A viewer of our YouTube channel recently suggested that I read the works of Francis Chan, and I will admit that I assumed too much about Chan beforehand. Knowing that he was a popular pastor, I anticipated that his work would be seriously lacking, as has the work of many of our past subjects.
I was wrong in my estimation, though not excessively so. Chan, as it turns out, is probably among the best of the popular pastoral writers today and this is due in some measure to the fact that he has a healthy respect for scholarship. This was the first time I had seen a popular pastoral writer cite N. T. Wright for any purpose other than intimating that Wright was teaching heresy. However, this doesn't mean all is well with Chan from an apologetics perspective. Though he is decidedly not part of the emergent movement, there are times when he does resort to the emergent sort of shrug of the shoulders when answers fail him. There are also times when it seems clear that his emotions get the best of him. Still and all, I would rather that Christians read one volume by Chan than 200 by Joel Osteen, or 100 by Charles Stanley.
For this survey, we'll have a look at three of Chan's more popular texts.
Erasing Hell
This one's a little tricky to evaluate in terms of Chan's performance, because it is co-authored by Preston Sprinkle, a biblical scholar, but Chan certainly deserves credit for choosing a Biblical scholar as a co-author.
Chan does not arrive at the same view of hell that I do, and is apparently unaware of any of the factors that inform that view (particularly honor and shame in the Biblical world). Even so, his methodology is commendable. He stresses the necessity to understand Jesus' words in a first-century context (49) - that's one we've never seen in Chuck Swindoll! He refutes the equation of Gehenna with a garbage dump (59) appealing to the same arguments I have in addressing that issue. He gives perhaps a bit too much ground to annihilationists (80-1) but does conclude that the flames and darkness of hell are not literal (154-5). Unfortunately, this also is one of the points where he ends the matter with a shrug i.e., "the Bible does not seem to tell us exactly what that torment will entail." His answer to the question of how God deals with those who never hear the Gospel (159-61) is fairly good, and the bibliography of Erasing Hell is replete with reputable scholars like Hagner, Morris, and Osborne.
The quality of Erasing Hell, as a popular title, is commendable. I wish all of Chan's works were like this, even as I disagree with some of it. However, as we'll see, it was probably the influence of Sprinkle that gave Erasing Hell its best moments.
Forgotten God
This is Chan's take on the Holy Spirit, and like Erasing Hell, it has a co-author, Danae Yankoski. But it seems that Yankoski's role is limited to that of executive writer.
Unlike Erasing Hell, Forgotten God is virtually free of scholarship. It is a somewhat middling treatment of the subject matter; Chan thankfully does not turn the Spirit into an ultra-personal conversation partner, but he does portray the Spirit as more intimately involved in the life of the Christian than the evidence of the text and the context warrants. This is reflected in that he falls for the standard interpretation of "abba" as "daddy" (112), a claim which we addressed in a prior article:
Barr reports that Jeremias was heavily influenced by a school of thought that certain words of address to parents - such as "mother" -- found their origins in infant babbling. Barr is quite blunt in retort: "Generally speaking, a safe rule is to disbelieve any philological explanation that rests on such babbling." Jeremias' idea was merely speculative, and involved a sort of chicken and egg question: Did infants universally first say "abba" and then did parents adopt that as their title? Or did parents teach infants to say "abba?" Either way, there remained no actual evidence for the thesis. Among the chief discrediting points is that "Abba" was found to be continued to be used by adult children towards their fathers; although admittedly an adult child might conceivably continue to use "Daddy" even today in modern English.
At the same time, Jeremias' error was a logical one in which he confused philological origins with temporal usage. Put another way, he linked together the use of "abba" and the perception of intimacy illicitly: While a Jewish child and father with an intimate relationship may use "abba," no link between the word and level of intimacy is established unless there is a broad indication that a father and child with a more distant relationship do not use the term - and such indication is unknown.
So, what can then be said of the significance of "abba" in terms of intimacy? Very little. Jesus' single use of it is wholly without contextual additions to inform it. Paul's two uses do tell us that Christians are subject to use the word of God the Father, and in Galatians, the usage is counter-posed to the child's experience with non-relatives and guardians who oversee them. "Abba" clearly indicates some sort of exchange relationship, but without Jeremias' endearing "infant babbling" thesis, there is nothing whatsoever to permit reading into it notions of modern paternal intimacy and tenderness.
The thesis of Forgotten God ("FG") is that the role of the Spirit has been neglected in the Christian life (15-16). Thankfully, by this Chan apparently does not mean that he agrees with Joyce Meyer that the Spirit will tell us things like, "Open your eyes when you have sex." He also rightly rejects the idea that such things as the size of a church are evidence of the functioning of the Spirit (143).
