Book Review: The World-Tilting Gospel

Evaluation: Recommended

Dan Phillips (of Pyromaniacs fame) has written The World-Tilting Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2011; hereafter TWTG) to address a critical concern with Christianity in the West. Given our enormous technological, material and educational advantages, why is our influence on culture and society so decidedly anemic? Phillips observes that the earliest Christians, with virtually none of the benefits we enjoy today, "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). This description, offered by irate citizens unnerved by the message and life of some local believers, reminds us that the Gospel is world-tilting. Phillips, however, is not promoting yet another church planting technique, communications fad or insipid marketing strategy, nor is his objective simply to "influence" the surrounding culture in some sort of ephemeral, moralistic manner. He argues that the profound, agitating influence of the early Christians was due to their life and message being centered around Jesus Christ and his Gospel. That Christianity has lost this influence reveals that it neither understands nor appreciates the Gospel. In TWTG, Phillips charts a course back the Gospel-centered life by expositing the core principles of the Gospel—broadly defined to include concepts necessary to understand it, such as God's holiness, the original intent for creation, etc.—and applying these truths to the Christian life.

By giving an exposition of the principle objective characteristics and facts of God and the Gospel, Phillips' work meets a severe knowledge deficit in the modern Church. A contributing factor to our spiritual and cultural anemia is that many professing Christians are simply ignorant of the most basic truths of Christianity. Beginning in Genesis, rather than John 3:16, Phillips explains key events and concepts, such as creation, the fall, original sin, God's sovereignty and holiness, penal substitutionary atonement, faith, justification, repentance, and so on and so forth. These expositions are both helpful and meaningful, being chock full of Biblical citations and often drawing on explanations of concepts found in both the original Greek and Hebrew. These expositions are then applied in such a way as to help demolish the barriers that prevent professing Christians from living a world-tilting life in the Gospel, and, more importantly, to help direct them away from soul-killing errors. The concluding chapter in particular includes a more direct application and explanation of how the Gospel is radically different from, and at odds with, the fundamental desires and expectations of the world. It is pastoral through and through.

Phillips' work is an antidote to the kind of stolid, superficial Christianity that is likely to be no true Christianity at all. While many Christians would benefit from this work, those with an uncertain or unclear grasp of the incredible work Christ has done on the cross, and the attending spiritual inertia, would most benefit from reading and digesting the work. Given the similarities in knowledge deficits between the two groups, the book can also serve as an effective introduction to the Gospel for the non-believer.

Coming in at over 300 pages, TWTG is not another pedantic, theological tome boring to even the most artistically stunted academic. The language is clear, the analogies effective, and the expositions Biblically sound. (Would that more theology texts were written this way. Usually the stylistic choice is between zesty heresy and bromidic orthodoxy.) Indeed, Phillips' command of Biblical theology and the original languages is enhanced by this conversational, humorous, and down-to-earth style. And even though I've heard the truths contained within before, I often felt as if I was reading them afresh for the very first time. I think that alone makes the book worth the price of admission.

My only major concern with TWTG has little to do with the work itself and everything to do with those who most desperately need to read it. Americanized Christianity, if it must be characterized by a single attribute, is fantastically lazy. To say nothing of our immense failings in the area of physical fitness, our intellectual fitness is perhaps even worse. Many professed Christians would rather spend inordinate quantities of time watching football and playing video games than exerting the necessary intellectual endurance required to make it through a book on Biblical truths. And if modern Christians expend any energy at all, it is toward making themselves a better material life, neglecting those elements of the Gospel that would so deeply enrich their souls. If a reader finds TWTG too dense, it is because she likely enjoys an intellectual diet of fluff. That will come across as condescending to some, but it is offered in a completely different spirit; the truths of the Gospel are not necessarily simple in every respect, even if they can be understood by the simple. The very nature of their content demands a measure of sustained attention.

The World-Tilting Gospel is an excellent work that explains the truths of the Gospel, and how these upend the world's expectations and values, in an effective and winsome style. I will be recommending it to many, both Christian and non-Christian alike.

Available at Amazon here.