it. At the same time, does the word explicit accu­rately really describe the con­tent of the book? Chan­dler is on the offen­sive against "Chris­t­ian, moral­is­tic, ther­a­peu­tic Deism" (pg. 8), using the weapon of the gospel. The word "explicit" in rela­tion­ship with the "gospel" appears just a few times within the book (12x). The book isn't as about the "explicit gospel" as much as it is an explicit (i.e. a clear) descrip­tion of the gospel.

Is The Explicit Gospel Readable?
Some the­ol­ogy books, notably Reformed ones, are noto­ri­ous for bore­dom. The Explicit Gospel is not bor­ing. In fact, read­ing the book is like lis­ten­ing to Chan­dler preach. It's funny. It's engag­ing. It's win­some. It's even a bit harsh at times. I loved these phrases: "Try­ing to fig­ure out God is like try­ing to catch fish in the Pacific Ocean with an inch of den­tal floss" (pg. 13). In describ­ing the col­lege bas­ket­ball phe­nom­e­non of March Mad­ness, he writes, with some histri­on­ics: "Kids are cry­ing in fear, wives are run­ning for more nachos -- it's chaos. It's mad­ness" (46). Chan­dler has a knack for punchy, force­ful, and unfor­get­table way of express­ing things. This book could be one of the eas­i­est 245 pages you've read in a long time.

Is The Explicit Gospel Appropriate?
The word "explicit" isn't usu­ally a word that you hear in con­junc­tion with some­thing as sacred as the gospel, so it might raise eye­brows begin­ning with the title. While the theme of the book is entirely appro­pri­ate, some may ques­tion at times Chandler's spe­cific man­ner of expres­sion. For example:

"Paul doesn't usu­ally roll that way....he's not really a sing-song kind of guy" (13).
"God was angry and moved me to Abi­lene for seven years" (14).

Chan­dler para­phrases the con­clu­sion of the book of Job like this: "It's like God is say­ing, `Oh, how adorable you are! Now put on a cup, dude, because it's about to be big boy time" (14).
"In the Hebrew [Jere­miah 2:11-12] the essen­tial idea is that they're lit­er­ally ter­ri­fied that God might snap and rip the uni­verse to shreds" (33).
"Here's the funny thing about the Old Tes­ta­ment: 85% of it is God say­ing, `I'm going to have to kill all of you if you don't quit this.' Seri­ously, 85% of it is" (60).
"I think he's [King David] schiz­o­phrenic" (118).

Per­haps Chandler's writ­ing is lot like his preach­ing. Maybe he can get a bit car­ried away at times, turn­ing a phrase that might con­fuse the unsus­pect­ing reader. Some may won­der if such phrases, though intended to be humor­ous, may not quite match the majesty of the very God whom the author is try­ing to describe.

The Explicit Gospel Applied
Even though the book is about the gospel, Chan­dler finds a way to weave in appli­ca­tion to every evan­gel­i­cal hot-button issue known to the Gospel Coali­tion. Chan­dler dis­cusses the social gospel (84, 160), the pros­per­ity gospel (23, 232), women in min­istry (213-14), invi­ta­tions (59), church growth tac­tics (34), the real­ity of an eter­nal place of tor­ment (217), Rob Bell (216), main­line denom­i­na­tional decline, and just about every­thing in between. He pre­dictably sides with the con­ser­v­a­tives on every issue (some­thing which non-party-liners may take issue with).

Chandler's pre­dictable con­ser­vatism is not the prob­lem. The ques­tion lin­ger­ing has to do with how all of these issues (plus more I didn't bother to men­tion) found their way into a book on the gospel. Yes, the gospel applies to every area of life, but does it fol­low that we can indis­crim­i­nately make every­thing "a gospel issue," even on things over which Chris­tians can legit­i­mately disagree? Turning the gospel into a trump card is to make the gospel less explicit than it actu­ally is. If you write book on the gospel, and then import each and every con­tem­po­rary polar­iz­ing topic into the book as an appli­ca­tion point of the gospel, you haven't nec­es­sar­ily solved all the prob­lems. Instead, you might have low­ered the glory and grandeur of the gospel to the level of your pet posi­tion on those polar­iz­ing top­ics. We must undoubt­edly apply the gospel to our lives, but it min­i­mizes the gospel when we spread it too thin. Chandler is free to make his Bible-derived obser­va­tions on con­tem­po­rary issues. That's what Bible teach­ers should do. But it is also impor­tant that he define which issues tie directly into gospel truth, and which of those issues are less...shall we say?..."explicit."

