Pulpit Crimes

This book reminded me a lot of the style that was done in Steve Lawson's book, Made in Our Image. Meaning, James White hits a lot of topics without going into a lot of depth. Which is fine, because that was his intent, just don't think you are going to get a thorough look at each "Pulpit Crime" in this book.

James White hits topics such as expository preaching, worship music, seeker churches, pluralism, homosexuality, mishandling of the ordinances, women "pastors" and others. I really enjoyed White's discussion on those who water down the Gospel to being nothing more than "a" plan instead of "the" plan of salvation. He really makes sure the reader understands the danger of not preaching the absolute truth of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The one topic that he covered that I really enjoyed was his chapter on, "Felonious Eisegesis." It went through the dangers of not only the word faith movement, but also those traditions that are held so close to the vest by a lot of us in our denominations or doctrine. He did a great job of allowing the reader to understand that we all have "traditions" that can sometimes guide our exegesis of Scripture. When looking at a sub-heading called, "Tradition Trafficking," you would expect that to be a chapter about the Roman Catholic church, but the entire part of this chapter was devoted to our protestant traditions allowing our interpretation of Scripture. I found this very interesting and he used the story of him and Dave Hunt to show his arguments for his case.

The one thing that I did not like at first, but understood by the end, is that James White does not "name names." He does this so that the book doesn't become "dated" because of the names mentioned. We have seen this happen with MacArthur's "Charismatic Chaos" when in actuality the book is very much for today, but gets little mention because it is "dated because of those mentioned." I mentioned above, Dave Hunt, but James White does not name his name but I am very familiar with his discussions in the past so I was able to pick up the "unmentioned person" that Dr. White was talking about.

Again, very good book as a "fly-by" on a lot of topics. If you would like an in depth book on the exegesis of preaching itself, I would recommend Lawson's "Famine in the Land" instead. But, that was not this books intent and for that I can definitely recommend and probably will read again sometime in the future. Link to Buy