Although Chan's perception of the Spirit is informed by a modern idea of intimacy (20), throughout FG his descriptions indicate an interaction with the Spirit that is closer to the functioning of a conscience, or of artistic inspiration, much as I have argued. Chan's chief sign of the indwelling Spirit isn't a voice in one's head, but living out the fruit of the Spirit. (This connects with Chan's emphasis on action as an expression of the Gospel, which is developed in more depth in the last book we will discuss, Crazy Love.)
Even so, Chan features some of the epistemological problems we have noted in other writers. He refers to the Spirit "leading" people to do this or that, or move here or there, and although he warns the reader to be careful not to mistake one's fleshly desires or personal proclivities for the leading of the Spirit (90-1, 93), he gives little guidance for discernment beyond that.
Chan does give a number of common-sense advisories for how the Spirit might be quenched (106ff): Because we are too comfortable, or too busy, and so on. These are all well and good, but in terms of positive evidence that one has one's ear to the Spirit, all we are given is a series of testimonies about people who (supposedly) did so, and things turned out great. This won't serve to erase any counter-charges that Chan cherry-picked success stories.
A bit more troubling, in epistemic terms, is Chan's counsel that the Spirit is to be followed "this day" rather than in terms of seeking God's long-term will for one's life. Framing the interactions of the Spirit in these terms makes it much easier to fall into a habitual disregard for testing whether indeed the Spirit is offering any leading: It feeds the psychological need for interaction, and becomes addictive, in much the same way Internet addiction functions. Chan even acknowledges this, unwittingly, when he describes how, after a presentation on sex trafficking, he began to think he should do a lot more about that subject (162). Although he thinks that those who told him things like, "you're doing enough already" had actually deadened the move of the Spirit in him, the more likely reality is that Chan's emotions were getting the better of his judgment. Joyce Meyer, reportedly on the same basis, believed that her ministry was called to service in the Third World; but when her ministry got there, it had little idea how to operate properly, and leached resources from better-trained and more established ministries. Passion simply isn't a sign that the Spirit has a job for you.
In all, FG is a much better treatment of the role of the Spirit than we have seen from other popular pastors, yet it still leaves something to be desired.
Crazy Love
If you didn't see Chan's name on the cover, you might read this and think it was something by Brian McLaren after he had taken a few common sense pills. That's meant to be complimentary.
In many ways, Crazy Love ("CL") embodies exactly the sort of call to action the church needs to heed right now. Chan calls Christians to radical forms of sacrifice, and away from the complacencies of comfort and wealth. He warns them not to assume they are "good soil" and to not simply seek to be "godly enough" to get a pass to heaven (67). He calls the reader to give first-fruits, not leftovers (90). For example, he appeals to the goals of a movement called Aspiring to the Median, whose members pledge to live at or below the U. S. median income ($46,000 per year) and give the rest away. I daresay if we all followed that model, a good many problems would vanish! He also points to the example of the families of victims of the shooter in Amish Pennsylvania who forgave the shooter (126).
CL starts off a little oddly, with a chapter on the awesomeness of creation and of God that doesn't quite mesh with the rest of the book. The second chapter is closer to the subject mark, but goes a bit too far: it is claimed that worry and stress are signs that we do not trust God, but this assumes the over-intimate portrait of God that Chan adheres to. If God does not "micromanage" to the extent Chan believes, then worry and stress are unsurprising reactions to the failures of other people - not God.
The most poignant section of CL is an extended description of "lukewarm people" (78ff) and how they function (or rather, do not function) in the life of the church. I expect many readers will be offended by this portion, especially where Chan warns, "Lukewarm people feel secure because they attend church, made a profession of faith at age twelve, were baptized, come from a Christian family, vote Republican, or live in America" (78). Some who believe this to be true need to be offended!
Chan cautions that not everyone is built for such high levels of sacrifice; not everyone can be a missionary, for example (168), but he is certainly spot on in indicating that the American church is underperforming. He relates how members of Third World churches he spoke to thought it "ridiculous" that we focus so much on buildings, and that people will switch churches because they don't like the music in one they are attending. I had a similar experience when I told one African Bible school teacher that my then-church once had a photography day which allowed people to bring their dogs to church. CL would serve well as an activation of the American church's conscience.
Summarizing: I ended up having more appreciation for the works of Francis Chan than I expected. I would much rather his work be studied than Joel Osteen's. It is not without flaws, but it is a significant step in the right direction.