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Book Review - Your God Is Too Safe
- 04/04/06
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I mentioned to a friend that I was reading Mark Buchanan's book Your God Is Too Safe and that I had recently finished The Rest of God. "What's Buchanan like?" he wanted to know. The best I could do was to suggest that the style and theme of his writing is quite a lot like what he'd find if he read John Eldredge. But unlike Eldredge, Buchanan's books are actually grounded on some solid theology. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed a book that was endorsed by the likes of Philip Yancey and Eugene Peterson. Yet it is also endorsed by J.I. Packer who says, quite accurately, "Within a framework of biblical orthodoxy, Mark Buchanan's jabbing insights minister a salutary pastoral shake-up, drawing and driving us sluggards to come closer to our God."
Buchanan believes that evangelicals have constructed a God of their own making: a God who is too safe. He is a loving God, but a God who is entirely predictable. But the truth is, this God bears little resemblance to the God of Scripture--a God who is entirely unpredictable. We dislike God as He really is, and so we run away from Him like Jonah or hide from Him like Adam. Where we end up when we do this is a place Buchanan calls "borderland," a strange and safe place that promises nothing and delivers nothing. Your God Is Too Safe is a wake-up call--a call to escape this borderland and live with God in "the holy wild."
In the first half of the book, Buchanan lays the groundwork, showing how and why we run and hide from God. The primary reason is bad theology: a steady traffic of invented or distorted ideas about God. But "God isn't nice," he says. "He isn't safe. God is a consuming fire. Though he cares about the sparrow, the embodiment of His care is rarely doting or pampering. God's main business is not ensuring that you and I get parking spaces close to the mall entrance [this was written pre-Osteen too!] or that the bed sheets in the color we want are--miracle!--on sale this week. His main business is making you and me holy. And for those of us who love borderland more than holy ground, whose hearts are more slow than burning, that always requires both the kindness and the sternness of our God." After suggested that the Catholic cult of Mary arose because of a dark and punishing medieval portrait of God the Father, he challenges evangelicals. "In Protestantism, I think we've simply substituted the safe god. But the biting irony is this: Neither the safe god nor the tyrant god are the real God...the true God is far more fierce and fearsome than the bullying and petulant god of our imaginations. But His anger is not irritability: It is the distillation of His justice, His hatred of evil. It is what we would want, even demand, from a good God." This is a cutting insight and one that challenged me. As Tozer said, we need to take refuge from God, in God.
The second half of the book challenges Christians with spiritual disciplines. "We have to train for the spiritual life. That's the most lost idea to the world, and it requires whole books and sermon series to establish its value, even its validity." We need to practice holy habits and to weave these habits deeply into our lives. Like all habits, good, holy habits eventually come to define us and to become our ways. They may be awkward and feel unnatural at the beginning, but they will soon become natural, beautiful and indispensable. The disciplines Buchanan teaches are: practicing the presence of God, understanding the wounds that have inflicted us and allowing God to heal them, confessing sin both to God and to others, solitude, fasting, reading Scripture, service, prayer and delight. Among the better chapters are those dealing with fasting, confession of sin and solitude. Buchanan discusses these without falling into the contemplative, New Age practices that have become far too common in the church today. He provides practical advice on how to proceed in developing such disciplines.
As may be clear by now, Your God Is Too Safe is quite a good book. Buchanan writes with force and conviction and a good deal of urgency. But one concern stayed in the back of my mind throughout the book. While Buchanan's theology is generally sound, he often quotes those whose theology strays outside that framework of biblical orthodoxy mentioned by Packer. He quotes Philip Yancey on a few occasions and holds up Mother Teresa and Saint Francis as examples of people who have "gotten it." He portrays Richard Foster as an expert on the spiritual disciplines. When I see people holding up Mother Teresa as the example of Christian virtue I always wonder just how much that person understands about biblical theology. How can a person truly understand justification, and yet hold as an example a person who denied it? Are there not better examples we can use? Do we really feel that Mother Teresa was such a wonderful example of Christian virtue, or is she just the easy and popular example? This was an ongoing disappointment with this book.
