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Title: Beyond Radical by Gene Edwards ISBN: 0-940232-70-7 Publisher: SeedSowers Pub. Date: August, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: asks the right questions, gives the wrong answers
Comment: This book starts out with a great premise, which is that the fundamental ways we practice church today don't have any theological basis. Edwards' shows that such practices as meeting in a church building, having a pastor, sermons, liturgy, pulpits, pews, etc., all have origins outside the original early church. Where the book goes wrong is when he offers a solution. His solution is to look back at the New Testament and try to see how they practiced church, and tell us to do it. The problem is that living the way the early church did means believing what they did about God. Unfortunately, Edwards' offers nothing in the way of the theology behind the early church's practices. He just asks us to do what the early church did, just because. If he had explained WHY the early church lived the way they did, I would have listened. Also, if he hadn't misrepresented the early church's practices by saying they had NO LEADERS, when they obviously did, I would have listened. And if he hadn't written his book as if nobody else in 2,000 years ever thought of this, I might have listened to him. As it is, this book is poorly written, poorly researched, and arrogantly written. 'Paul's Idea of Community,' by Robert Banks is a much better book if you're interested in the subject, because Banks is actually intelligent, begins with the theology of the early church, and has actually started house churches that are based on something, not just against something else.
Rating: 5
Summary: It's about time we questioned our practices
Comment: This is an incredible book that raises serious questions about how Christians practice their faith. After reading many scholarly (i.e. dry and boring) books on the history of the church and how we got our present practices, this book offered everything in one well packaged, irreverent, humorous book. If you are bored sitting in a christian cathedral or temple (which doesn't exist in the Bible or in archeologic findings before 300 a.d.) every Sunday morning listening to a sermon (which pales incredibly to the riches spoken by Jesus and the apostles), and never being allowed to say or do anything unless by the grace of elders or a pastor who control God's church, then I recommend you read this book to find out why these things are done today - and why this wasn't the way our brothers and sisters in the first century did these things.
As to the "prideful quote":
"Most of the things we Protestants practice had their beginnings long after the first century. None of them began with any thought of being scriptural. _No one_ was thinking of the Word of God when they started these practices."
Having been involved in christian leadership, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement because this mentality continues today. Everything I have read about Church history supports Edwards' information, and in a way more accessible to the common "man in the pew" than dry scholarly writings.
Rating: 1
Summary: Poorly reasoned and argued
Comment: Gene Edwards sees himself as a modern-day prophet who wants to call the Church back to its apostolic roots. These are noble goals, and Edwards is not afraid to think outside of the box.
But unfortunately, his arguments do not hold water, and his pride is overwhelming.
The primary argument of the book is that today's church should operate exactly like the apostolic church, as far as we know it in the book of Acts. Now Christians should should based their practices on the Bible. But that does not mean that we should do _nothing_ that is not contained in the book of Acts (which is basically Edwards' argument). Should we read Scripture on scrolls, because the early Christians did? Should we bathe irregularly to mimic first-century hygene? Unfortunately, Edwards' argument follows exactly along these lines.
In addition to this problematic idea, Edwards does not execute his argument well. He distorts and misuses Scripture to prove his point. Example: he says that churches should not be led by elders. His reason--the New Testament talks more often about brothers than elders. This is seriously his argument. (He uses the fact that most epistles were addressed to "The brothers in [city]" to imply that there were no elders in that city, which is an obvious fallacy.) He then goes on to ignore the Timothy passages about elders and overseers.
A quote that sums up the book:
"Most of the things we Protestants practice had their beginnings long after the first century. None of them began with any thought of being scriptural. _No one_ was thinking of the Word of God when they started these practices."
The pridefulness of this statement (and the rest of the book) is incredible. No one (his words) even thought of the Bible in developing Christian practices.
Edwards is even so prideful as to say that no one knows understands the New Testament except for him, because no one knows the chronological order of Paul's epistles. This is simply and obviously false--anyone who has taken a single college class on the New Testament has learned their chronological order. And yet, Edwards says, "even seminary professors with several doctoral degrees cannot tell you that story" (the story of Paul's epistles, in chronological order).
My advice: be wary of anyone who thinks that he alone knows the truth, and that no one else has ever understood the Apostles' teachings.
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Title: How to Meet in Homes by Gene Edwards ISBN: 0940232537 Publisher: SeedSowers Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: The Highest Life (Deeper Christian Life) by Gene Edwards ISBN: 0842313516 Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers Pub. Date: April, 1993 List Price(USD): $10.99 |
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Title: 100 Days in the Secret Place by Gene Edwards ISBN: 0768420652 Publisher: Destiny Image Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
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Title: Rethinking The Wineskin: The Practice of the New Testament Church (New Third Revised Edition) by Frank Viola ISBN: 0966665708 Publisher: Present Testimony Ministry Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Inward Journey by Gene Edwards ISBN: 0940232731 Publisher: Christian Books Pub House Pub. Date: December, 2000 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
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