The Body (Book reviews)

Being light in darkness
By Charles Colson with Ellen Santilli Vaughn

Written in a Loving God style that alternates inspiring stories and insightful analysis, the Body tackles the tough questions troubling Christians and thoughtful secularists today:

• Why, is the midst of a surge of religious interest and activity, do moral values continue to plummet?
• Why does Christianity fail to make a visible difference in the lives of so many believers?
• Why, in a culture that prides itself on its tolerance, are Christians increasingly the target of hostility and derision?
• Why do so many long-used evangelistic techniques now fall short of the mark?
• What is the church, anyway? What is its relevance to late twentieth-century culture at large--and what does it have to do with the lives of individual Christians in particular?

In this watershed book, Chuck Colson pulls no punches: The church is in an identity crisis. Christians, he argues, have been sucked in by the radical individualism of secular culture and the soothing sermons of the feel-good gospel. Many have sold out to a consumer-oriented, "McChurch" mentality.

Flitting from congregation to congregation, they see their faith as a purely personal matter that has nothing to do with corporate commitment. In so doing they miss the basic truth of the gospel. In fact, there is no true Christianity apart from the church.

There is a growing discontent with this low view of the Body of Christ. Christians of every tradition know the church is more than buildings, budgets, and buses. Down deep we long for a fresh vision of its role... and we find in this book not only that longing met, but practical answers to how the church can break out of her cultural captivity and reassert her biblical identity.

Colson dares Christians to renounce the petty, sectarian divisions that blunt the church's witness in the world and calls us to affirm our oneness even as we celebrate our diversity. He tackles some of our most cherished sacred cows: rigid formulas and status quo idolatries that have typified us but have nothing to do with the flaming, radical calling for the church to be the people of God.

Using powerful, moving stories--from Christians in Eastern Europe who defied communism and lived to see its collapse, to believers in inner-city Los Angeles, Midwest suburbs, and on Death Row in South Carolina--Colson punctuates his prophetic analysis of the problems dogging the church and their solutions with models of what the church can be. You'll be challenged, refreshed, and invigorated.

Provocative and insightful, The Body inspires us to rise above a stunted "Jesus and me" faith to a nobler view of something bigger and grander than ourselves. This book will provoke discussion and debate for years to come--and it just might be God's tool to challenge His people to return to the glorious, holy vision for which He created the church.