Book Review: A Lover's Quarrel with the Evangelical Church

I recently completed reading A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church by Warren Cole Smith. I was interested in this book, because I am in love with the evangelical church, but I also have some points of contention with it. I was hoping to find ideas that would support my own feelings and hopefully find some resolutions. This book didn’t provide either. Mr. Smith had an entirely different set of arguments than my own. He is obviously a deep thinker and had obviously invested a lot of time meditating on the subject before the book-writing process ever began.

Let me preface this review by saying that I am not that smart, not nearly as smart as Mr. Smith, anyway, so please filter any comments I have about this book based on that information. It is quite possible that his arguments are simply over my head.

There are several arguments that Mr. Smith makes that do not make logical sense to me. One of his complaints is the rising popularity of using media in worship services. He calls this “the great stereopticon.” His argument seems to be that media such as television and movies has degraded the morality of our country, so it shouldn’t be embraced in the church. Using that logic, I could make the argument that air conditioning has been instrumental in making our society increasingly more lazy, so churches shouldn’t install climate control systems.

There also seems to be a number of contradictions in the book. For instance, he believes that the megachurch model is inherently flawed and tells the story of K.P. Yohannan, the founder of Gospel for Asia, who “resolved not to build a megachurch nor a megaministry” because he saw the inherent flaws in a large organization. He then goes on to tell that one of Gospel for Asia’s closest associations is the Believer’s Church of India which has over 1.7 million members and includes one diocese with 1200 churches, 13 Bible colleges, and 67 Bridges of Hope programs for children. I’m not familiar with the definition of “megaministry”, but that sounds like it leans toward mega.

One point that I agreed with him on was the ineffectiveness of short-term missions and career, non-indigenous missionaries. The model that he described as being the most successful, however, is remarkably similar to Rick Warren and Saddleback Church’s P.E.A.C.E. plan. An irony is that Mr. Smith spends quite a bit of time criticizing Warren and other megachurch pastors.

Another complaint Mr. Smith has is with large evangelistic gatherings and crusades. He then explains that one of Yohannan’s influences was George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization, who came to know Christ at a Billy Graham Crusade. To me, this is the resolution to both mine and Mr. Smith’s peeves. Although every ministry or church is inherently flawed, mainly because they are all run by humans which are inherently flawed, it is comforting to know that God is bigger than all their imperfections and short comings. God can take a megachurch ministry such as Saddleback Church or a parachurch ministry such as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and use it to transform lives and inspire individuals and groups to think of creative ways to reach more people for Christ.

Again, perhaps I am not intellectually qualified to review a book by such an accomplished author, but in my observations, Mr. Smith has more complaints than solutions. I still recommend reading the book, if for nothing more than using it as a prompting to evaluate your ministry. It caused me to take stock of my own ministry goals and motives.