Like Wild at Heart, Your God Is Too Safe will not appeal to all Christians (though, unlike Eldredge's book, this one is targetted at both men and women). My father, for instance, cannot tolerate terms like "the holy wild" or "woundedness" or "brokenness" and would get little enjoyment from this book. But for those who enjoyed the style of Wild at Heart but objected to the content, Your God Is Too Safe may have appeal. However, I would not recommend it in place of a book such as Don Whitney's Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (my review) - a book that will provide a more consistently biblical framework in developing and enjoying the spiritual disciplines. Buchanan's book is good. It is challenging. But it is not the strongest, most Scriptural treatment of the topic.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I write books and blogs for fun while doing web design and consulting for a living. I worship and serve at 
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Comments (20)
You're going to have to stop reviewing books, Tim. You keep making my "books to get" list longer and longer.
I'm glad that Buchanan grounds his thoughts in solid theology. That's a refreshing change from a lot of what's out there.
Is God really unpredictable? Yes, his thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are higher than our ways, but he has made promises that we can depend on. We may not be able to predict exactly what he will do, but don't we know enough to feel "safe"? If God isn't "safe", then who or what is?
Maybe I'm just over-reacting to the phrase "in the wild." It sounds too Eldridgesque.
You're definitely right about the Mother Teresa reference. Orthodox Christians have got to stop using her as an example. My pastor even does it sometimes, and he should know better.
Don Whitney's Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life is one of my favorites that was given to me when the Lord drew me to Himself after many years of falsely professing to be a Christian. This book you just reviewed appears to have some dead-on observations that you mentioned in regards to the popular safe and compassionate Grandpa God that fails to include that God is a consuming fire and should be reverentially feared. However, his "examples", or lack there of, is rather disheartening.You wrote: "We need to practice holy habits and to weave these habits deeply into our lives. Like all habits, good, holy habits eventually come to define us and to become our ways. They may be awkward and feel unnatural at the beginning, but they will soon become natural, beautiful and indispensable."--this is so true. and there is a prevailing misconception that once one becomes saved, such things will suddenly become natural ... but they truly do not. They must be practiced. And how can one practice "holy habits" if they perhaps grew up in an atmosphere that was rather unholy and have never been exposed to such things.
Thank you for this post, this book review was rather timely.
"You're definitely right about the Mother Teresa reference. Orthodox Christians have got to stop using her as an example."
No doubt. It gets so old and it's so wildly inaccurate.
When one uses examples such as Mother Teresa, Philip Yancey etc., I begin to seriously wonder about that person's discernment, which is so lacking in the visible church today. I think it's kind of like what Os Guiness said about Brian McLaren and the Emergent Church "Conversation", when he said that Brian knows exactly what is wrong with the church today, but has absolutely no clue as to how to fix it.
I see that with Buhannon and his examination of who the church sees God as these days. He seems to have maybe daignosed some problems about who we think God is, but the examples he uses to show who "gets it" shows that his discernment on the solution is sorely lacking.
Tim, thanks for recommending a better resource (Don Whitney's book) so that we won't waste our time reading someone who may have pinpointed some erroneous thoughts about God, but who obviously lacks the insight to show the right kind of examples of those who really know who God is.
The review (and the title!) puts me in mind of RT Kendall's recent book: Out of Your Comfort Zone: Is Your God Too Nice? is the American title. The UK version (Out of the Comfort Zone: Your God Is Too Nice) gets at his tone a little more quickly. Although Kendall's argument isn't as smoothly structured as it might be, none the less it might bear comparison with the volume under review, and be of real interest to those who think Aslan isn't a tame lion :) .
Biran, you said:
"When one uses examples such as Mother Teresa, Philip Yancey etc., I begin to seriously wonder about that person's discernment"
What exactly is wrong with quoting Yancey? How is that evidence for a lack of "discernment?" By saying that "Yancey is quoted" does it follow that one is not being "discerning" by doing so?
For example, Yancey says, "Whatever makes us feel superior to other people, whatever tempts us to convey a sense of superiority, that is the gravity of our sinful nature, not grace."
Is what he is saying where in error or wrong because it comes from Yancey? Doesn't discernment mean one evaluates the content of things rather than their source?
Ochuk,I believe one has to evaluate both... what is being said as well as who is saying it.
I'm sure satan's theology is quite sound, but I have no interest in learning from him (I'm not equating Yancey with satan, just trying to make a point that more is at stake than simply what is being said...the source does matter).
I have no doubt that the Ken Copelands, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteens and Benny Hinns of this world all have said many things that are true...but I'd much rather get my information from sources that I know are biblically solid through and through.
