Religion Saves by Mark Driscoll

Religion Saves + Nine Other Misconceptions by Mark Driscoll

I'd not heard of Mark Driscoll before receiving this book to review. Once I started reading I wondered why I hadn't heard of this guy before. His writing is very engaging, and funny. In an online poll conducted via his church website he asked people to post any question, make comments about posted questions and vote up to 10 times a day for the question they wanted answered. In the end there were 893 questions asked, 5,524 comments and 343,203 votes. He took the top 9 questions and did a sermon series on them and then wrote this book.

The questions related to birth control, humor, predestination, grace, sexual sin, faith and works, dating, the emerging church and the regulative principle. He devotes a chapter to each of these.

I think my favorite chapter is the one on humor (go figure) because it basically tells us to loosen up. Now, he's not saying it's okay to be crude and such but that it is okay to laugh at things that are funny. He shows us funny things in scripture too.

A close second would be the chapter on sexual sin. The way he toured the 20th century and the moral decline was interesting to me (see also the chapter on dating)

The chapters on faith and works and also the one on grace are two that many Christians need to read. Maybe several times.

The emerging church chapter? Interesting. I've not followed the emerging church trend (I follow Jesus...) so it was eye-opening to me.

Good book. Worth the time spent reading it.

To read a sample chapter click here.