Larry Crabb's Gospel

by Martin Bobgan and Deidre Bobgan

Martin and Deidre Bobgan, persistent critics of what they see as the negative intrustions of modern psychology into the church, examine the theories and practices of popular Christian psychologist Larry Crabb.d

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0941717143
• ISBN13: 9780941717144
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: Eastgate Publishers
• Length: 205 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The long lost art of the polemic

It is of some concern to me that one reviewer I read bet his/her faith on the writing of Larry Crabb as opposed to the Bobgans as being closer to the "heart" of God. This, I think, is indicative of the non-sensical approach to faith, life, and practice taken by "evangelicals" and the like who desperately avail themselves of every anemic concept of sanctification or promise of "secret knowledge" that comes to the rack of the local bookstore. This is the crusade of the Bobgans in this classic polemic. The most important thesis of the book, perhaps, is that Scripture is a complete and sufficient rule of faith, life and practice, by its own admission. When it comes to the sanctification of human lives, a Biblical anthropology is totally incompatible with a doctrine of man which looks to meet the "legitimate needs of the heart" in God and community. The New Covenant in Ezek. 36 makes it perfectly clear that true religion in the covenant is not about us. It is about the glory of God. It leads us to self-loathing, not in search of a god who will meet our needs. In this context, the Church has a duty to her purity by the right exercise of discipline (which begins with the proclamation of the Word). James writes: "Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does." (James 1:21-25) And so we see that it is not the psychological method by which we see the truth of ourselves, but in the reflection of the law. The duty of the Church is to discipline according to our Lord's prescription and to make right use of the word. "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (II Pet. 1:2-4) "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Doesn't sound like an invitation to a Freudian theory of unconscious as the key to relationships in the church, does it? And yet, as the Bobgans thoroughly point out, this is p