The Explicit Gospel Smoothed Out
Some­how, the metaphor of "gospel on the ground" and "gospel in the air" didn't con­nect that well. I under­stand the dis­tinc­tion he is try­ing to make, but per­haps he pushes it too far, mak­ing it the basis for the book's entire orga­ni­za­tion as well as some hefty appli­ca­tion (chs. 9-10). Through­out the book, a ten­sion devel­ops between the two ways of view­ing the gospel. This way of view­ing the gospel runs the risk of min­i­miz­ing the mar­velous com­plex con­ti­nu­ity of Scripture's redemp­tion nar­ra­tive (Heils­geschichte). Per­haps we could chalk this one up to an issue of empha­sis, and a pur­suit of read­abil­ity over depth.

Is The Explicit Gospel Worth Read­ing?
Every book has its short­com­ings, so lest we focus too much on the pos­si­ble down­ers, it is also impor­tant to point out some of the glit­ter­ing jew­els that lie on the sur­face of this book. Should you read this book? Rick War­ren cer­tainly thinks so: "If you only read one book this year, make it this one. It's that impor­tant." The Explicit Gospel cer­tainly has some com­mend­ing qual­i­ties. Here are three rea­sons why you should read it.

1. It's Insight­ful. One thing is clear. Chan­dler has a pulse on the state of evangelicalism. As he expli­cates the gospel, he is not try to dis­prove ancient here­sies. Instead, Chan­dler aims at the con­tem­po­rary cor­rup­tions within mod­ern evan­gel­i­cal­ism. There are plenty of such cor­rup­tions. The author iden­ti­fies them and addresses them with a rush of relevance.

2. It's Appli­ca­tional. Chan­dler packs in plenty of impor­tant appli­ca­tion. Per­haps the most obvi­ous appli­ca­tion is to guard against "Chris­t­ian, moral­is­tic, ther­a­peu­tic, Deism" (pg. 8), by know­ing and heed­ing explicit asser­tion of the gospel. Not only does pas­tor Chan­dler iden­tify the prob­lems, but he takes aim at them, too. Rarely does he miss. You will find that the application-saturated pages hit close to home, alert­ing you to areas you need to change.

3. It's Under­stand­able. Chan­dler is a good com­mu­ni­ca­tor. He has a knack for explain­ing big truths in unam­bigu­ous ways. You'll find that read­ing The Explicit Gospel will help you to bet­ter under­stand the glo­ri­ous truths of the gospel.

The the­o­log­i­cal dis­cus­sions in the book may beg for a bit more expo­si­tion here and there. The appli­ca­tions may rub a bit harder than nec­es­sary. But over­all, Chan­dler pro­vides the con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can evan­gel­i­cal church­goer some­thing to chew on. The gospel, in all its explicit glory, needs to be heard and heeded. The reduc­tion­ism in our the­ol­ogy has led to a decline in our lifestyle. We need the explicit gospel to bring us back.

So, do we need another book on the gospel? The gospel never gets old. Read­ing about the gospel is always impor­tant. Liv­ing out the gospel is essen­tial. So, if you're ready to be chal­lenged, instructed, and informed, do your­self a favor and read The Explicit Gospel.

(Originally posted on my blog, The Way Everlasting. The following is an excerpt.)

Summary:
Matt Chandler writes a hit-and-miss work on the Gospel, full of sharped barbs that are occasionally convicting but are mostly mean-spirited and glitzy.

Strengths:
I really, really, really wanted to like this book. And indeed, I found parts of it absolutely brilliant. But we get a version of Matt Chandler here that hardly sounds like himself.

So the good: The best parts of the book are Chapter 6, Fall, and Chapter 7, Reconciliation. You get an epic scope of the human condition plus a God-scaled view of God's work through us on earth. Pastor Matt's unique voice, even when he's on rabbit trails, will you keep you engaged. The rundown on Solomon is a tour de force of wit, vivid imagery, and a piercing look into the wrongness of our souls. And our mission through the cross is clearly outlined while avoiding a legalistic prison.

