Heretic's Guide to Eternity

I promised several months ago to do a review for Spencer Bruce's book "Heretic's Guide to Eternity". Although I read the book back in the fall, I never got around to posting the review (I never really got to posting anything! Sorry for the delay on this Spencer). Spencer is the creator of The Ooze and I was honored to get a copy of the book to review as well as looking forward to reading it.

I really did not like the book. I thought it was written somewhat sloppily and dropped statements more for effect and reaction then for true scholarly debate. I was frustrated that is seemed to be written to criticize some of the more traditional / popular branches of Christianity then to say something fresh and relevant.

I agree that following Christ is supposed to be radical, and that at times the Church gets too caught up in keeping tradition then in keeping up with Jesus. But I disagree with what appeared to be Spencer's desire to make the path to Christ so wide that belief does not matter. I thought his original proposition of "Opting-Out" instead of the Church's traditional approach of "Opting-In" was interesting, I just thought his development of that thought was sloppy, unconvincing, and disappointing.

I feel that Scot McKnight had the best review of the book. You can see his reviews here, here, here and here.