I just had to get that out of the way. Many of you have probably seen posts from The Babylon Bee, a satire "news" site similar to The Onion (spoiler alert if you didn't know they were satire too), but from a Christian perspective. It fills the hole that Stuff Christians Like left in me when Jon Acuff stopped posting there. The Bee recently published a book called How to Be a Perfect Christian: Your Comprehensive Guide to Flawless Spiritual Living. It's a step-by-step guide of how to be the best Christian possible by making sure you maintain a me-centered attitude in regards to spirituality. Remember...satire.
This book definitely had some funny parts, and I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. And if you're willing, the satire will even challenge you on what you think Christianity is all about. The Western culture tries to make everything about the individual, and unfortunately, Christians are also affected. From the prominence of impersonal megachurches to the need to post every spiritual act on social media, Christianity in America is often not to far from the caricature presented in the book. My sarcastic self loves the use of satire to point out the ridiculous things we see in our culture and also cringes when I see some of those things in myself.
Unfortunately, while satire can open our eyes to the hypocrisy of the world around us, it doesn't do a lot to really direct us towards doing better. The last chapter stated the gospel, but it needed to do more towards showing a better way. A lot of people can't appreciate sarcasm, especially when it's directed their way, but for those who can, I would definitely pick up this book.
Some people may read this book or something else by The Babylon Bee and think the church is too broken. I've seen people comment on their articles with things like, "this is why I don't go to church anymore." That's the wrong response. Because the church is filled with sinners, it's inherently imperfect. Instead of shaking our finger at the problems with the church, we should be working to fix it from the inside with the help of the Holy Spirit. I wrote a post on the Church a while back so if you'd like to know more check it out.
I received a free copy of this book from WaterBrook & Multnomah and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Some of the links in the post above are Amazon referral links. I may receive money or products from them, but it's at no cost to you.
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