In Part 2 of my series on Love & Respect, I talked about some of the red flag language that Emmerson Eggerichs’ used that we should all learn to pay attention to. In this episode I talk about some of the details Mark Batterson shares early in the book that should also be pretty big red flags. All-too-often, we trust authors simply based on the fact that they are a Christian or pastor a large church or are a best-selling author. But this means we trust them simply based on what they tell us about themselves or because so many other people trust them. In many cases, however, those other people also trust a leader because even more “other people” trust them. Everyone just trusts and no one is actually asking why should we trust this person, or should we? In many cases, these people lead us to make massive changes in our lives, but are not going to be there to pick up the pieces when their advice turns out to be crap.
The whole reason I started this podcast was to help people recognize some of the red flags that remain consistent across a number of Christian books. For instance, in the podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, it was revealed that Mark Driscoll often claimed to read a book a day, which is a highly dubious claim. In Love & Respect, Emerson Eggerichs’ also claimed to have read thousands of books, and lo and behold - so does Mark Batterson. It is exactly these kind of grandiose claims that should be a huge red flag. And there are many others.
In today’s episode I will break down why that is a highly suspicious claim, and just one of many red flags found in just these first few chapters.
Here is more on the story of Honi the Circle Maker that this entire book is based on.
Here is the article I wrote for Sheila Gregoire’s Bare Marriage blog on how to know when authors or pastors are employing appropriate scholarship to Biblical teachings.
Here is the Linktree for the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast. The episode with Kyle James Howard is Episode 25.
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The Circle Maker Part 2: More Red Flags