Chan, Francis - Crazy Love

[Hans Deventer]

This is a book about what Watchman Nee would call the Normal Christian Life and most of us would call radical Christianity. Now the key question here is always, how to approach this subject? It seems we all know the radical demands of the gospel. We also know the lures of the world. So how are we going to energize people from the one to the other, to make different choices than the comfortable ones?

Chan starts of by describing the greatness of God in creating the galaxies, trying to instill awe. He proceeds through the omni's to establish God's worth and greatness and how He is entitled to our praise. Then he continues by making clear how most of us are really like the church in Laodicea. In other ways, no Christians at all and straight on our way to hell.
After painting the true demands of the gospel, he makes abundantly clear how we fail miserably.

It seems to me that, though he denies it, he basically uses the approach of the whip. I'm wondering, when he writes about himself, if he has done enough in his own life not to be reckoned among the Laodiceans.

All in all, the demands of the gospel are made clear. But the reason for loving God and neighbour, God loving us first, barely emerges and it is not made clear how we move from one phase to the desired one. Let alone what the role of grace is. Pity.

Added: come to think of it, if Chan were a holiness preacher, we'd call it the "holiness or hell" approach. Now there is no denying God seeks holiness and full surrender. The question remains, how to preach that?

[Gina Stevenson]

Oh, no. Had hopes for this one that we planned on reading, but haven't yet.

ETA: Guess 'twas the love in the title, with the adjective crazy added to it that gave hope for what it might have to say ... that not only was He full of love, but the way in which He thinks of us is so great that it can be tho't of as perhaps wildly "crazy." A "whip?" Really !?

Maybe we will have to read it, anyway ... to see what we see therein.

[John Reilly]

I enjoy Watchman Nee. His devotional book is insightful.

[David Snodgrass]

Hans, thanks for starting this thread. Please, don't read my words as being argumentative. Only offering my perspective.

I've read this book and have taught from it twice; once to students and the second time my young adult SS class.

Honestly, I didn't get the sense that Chan was trying to "whip" us into shape, spiritually speaking. My impression was this was an author who was trying to communicate the supernatural love that the creator has for the creation and that as the creation, our response should be nothing short of fully devotion to the creator.

Each time I've read this book and taught it, there response has always been an eye opening revelation that if we are going to call ourselves Christians then the call to Christ is a call to come and die. Like Chan says in his book, the term, "Luke warm Christian," is an oxymoron.

[Hans Deventer]

Honestly, I didn't get the sense that Chan was trying to "whip" us into shape, spiritually speaking. My impression was this was an author who was trying to communicate the supernatural love that the creator has for the creation and that as the creation, our response should be nothing short of fully devotion to the creator.

Well, that was what I expected. But he didn't dwell a lot on that love of the Creator. He started describing God's awesomeness, and when he continued to describe Him, all the omni's were mentioned, but the idea that God is actually love almost looked like a sidenote and came much later.

Initially, he wrote that all that God looks for is obedience. Later on, he writes that God actually seeks love. Doesn't explain how mere obedience is never what God is looking for. He's not Allah.

I like how he is honest though. He shares about his history, his upbringing, and how it affected his beliefs and relation with God. I'll submit it still does, more than he acknowledges.

Each time I've read this book and taught it, there response has always been an eye opening revelation that if we are going to call ourselves Christians then the call to Christ is a call to come and die. Like Chan says in his book, the term, "Luke warm Christian," is an oxymoron.

Yes. "Holiness or hell". And in the process, the vast majority of American Christianity are clearly put in the Laodicean category and hence, sent off to hell.

If he tried to communicate the love of God (and it might be that he did try), I had a real hard time finding it among page after page of condemnation.

Perhaps I started off with the wrong expectation. I had expected to read a book about the astonishing and indeed crazy love of God towards us, that would encourage us to give ourselves completely to Him. But instead I learned I'm not even a Christian and I'm merely deluding myself on my highway to hell. I should submit to the Sovereign Creator God, as a mere nothing. After I read all of this, I found too little to become hopeful.

Yes, I know the call is to come and die. But the One who asks us to do that is the One who died for us! And the promise is that in doing so, we find Life because it's the Way. I guess I just could no longer hear the gospel through the sound of the lashes.

[Ed DiSante]

you should read it---not for new Christians but thought provoking and challenging for those who have been around for a while

[Nate Pruitt]

Hans, when I read it I felt that it became unbalanced for some very predictable reasons. Michael Hyatt (who used to be a VP at Thomas Nelson) has stated multiple times that many books are filled with more than necessary to reach a desired page limit. I'm afraid that in some latter chapters Chan was stretching in areas where it was easy to find space to expand. Having heard him speak multiple times it is foreign to his style of preaching in most instances. While easy to point out you can feel him trying to tie in a passion for Christ and his response to us. The truth is that he could have, and probably would have, preferred to not belabor the point.

The videos convey more about the mystery and love of God than the whipping of man.

[Ryan Scott]

Chan's a pretty strong Calvinist, even if he's not as militant as some of his brethren in the public eye, it still comes out in his writing. I've seen it used well in the Church of the Nazarene (although the leader did a lot of amending and changed the emphasis in discussion from the emphasis in the book).

You sort of get what you expect if you know the author.

[Hans Deventer]

While easy to point out you can feel him trying to tie in a passion for Christ and his response to us.

Oh, definitely. There's a lot of passion in the book. As there is in the books of say Henri Nouwen and Brennan Manning.

[Nate Pruitt]

I also find it interesting that Chan was a featured speaker at the most recent NYC. I often wonder about the value of such choices (he is a good speaker, and generally teaches faith in action, but his theology isn't that aligned with ours)- but the Nazarenes don't have many "celebrity" speakers, I suppose.

[Todd Erickson]

And a lot of Nazarenes are actually Calvinist in their beliefs, and live in areas where all of the other churches are baptist, so there's no good way to get a feel for why that's different.

I read Crazy Love, because they wanted everybody in our church to read it.

I got the feeling that what our pastorate was looking for was that whip, that urge for people to get off of their duffs, take responsibility, and do something. That part mostly failed, especially where it coincided with their own existing Calvinist theology.