Book Review: 'Authentic Faith: A Survival Guide for Christian Living' by Bo Lange

By Tyler Tichelaar, BLOGCRITICS.ORG

Bo Lange’s new book, Authentic Faith: A Survival Guide for Christian Living,builds upon his earlier book Simple Faith, incorporating some of the same material but taking it farther. The new book looks at just what it means to be a Christian and how one can feel confident that Christianity is based upon authentic truths.

Lange begins by discussing how he grew up in Sweden and saw how secularism was taking over the culture there. After immigrating to the United States, he saw the same issues affecting the culture here—people no longer know what to believe, having been taught to doubt and question anything having to do with religion and all forms of authority. But Lange does not write about religion. He makes it clear that religion is full of rules and regulations that are largely unnecessary and simply complicate matters. The bottom line is that one must have faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and that is enough for salvation. Once that faith is established, people should grow in their faith and spread that faith to others, as Lange demonstrates throughout the book.

Having faith is not easy. Lange does not find anything wrong with having doubt. He argues that God does not expect or want us to accept his truth and promises based on blind faith. Rather, God wants us to be assured that our faith is based in truth. Lange discusses how we must study the Bible to find proof that it is God’s Word, authentic and true. He walks the reader through various passages in the Bible that include prophecies that were fulfilled and even descriptions of the universe that could not have been known by ancient man unless revealed by God as proof of the Bible’s authentic truths. Lange’s arguments are enticing and based in common sense, and while some objections might be raised, he foresees and responds to most arguments throughout his discussion.

After establishing that the Bible is scientifically and historically true and also speaks truth about the future, Lange turns to discussing how one is to live once faith has been established. He discusses what life is like for people prior to becoming Christians, how life should change once one accepts Jesus Christ as Savior, and what sorts of difficulties and setbacks one can expect in a life of faith and how to work through those obstacles. In chapter six, “Letting God Use You,” Lange shows how the mission of Christians is to help others find God. In chapter seven, “Spiritual Warfare,” he explains what we should expect as our body and mind go to war with our spirit, as well as how the world and the devil try to turn us against God.

In the end, Authentic Faith is a refreshing book that even the most devout and longtime Christian will find to be an affirmation of faith that breathes some new, or rather old and authentic, fresh air into the Christian faith. I believe anyone struggling with his or her faith, anyone skeptical of Christianity, even anyone who mocks it, will find food for thought here. That spiritual food will make his life happier and easier once he embraces faith and allows God to work in his life.

I run into Christians that stopped reading the Bible,mainly because of so many human interpretations that are to be found out there. Therefore, I decided to write down these thoughts to show you that you can still have confidence in your Bible reading.

I have a deep desire to understand what the Bible says. I am tired of trying to manipulate a texts’ message by interpreting it through my human limitation. I want God to be able to speak directly to me right from the text without interference of any human judgment.

Let me propose by saying that you can still read the Biblical text without  edit it by your own assumptions. You don’t have to force your own interpretation on it to understand what specific Bible passage is trying to tell you.

However, the real question is if we really will allow the Bible to speak for itself?

The real danger is to force the understanding of a Bible text by manipulated to mean what we desire it to say.

This attitude of forcing your own human understanding on the Bible text is used by many more progressive theologians. Many of us pastors have even been taught from theological seminaries to stop the Bible from speaking by itself into our lives.

I have early made a decision to be bound to the very specific Bible text. Now, I know that there are some hard issues to work through when you use this method. However, my choice is to struggle with the issue at hand. I am tired to continually adjust the of the meaning of a specific text to suit my desire or theology.

The Bible presents a systematic theology. The information of the Bible is presented as a unity. Remember that the Bible is a library of 66 books, written by approximately 40 authors during a time period of 1500 years and still there is a unity in its message.

By putting Bible passages that speak of the same issue together we can get clearer picture of what the specific text means to say. By letting Scripture be interpreted by Scripture we will receive a better comprehension of what the specific texts are all about. One passage clarifies what another passage says.

This way of using the Scripture can be called an "intra-biblical" understanding of the Bible. When you use this method you are in less need of human interpretation and relief from you being the authority of what the Bible says and what it does not say.