Outlive Your Life by Max Lucado

 

 

Max Lucado’s books to me are almost like a blanky to a baby–comfortable, consistent, and dependable.  He has a way of bringing biblical parables into modern day application, evoking emotion in the reader until it prompts immediate action, and he does this all with words that seem to flow like honey from a honeycomb.

In his latest book, Outlive Your Life, Max Lucado addresses a burden that should be on all of our hearts, especially as born again Christians, and that is the plight of the poor, oppressed, and hurting people in this world.  He challenges us to come out of our “clamshell,” stop hiding out and avoiding the problem, and dare to make a difference.  He encourages teamwork, community, hospitality, prayer, evangelism, and a casting off of negative labels and stereotypes, until we can live out our faith with compassion and concern for others.  I applaud him and the message he is waking us up to.

I rarely rate Lucado’s books as anything less than 5 stars, however, there are some potential red flags in this book that, without further clarification, make it hard for me to wholeheartedly recommend.

For example, when I came across the name Jim Wallis, the terminology in phrases such as “the Have-a-Lots and the Have-a-Littles are never to be so far apart that they can’t see each other,” and how the year of Jubilee was “intended to press the restart button on the machinery of justice,” my hunch is that there will be readers like myself starting to think of the progressive movement of social justice and what exactly that means in Lucado’s view.  Where is the line drawn between church and state; between personal/church involvement and government control to redistribute wealth, and does Lucado satisfactorily define that line?  Not in my opinion.

I am, in no way saying that, as Christians, one of our primary concerns shouldn’t be helping those who have significantly less than we do–less food, shelter, and clothing–and that we shouldn’t be committed in our time, talents, and treasures, to seeing those loved ones of God have more of their physical needs met.  We absolutely should!  The problem is that the mere mention of the poor in terms of a social justice philosophy triggers images and debates of government involvement–they are nearly synonymous in the media, no matter how much we want it to be a purely social term–and to most readers, this book could be seen as a springboard into that political movement.  Granted, Max Lucado does say that “Scripture endorses not forced communism but Spirit-led volunteerism among God’s people,” but to my recollection, this is one of very few (if not the only) moments of distinction, leaving his belief about that role somewhat in question.  My fear is that the gospel becomes more about the materially poor and less about the spiritually poor, thus redefining or redirecting God’s Great Commission to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19).  Outlive Your Live, and Max Lucado as a well-loved pastor, is treading a thin line to not clearly state the boundaries.

You can check out the details of this book and order it at Thomas Nelson Publishers, where I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review - http://booksneeze.com/.

Hostage Situation at Discovery Channel

Right now, as I write this, an environmentalist (to put it nicely) named James Jay Lee has taken hostage an unconfirmed number of people at the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, Maryland.  He has written a manifesto making demands of the Discovery Channel, apparently because he has issue with their programming and wants it to be more focused on saving the planet.  I have taken this quote from Michelle Malkin’s webpage, although the manifesto is all over the Internet now on various other webpages.  Here is just a snippet:

“Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH!”

This makes my blood boil.  Not only is he being “disgusting,” to use his own word, in how he talks about immigrants, who, when they are here legally, bring diversity and culture to our great country, but he is speaking of newborn children of God as being “baby filth” and “pollution babies.”  I am a stand-up-for-the-babies kind of gal, and this tests every bit of compassion I am supposed to have as a Christian for this terribly lost soul because of this sort of mindset.

I am praying for a peaceful resolution in Maryland and that environmentalists all over the U.S. and world will unequivocally denounce this man’s views and actions.