Book Review: Contrarian’s Guide to Knowing God, by Larry Osborne
Larry Osborne is the pastor of a large church north of San Diego. It seems to have been his experience that much of what is said about how to be a good Christian is either too intimidating, or flat-out wrong. In this book, he wants to make following God doable, even if you aren’t someone who enjoys reading spiritual classics or being in an accountability group.
The book is divided into three sections:
- General spirituality
- How does spiritual growth happen?
- What does God want?
I found this book to be a fast and interesting read. It has 21 very short chapters. Each one has a catchy catch-phrase and a relevant example from scripture. Here are two examples:
Chapter 7: The Dimmer Switch Principle. If you respond to what God wants, then your spiritual connection with God will increase.
It’s a simple principle. Here’s how it works: When we respond to the light we have, God gives us more. When we don’t, he takes away the light we already have.
Now catch this. It’s not just that we stop growing when we ignore what we already know. We actually lose the light we once had.
Chapter 12: Fences. Christians like to add to the actual requirements of the Bible with additional behavior requirements (don’t drink, don’t smoke, etc). But these are damaging.
In the long run, our well-intentioned extra-biblical rules, regulations and traditions also sabotage God’s agenda in two important areas.
First, instead of protecting us from sin as advertised, they often actually increase the odds that we’ll eventually scamper over one of his fences.
And second, instead of upholding God’s reputation and honor, in reality they often end up scaring off the very people Jesus came to reach.
In general, I was in full agreement with Osborne’s points. And I love the way most of his scripture references are full sections of chapters, rather than single verses. He occasionally made me nervous. He points out people he considers good Christians, even though they never “stretched themselves” in service or read the New Testament past Mark. Yes, we do give too much adulation to leaders in the church, and the non-leaders are also important. But I do think people should figure out a way to read the Bible.
Later, in his “Tools not Rules” chapter, he says the spiritual disciplines are not requirements. They should be available for helping people when they will actually help. He makes the excellent example that Bible memory has served him well at different points in his life, but he also feels free to move to something different when he is no longer learning from it. But it does seem that he who has basically succeeded at all of the disciplines can treat them differently than someone who has not succeeded at any of them.
Overall, Osborne’s main point is an excellent one, especially for people who have felt that spirituality is too hard for them:
God only wants obedience to the light that we currently have.
This is a welcome message, and may be a big encouragement for those that have struggled with unfollowable rules or “drive-by guilting” from Christians.
