Fifty Two Fifty Two

I’ve heard a lot of buzz about Francis Chan’s Crazy Love, so I was eager to read it. I picked it up at the Hearts and Minds Books table at Jubilee a few weeks ago, and read it last week.

There are some good things about Crazy Love. Particularly, the chapter titles are great, and the content is all important and true. I agree with Chan’s “Profile of a Lukewarm Christian” (chapter 4), “Serving Leftovers to a Holy God” (chapter 5), “Your Best Life… Later” (chapter 7), and the rest.

(In fact, as a side note, I did a talk entitled “Your Best Life Later” a few years ago, after someone in my small group got very confused by reading Joel Osteen’s horrible book.)

Unfortunately, though, I was overall disappointed by Crazy Love. Not because it is not full of things that are true; it is, in fact, a Christ-centered book containing good theology and good advice about living a Christ-reflecting, Christ-exalting life. I want these things, so my complaint is not about the information the book contains.

The thing that I was disappointed by was that it was not well written, and when you got past the clever titles and quips, it was not fresh or innovative. The writing is abrupt and choppy – I felt several times like I was reading sermon notes, which might be better served preached than written. Besides that, though, the best content is simply recycled from better writers. In fact, I would say the best things about Crazy Love are the parts where Chan is quoting others, like A.W. Tozer, Henri Nouwen, Frederick Buechner, Oswald Chambers, and even John Piper. I underlined several quotes in Crazy Love, then realized I had underlined them in the actual books from whence they came as well. That was a little strange.

I remember being at a singles thing once, where this young guy got up and delivered a heart-felt sermon that began sounding very familiar to me. I realized about halfway through it that I had heard John Piper preach the same thing, almost verbatim, a few months before. Now, I’m all for recycling good ideas, and I have quoted my fair share of smarter and more insightful people than I. After all, as we learn from Ecclesiastes, there is really nothing new under the sun. But when I listen to someone preach, I resent it if they are merely repeating someone else’s sermon, especially if they don’t give credit to that preacher (which this guy didn’t). I think I was the only one in the room who knew he was totally ripping off John Piper and claiming it as his own.

Something similar happened while I was reading Crazy Love. When I hear a lot of buzz about a new book, I want it to not only be true, but also be written well, and I want it to offer something fresh. I want to walk away with new “Aha!” moments. And this just simply was not the case for me with Crazy Love. Is it full of truth? Yes.  A good, fresh, well-written, important book? Not in my opinion.

I feel like Crazy Love is an example of what happens when a so-so book is really well marketed. The cover, the blurbs and the supporting content (web site, videos, etc) are impressive, and there is good PR buzz behind it, especially in the Passion network (which includes John Piper, Desiring God, and other influencers in evangelical Christianity). In fact, part of me is a bit hesitant to be so honest about my feedback on Crazy Love, seeing as how Publisher’s Weekly, Louis Giglio, Chris Tomlin, Joni Eareckson Tada, Kirk Cameron and others have lent their hearty endorsements. In fact, I wonder if I would feel differently about the book if I knew Francis Chan going in. The truth is, I do not. The first time I ever heard of him was in conjunction with the recent Passion conference, but I did not get to hear his talk. I just knew he was part of it. Perhaps if I were a fan of his speaking ministry, and then I read his book, I would read/hear it differently.

That said, Crazy Love might be exactly the right book for a young Christian, for whom many of these ideas will be new, or folks who do not enjoy reading much, and would prefer to read a synthesized version of the aforementioned authors. In that case, I would recommend Crazy Love. In fact, I will likely pass my copy on to a middle schooler at my church. But for a mature believer, and since this blog is about reading, my advice is to skip Crazy Love and go straight to The Pursuit of God (Tozer), Desiring God (Piper), My Utmost for His Highest (Chambers) and With Open Hands (Nouwen). They’re the inspiration behind much of what Chan writes in Crazy Love, and they’re all simply better, more interesting, richer reading.