Book Review 2 - Christianity in Crisis

As a refresher, here is the same intro I used before, or you can skip down about
a half dozen lines or so to get to the new stuff.

This is a book review on a book that I more or less "stumbled across" in a Family Christian Bookstore catalog. The author, Hank Hanegraaff, has quite a few books to his name, but this is the only one I have read. A reviewer on Amazon made the statement: "... he correctly points out that no teacher has the free hand to have his teachings go unquestioned. We should never be in the habit of receiving a teaching or teacher without examining its biblical accuracy. This book correctly points this out."

My review of the beginning of this book is here.

Well, I finally got to the end of this book, and as I said before, it gets a little slow as you get towards the middle, but as you pass the middle Mr. Hangraaff begins showing both the theological errors promoted by the prosperity preachers (which he calls faith teachers), but also shows the contrasting theology of the Bible, when the Bible is read in context.

As you approach the end of the book, I found that I slowed down, so that I wouldn't miss any of the good stuff. He shows how to conduct your Christian studies to resist the heretics. Not just the prosperity preachers, but any other heretics that come your way.

From the Bible (read in context: Matt 7:13-29):

"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves."

He gets into quite a bit of detail, and while I do not agree with ALL of his theology, he and I agree on the major points. In addition, the last several chapters are devoted to methods of worship and prayer and study - to inoculate yourself against these heretics. One of the highlights of this part of the book is his use of "acrostics." These are like acronyms, but are used as learning tools. For instance he uses the acrostic "M-A-P-S" for Manuscripts, Archeology, Prophesy, and Scriptural Synergy. This is one of the facets of learning to defend the faith, when non-believers come calling.