Book Review: The Naked Gospel

Pages: 237
Pub­lisher: Zon­der­van
Year: 2009
Author: Andrew Farley

Near the end of Novem­ber a friend asked me if I had read a book called The Naked Gospel and if I could give him my thoughts on the book. Well, I ended up pick­ing the book and fin­ish­ing it a month after I told him I would get back to him. Suf­ficed to say,  here’s a book review which won’t entail (most of) the thoughts I exchanged with my friend.

When I received The Naked Gospel I was some what excited about the cover — it was clear plas­tic with the logo printed on it. This was inten­tional, I think, so as to show off the chap­ter head­ings. As with a lot of (pop­u­lar) mod­ern books, these chap­ter head­ings are designed to catch your eye, rather than tell you what the chap­ter is about. They are some what con­tro­ver­sial, enough for a few peo­ple to ask me whether or not Far­ley was a Chris­t­ian. In any case, I like read­ing chap­ter head­ings to find out what the chap­ter is about, so in that regard I’m some what dis­ap­pointed. But as that is an aes­thetic com­plaint, onto the book itself.

The Naked Gospel is exactly as it sounds–“Jesus plus noth­ing”. The back cover of the book describes it as “The truth you may never hear in church. The Naked Gospel is a chapter-by-chapter assault on the church jar­gon and double-talk of our day”. Our atten­tion has cer­tainly been grabbed! How­ever, I’m not entirely sure Far­ley has suc­ceeded in what he set out to do.

The book itself has short, well laid out and easy to read chap­ters. Also included are dis­cus­sion ques­tions at the end of the book (called Nude Reflec­tions) as a sort of devo­tional exer­cise. Chap­ter 1 is a short biog­ra­phy of Far­ley; sadly, it’s not unique. Chap­ter two then intro­duces the Naked Gospel Quiz, This quiz has been set up by Far­ley (it’s a true-or-false quiz) to deter­mine where exactly the think­ing of the reader is. Some of the ques­tions include “Chris­tians should ask God to for­give them and cleanse them when they sin? (T or F)” and “Chris­tians strug­gles with sin because of their old self within (T or F)”. This is where you learn if you’re a grace or works based sal­va­tion sort of per­son (even if you don’t real­ize it). As for the quiz itself; I’m still not entirely sure if I agree with Farley’s sug­gested answers–though I’ll address that else­where, if at all.

From this foun­da­tion the rest of Farley’s book is an attempt to show how fol­low­ing Jesus involves Jesus and noth­ing more. He dis­cusses the role of the Law in the life of the believer; the role of the “old self” and the “new self” and how for­give­ness works. Far­ley also makes good use of Scrip­ture in pre­sent­ing and main­tain­ing his asser­tions. In this regard Far­ley makes some very good points: espe­cially when remind­ing us that we are already for­given and that noth­ing we do can make God love us less. I do have a few prob­lems with his treat­ment on the ser­mon of the mount, which he treats as Law (and I don’t believe should be) and some of his teach­ings on God’s for­give­ness (i.e. the pop­u­lar mis­con­cep­tion that God actu­ally for­gets — erases from His mind — our sin). How­ever, that aside, I think this is a book I would rec­om­mend to some­one other than a new Chris­t­ian and who is look­ing for more insight into what it means to be a Chris­t­ian, what the Gospel is and how we can live as such. Because there is some dis­agree­able the­ol­ogy in the book, it’s prob­a­bly a bet­ter read for some­one who is mature (at least more mature than a new Chris­t­ian) in their faith than not.

Related posts:

1. Vir­gin Births and Naked Gospels
2. Book Review: On Guard
3. Book Review: How Should We Then Live?
4. Book Review: The Supremacy of Christ in a Post­mod­ern World
5. Book Review: Doubting