If you could keep this post away from the charming Mrs.Burchett I would be grateful. I plan to add still yet another book to my burgeoning collection and she might question the wisdom of that. Something about the forty-seven books I have lined up to read next. But a title may have jumped to the top of the pile which is now accessable only by step stool. I came across a book entitled God’s Got a Problem. As the author of When Bad Christians Happen to Good People I can appreciate a title that smacks you up the side of your head. The premise is intriguing. This excerpt comes from WorldNetDailey.net.

• Clampett’s provocatively titled book, “God’s Got a Problem,” makes the case that the church today is headed in the wrong direction based on an upside-down belief system. And it proposes the emphasis of specific solutions based on the one prayer Jesus Christ taught his followers to pray. “God’s Got a Problem” deals with the problem God has both in the heavens and on earth, says Clampett. “The problem is not solved with current evangelical teaching, which emphasizes that heaven is the goal of Christian salvation while the earth and its nations have been written off by God.”
• “Our dying and going to heaven does not address or fix God’s problem,” explains Clampett.

First reaction. Dying and going to heaven will sure as heck fix my problem! So what is your problem? But I get his point. I remember a pastor saying the church was so “heavenly minded it was no earthly good.” Continuing from the review at Worldnetdaily…

• “The Christian church in America has become largely irrelevant,” says professor, judge, minister and author Earl A. Clampett Jr. “It has lost its salt and light. It has surrendered its witness to the world at large.”

I think Mr.Clampett and I are kindred spirits on that point even though I can’t hang four titles in front of my name. One of my growing convictions is that the evangelical church has been sold a bill of goods by the enemy about how to influence this culture. While I believe we must be involved as citizens in all levels of government, I am personally convinced the evangelical church has gone astray in our hope that we can influence the culture in a significant way through politics and pressure. Those tactics have a place as a restraining influence but real change comes from Christians rolling up our sleeves, climbing out of our comfort bunkers, taking our title as a follower of Christ seriously, and getting out in the real world. I spent a chapter in Bad Christians looking at how that radical group that started this revolution 2,000 years ago managed to change the world. They had no cultural support, no advertising or marketing budget, no Christian books, no Christian television (what a blessing!), no internet, no mega-tent churches, and no hairspray. So how did they do it? By living a life that was so radical and supernatural that even the secular writers took note.

The pagan emperor Julian wrote that the “impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well.” The revolutionary teachings of Jesus about the sanctity of life was sacrificially demonstrated by the early church during two great plaques that devastated the empire during the second and third centuries. While the pagans avoided any contact with the sick and even cast them into the streets while still alive, the Christians cared for the sick even though it cost many of them their lives. That kind of selfless service gets noticed. I doubt that the early Christians wasted too much time working on papyrus posters about God’s judgment on these people. They knew through the power of the Holy Spirit that the message that needed to be communicated was most clearly spoken through sacrificial love and caring.

I have Christian friends who do not have one single significant relationship with an unchurched person. Not one! How can we be serious about being light in this world if we never venture out where it is dark? I look forward to reading Mr.Clampett’s book. I don’t want to jump to conclusions based on a title because I have been on the wrong end of that reaction. But my gut reaction is that God does not have a problem. We do. His plan that was set in place from the beginning of time will be accomplished. God can do it without me. But I would rather He didn’t.