C.S. Lewis writes and/or eludes to idea's in his writings, especially some of his fictional works that are on the verge of heresy, yet I don't think we would shy away from books that quote him, or even his own books for that matter.
Yancey is in a different camp than Lewis, I know, but If Yancey says something helpful I hope that we would have the humility to be taught by it, and not dismiss it because it came from his pen. There seems to be a little bit of the "I follow Apollos, and I follow Paul," attitude if you are not willing to be taught truth by someone you wouldn't normally align with. If what he is quoting Yancey on is false than by all means let's be disapointed with him for quoting him, but if it is biblical and true let us rejoice that God is instructing us, and not care about who said it.
I just started reading the book, and I love it! But I am not sure about your comment about Mother Teresa:
"When I see people holding up Mother Teresa as the example of Christian virtue I always wonder just how much that person understands about biblical theology. How can a person truly understand justification, and yet hold as an example a person who denied it? Are there not better examples we can use? Do we really feel that Mother Teresa was such a wonderful example of Christian virtue, or is she just the easy and popular example? This was an ongoing disappointment with this book."
What is wrong with Mother Teresa's theology? Isn't the Bible full of scripture referencing how to help the poor, the widowed and the orphaned? Doesn't Jesus teach that we must reach the poor? How did Mother teresa deny justification? Of course she is the easy and popular example... I think that Mark Buchannon used her as an example because she is familiar to anyone reading the book and brings instant recollection of her character and actions to mind. As a young adult just begining to really explore my faith as a Christian I cannot recall any Christian in the last five years that is known nationally for their ministry to the poor. Perhaps the example was a little redundant, but then you could probably say the same thing about Christ, couldn't you?
Anna - I'd refer you to this article, one of the very first I wrote for this site (perhaps even the first). It turns out that much of what Mother Teresa was known for is simply a fabrication.
Anna,
I would also point out that Teresa's alleged charity work (see Tim's link above) is no evidence of good theology. Many people of all religions or no religion do charity work (Matthew 7:21-23).
Concerning her theology, as a Catholic, she denied justification by faith alone. Furthermore, I believe she herself stated that she never tried to convert any of those she helped.
Hi Tim,
I appreciate your reviews. I think I've added a few books to my wish list because of what I've read on your site. I almost added this one as well. I was really interested in the emphasis of the first half of the book. As the song goes, "He's not safe, no he's not safe."
But then I saw where the second half of the book went - spiritual disciplines - and I thought, Not another book on that subject. Don't get me wrong. I strongly believe in the importance of disciplines like prayer and Bible study. But I sometimes feel like our Christianity has been reduced to that. Maybe I'm selling the book short.
Again thanks for your reviews. They really help.
Good review. I still think the first half of the book was worth the price of the book.
Regarding Mother Teresa, I often wonder if we have bought into the "spin" around her and speak out of ignorance (whether willfully or not) as to the nature of her true convictions.
I agree with Ochuk that we can learn from others. Consider Tozer who often read and quoted mystics and encouraged those he mentored to do likewise. No one (that I'm aware of) dares to demonize Tozer for this practice but rather hold him up as a man of God. I appreciate Derek's comment in this regard: it takes humility to receive from those whom we are prone to dismiss.
The following are excerpts taken from Mark Buchanans’ book Things Unseen. Pgs 192-194He uses these insights, for the purpose of paying homage to one of his mentors. And if put into proper context you would see that he is glorifying God with this passage in the book. I’ve taken liberties with the context for the sake of brevity and hasten to point out that Mark Buchanan is far too humble to ever allow me this latitude. I seek his indulgence.
If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God’ (1 peter 4:11)Dr. Klaus Bockmuehl is my default picture for this verse.-Mark Buchanan Things Unseen pg.192
Dr. Bockmuehl was professor of Biblical and Historical Theology at Regent College.His colleagues were the likes of J.I Packer and Gordon Fee and Bruce Waltke, men who themselves possessed and carried with magnificent authority, an almost impossibly large store house of comprehension.....Besides such men, the brightest student became tongue-tied. This was Bockmuehls’ company. There he stood, stout and burly next to Packers’ gangling skinniness or Fees’ swaggering tallness, but he held his own, and usually then some.
I was Dr. Bockmuehls’ teaching assistant the year he died. When he asked me to assist him, he didn’t know he was dying....He brought me on to do the typical things T.A.’s do-grading papers, running errands, proctoring exams ,being first contact for puzzled or aggrieved students, and the general sifting and sorting of professorial debris-but he also hired me to edit his writing.