Certainly Chandler can write. He's not exactly quotable but his style is clever, captivating, at times brutal. He is theologically sound in every which way, and despite some critics bashing his Reformed angle, he backs it up with Scripture. Just as in his preaching, he is one of the most biblical pastors out there.

I loved the last couple stories of Matt Chandler overcoming the guilt of his former life and the heartbreaking account of his friend Kim. He has preached these before, but to see it in written form with extra details was stirring. He really brought home how the Gospel works here.

Weaknesses:
However, there are three main problems with the book that injure it beyond recovery.

1) The most glaring problem is its arrogant tone. Matt Chandler in preaching is bold, daring, and convicting. Matt Chandler in writing can be brash, jarring, and condescending.

I wanted to pretend this wasn't true. I wanted to think I was being unfair, over-sensitive, or reading with a preconceived filter. But alas, Chandler never gets over sounding like a pompous, perfect know-it-all.

He continually categorizes people in such a way that, whether it's his intent or not, he creates two groups: Those who get it and those who are morons. He steps on all his grace-cards. This is the first Christian book I've read that uses the word "dummies." There is hardly any grace for those over-churched, non-gospel-preaching, Scripture-twisting sons of hell. No attempt at trying to be understanding, not even a weak disclaimer to sympathize with the ignorant. Such demonizing will quickly make you arrogant because you begin to think, "Well thank God I'm not like those idiots. I actually get the gospel."

On that note: I believe Pastor Matt is a gracious man. At the Resurgence Conference in Orlando of 2011, during the Q&A, an anonymous question came in and the group of pastors onstage ridiculed the question. Matt stepped in and actually answered it, and later that night my friend and I spoke about how gracious Matt was to redeem that moment. The next day, Pastor Matt addressed the very incident, saying that we really have lost our compassion for our neighbor. It only confirmed he was the real deal.

Which is only more confusing because the entire book felt like those pastors who ridiculed that poor guy.

2) Like most of the new Reformed works about the Gospel, there is a key piece missing: the life and death of Jesus Christ.

The Good News should result in an intimacy with Jesus and not be used as an instant jump-off point to grab the Gospel implications. Chandler, like many Reformed guys, quickly skips over who Jesus is, thereby making an unbalanced work about what Jesus does. Both sides need details, but every work on the Gospel (except for Tim Keller's King's Cross) is in a hurry to get to the theological results.

3) Lastly, the book has a confused audience. At times he says something akin to "We should be preaching this," while other times he says, "If you've been to church all your life," and such confusion is like hopping back and forth across a border, a la Homer Simpson.

When I attended the Explicit Gospel tour, Matt Chandler mainly seemed to be talking to disenfranchised churchgoers. He had a warmness for them that I could understand as a pastor, so I was heartily convicted. But the book doesn't have that same kind of sensitivity, and readers will experience whiplash.

Bottom Line:
I absolutely love Matt Chandler. Much of his preaching in my early days of being a pastor rescued me from some serious error. I'd be the first to defend him if someone called him ungracious. But his book, while great in so many parts, is dragged down by so much snobbery. I know this couldn't be Pastor Matt's intentions, and if you can excuse his tone, there is still much to learn from him here.

This could be the most important 150 page book written in years, too bad it's 240 pages.
I say that because the Thesis that Christianity hangs on the Gospel and the explicit teaching of it is totally true and hugely important. And the concluding three chapters really teach about the pitfalls of following an incomplete Gospel. However there's almost a hundred pages worth of rambling and tangents and poor attempts at jokes. There was a dozen times I read a whole paragraph and wondered why the whole thing wasn't cut. Almost 15 pages are spent trying to refute evolution by poorly paraphrasing people who actually know something about science, only to conclude that any way to read Genesis is okay, except for an evolutionary view (theistic or otherwise), and Chandler's view of Genesis is superior to them all. While that might be an interesting thing to put in a book, it's totally out of place in this one.
I really wish this book was as great as it ought to have been. So if you read it, be wary: There's a lot of sifting to do to get the gold out of this stream, but it's certainly there.