Book Review: A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church

Editor’s Note: It’s not often that we post book reviews on Reformation Journal and this isn’t one I had planned on writing; but here we are. Warren Smith is the publisher of the Evangelical Press News Service, a career journalist, and a frequent writer for WORLD Magazine. I met Warren a few years ago and have known that this book was in the works for some time. Warren was also kind enough to speak to some of the issues covered in this book in a series of lectures hosted by Reformation Journal in Charlotte, NC. I ordered the book when it was published because Warren is my friend. Though I knew Warren to be a skilled writer, I had already read extensively on this subject and anticipated merely skimming the book. When it arrived I sat on the porch with pipe in hand and began to read; four hours (and no breaks) later I was done. As I said, I bought the book because Warren is my friend. I’m writing a review of this book only because my friend has written a book that I wholeheartedly believe is worth reading. After a week or so of reflection I think I have figured out why the book was so helpful to me and worth your time:

An Historical Perspective
Many books can be written (and have been) critiquing the current state of the American Church and modern Evangelicalism. It does not take much journalistic skill to recognize that all is not well. The authors that do this best are those who understand the theological causes of the current challenges. I have read only a handful of authors who correctly identify those theological causes and thus demonstrate that what is needed is a theological solution.

Warren Smith is one of those few who clearly identify the theological problems that have created this practical mess. But he also does something that few others have done: he shows the effects (symptoms?) of those theological errors in the context of the history of Evangelicalism. Even more helpfully, this history is not traced through a series of ivory-tower academicians but through its more accessible iterations in politics, church-growth, and music.

Smith sees the (theological) connection between mega-churches, the Religious Right, and CCLI and is able to ably explain their emergence as dominant forces in Evangelicalism. For this reason, A Lover’s Quarrel is as much a valuable history lesson as it is a theological critique. Smith skillfully fuses the two purposes together.

A Winsome Tone
Christian authors who are critiquing other Christians, or movements within Christianity, must walk a delicate tightrope. Scripture clearly teaches us that we are to identify and expose false teaching and theological error whenever possible. Yet many, particularly in Reformed circles, do so almost gleefully – as if they are glad to have the opportunity to ferret out the errors of others. Their tone is frequently haughty, harsh, and unsympathetic.

A Lover’s Quarrel has no such tone because, as Smith points out on page one, “For most of my Christian life, I have considered myself an Evangelical.” Smith is writing from the perspective of one inside the movement asking about the direction we’ve headed. He is not standing outside the camp lobbing grenades in from a safe distance; Smith is one of us, an American Evangelical.

The tone of the book is one of winsome concern. Smith is not out to destroy the reputation of Evangelicalism while safely separating himself from it. He genuinely wants us to know where it went wrong and what we need to do to fix it. As he writes in his forward, his criticism is intended “to build up, not to tear down.” The tone is appropriately critical but not harsh, and Smith does not speak as one without hope for the recovery of the American church as a faithful servant of Christ.

A Reasonable, Biblical Solution
A critique is of little value if the information in it gives no basis for a way forward. Such incomplete critiques leave the reader asking: “So what do you want me to do about it?” Such critiques reveal their own inadequacy. For a critique to be successful it must lead naturally to a solution for the problems it has identified. A Lover’s Quarrel correctly identifies the theological problems that have lead to many of the current difficulties within American Evangelicalism. This enables Smith to also naturally identify the correct theological solutions.

His solutions could not be more Biblical. Smith suggests that we need to return to the beliefs and the practices taught by Holy Scripture: an emphasis on God’s sovereignty rather than self-sovereignty, a primary emphasis on the Church rather than the para-church, the recovery of a Christian understanding of vocation, and a right understanding of missions and church planting.

These are not new ideas and Smith is not the only one who has suggested them as the cure for what currently ails Evangelicalism. What Smith has done, perhaps uniquely, is to show how the abandonment of these Biblical principles has affected the American church in a variety of arenas. The journey through A Lover’s Quarrel is, in retrospect, entirely reasonable and free from illogical or forced cause and effect chains. Smith evaluates the symptoms to correctly identify the disease. Then he prescribes the treatment based on the cause, not the effect.

The book is skillfully written, proper in its tone, and most importantly of all: correct. If we Evangelicals have even the slightest desire to learn from the mistakes of the past and to find the right way forward we will take the time to wrestle, as Smith has done for years, with the ideas found in A Lover’s Quarrel.