Comments on: Not crazy about Crazy Love

By: Morgan Guyton

Morgan Guyton — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:11:00 +0000

I think what’s coming out here is the reformed root of Chan’s thinking. If the problem with Christian apathy is that the elect just need to be woken up and live into their regeneration, then you don’t need to do a lot more than say GOD REALLY LOVES YOU (and if you don’t feel that way, it’s because He hates you and decided before time to damn you). This points to the Pelagianism at the core of the doctrine of graces. If God has picked his team ahead of time, then the way to “prove” that you’re on his team is to talk about how “amazing” God is all the time and hide from yourself the fact that you’re earning your salvation with doctrinal patriotism. Crazy Love sounds like a rewrite of Piper’s Desiring God (which has good points in it but has a very creepy “If you’re not excited about God, then you might be damned” subtext). We should absolutely enjoy God in all things but when we justify ourselves by “glorifying” God, then that’s no different than the terrified applause that North Korean schoolchildren erupt into when Kim Jong Il comes to speak at their school. The biggest problem in reformed thinking is its reliance on nominalism. When Calvin read Augustine’s words about enjoying God, he was operating from a completely different ontology than the sacramental perspective Augustine had. At least that’s the thesis for the dissertation I may write one day. It’s entirely different to talk about enjoying God when you understand Him to be the source of all being (sacramentalism) versus an entirely detached and transcendent outsider who intervenes in creation but doesn’t emanate creation (nominalism).

By: nathan

nathan — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:47:48 +0000

Serious concept for thinking Christians — thinking, being, and not just mindlessly doing — though that would be easier.

By: wildwinddave

wildwinddave — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:32:51 +0000

Thanks for checking out the blog, Gina. After the recent overhaul of the site, it feels good to be back up and running again.

By: Gina

Gina — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:52:46 +0000

Dave … I’m there with you on this information. Funny, how sometime the “religious community” is so hungry for something — someone — to rally around. I appreciate Chan and others who are looking for a fresh take on faith, but … guess I’m not a “band wagon jumper.” Thanks for a thoughtful, alternative view to some of this stuff!

By: Taking the Gospel to “The Found” « The Fallen Cleric

Taking the Gospel to “The Found” « The Fallen Cleric — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:08:13 +0000

[...] There are several directions we can go with this. 1.) We can say that the reason Christians are nearly identical to non-Christians in terms of how we actually live is because what we believe is not actually capable of bringing transformation; 2) We can say that we’re missing a critical piece of the whole thing — something upon which the promise of transformation itself rests and without which there can simply be no significant transformation; 3) We can say that the problem is that we just aren’t trying hard enough. (As some popular writers are in fact saying. See my post “Not Crazy about Crazy Love“.) [...]

By: wildwinddave

wildwinddave — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:21:52 +0000

That’s it. HOW DO I DO THIS? That’s what people need to hear, and the answer, like Mindi indicates below, will be one that will take a while to deal with.

By: wildwinddave

wildwinddave — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:19:22 +0000

I will definitely check out the Norris book. All I know about acedia is that I think it’s a term the desert father’s originated that has to do with a feeling of emptiness or heaviness in life. But even that is sketchy. I’m not sure how or if it equates to the dark night of the soul. I’d be especially interested in those nuances that distinguish it from depression.

I was starting to wonder if I was the only one who had misgivings about the Chan book.

By: Mindi Cromwell

Mindi Cromwell — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:50:21 +0000

Dave,

I, too, came late to “Crazy Love” and I, too, couldn’t figure out why I not “feeling the love” that everyone around me was feeling in regards to Chan. I haven’t taken the time to really sit and think it out, but your post has made me go back and think about my issues with “Crazy Love.” I recently read “Acedia & Me” by Kathleen Norris and in many ways this book highlighted many of my own issues with CL. (I highly recommend “Acedia & Me” by the way) In the end, Norris’ account of her own struggle with depression (really, Acedia, but you need to read the book to get into the distinction)avoids that all too common naval gazing prose and instead draws a profound picture of the state of many of our souls. In the end, I think books like CL make it seem so easy to turn your life around…and, it usually does seem easy at first…but then as your real life impinges there are more and more issues to deal with. “Acedia” deals with those life-long issues that many of us need to learn to overcome over our whole lives. Okay, that was a spur of the moment response and I need to reexamine all of this..but those are my thoughts on a Sunday afternoon.

By: Dana

Dana — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:01:36 +0000

Read this book early on this year and came to the same thought pattren you did. I kept waiting for Chan to tell me how to grasp the love of Christ he was talking about. All I found out was that I was a “bad” christian and just need to start doing a list of things and my Christianity would change.
It was not until I started learning and reading about spiritual formation that I have seen what is involved with finding the love that produces the fruit.