Mark goes on to say that with the return of Dr. Bockmuehls’ cancer his responsibilities changed.
‘I got far more involved in his students personal and academic lives than was traditionally part of the role of a T.A. Under J.I. Packers watchful, imposing eye, I graded all the papers, even the research ones. I led Dr. Bockmuehls student group. And I edited his book. That was his last obsession, his parting gift to the world. The book is not an academic treatise; it is a personal and theological reflection on Gods’ intimate guidance. This was the fruit of his many years of scholarship. This was the prize. After mastering the intricacies and conundrums of two millennia of theological inquiry and disquisition, after becoming an authority on biographies and histories of dozens of theologians, famous and obscure, after spending half a lifetime immersed in the complexities of Gods’ ways with man and mans’ way with God,......Thousands of books read and pondered. Thousands of student papers assigned and critiqued. Hundreds of lectures prepared and delivered. Dozens of books and articles researched and written.....
Mark Buchanans’ Theological training under this man and his colleagues is probably among the soundest out there. He could use references to Heideggers’ Being and Time, Barths’ Church Dogmatics , Niebuhrs’ Moral Man and Immoral Society, Bonhoeffers’ Letters and Papers From Prison, Histories of the church fathers, the Scholastics, the Pietists, the Revivalists, the Reformers, the classic writings of Aquinas and Anselm and Augustine, the novels of Gunter Grass and Leo Tolstoy and Arnold Bennet, the poetry of Milton and Spenser and Keats, thick works of philosophy, phenomenology, physics, and metaphysics. But Pastor Buchanan doesn’t write to impress some internet bloggers /book reviewers. Mark writes books to change lives.
Dr. Bockmuehl and J.I Packer were able to discern the giftedness of Mark Buchanan but hey,..What would they know?
Whatever title then men may hold, they are to be listened to only on the condition that they do not lead us away from obeying God... let us recall the sacred authority of God, which blows away the vain smoke of all human excellency. (Calvin on Acts 4:19,20)
I agree with Ochuk that we can learn from others.
Of course we can learn from others. But, I don't view it as humility (as many here have suggested) to wade through the writings of a Philip Yancey to glean some truth here and there...I view it by and large as a lack of discernment.
I know, I can hear it now from some...how that sounds like a lack of humility itself. But, I have looked at what Yancey believes about who God is, and if he truly believes the things he has written, then I fear his god is not the God of Scripture (I'm not trying to pick on Yancey, but he was used in the book and mentioned by Tim, so he is my example here).
Surely we can find better examples to provide in our books than Mother Teresa and Philip Yancey and the like?
Ok, you got me on the article, thank you for the link... but I would like to ask how many people in the general population of America who are generally interested in God actually research that? Instead they think, "oh, Mother Teresa, she lived most of her life on the streets of India helping the poor," That's what I thought, and I never thought twice about it.
What I mean is that you have to consider the audience, if people come across the book and think "God? safe? hah! this is the same God who flooded the world, oblierated two, cities, crucified and resureccted his own son to save the world and we confine him to a little church and a Sunday service," obviously they do not need to read the bookBut it's the people who say "What'ddya mean My God's to safe?" that need to read the book the most.
Mark Buchanon's book is part of a movement that wants to shake up the current Christian stereotype that groups us into our suburban churches every Sunday where we listen to some singing and preaching and then go back to our 9-5 life.All that really matters in our walk with Christ is whether we live the commandments, not just Preach them.
Tim, thanks so much for your website! I first found you on Amazon, and I really enjoy your reviews. I read "The Rest of God" and LOVED it. I also had one sent to my daughter because it's right up her alley too. Sad to say, I collect way more books than I have time to read, so I have "Your God is Too Safe" and "Things Unseen" waiting for me on my bookshelf. I really enjoy Buchanan's style.
Susan
This is in question to Derek (and kind of to everyone else as well)...
I need to ask by what grounds say, is CS Lewis accused of being on the verge of heresy? Sure he is not always right but he mentions that quite clearly in most of his prefaces of his books. They are usually presented to illustrate a different point altogether.
I am just wondering because a claim like that for anyone would need to be supported by sound evidence. We all have errors in our faith at times but being a borderline heretic is another matter entirely.