There is a great deal to like about this book and the first thing is the title. I love provocative titles and this title definitely grabs your attention. The overall point of the book is to take a different (you might say heretical) look at the word salvation. I found it to be a great companion or supplemental reading to Brian Mclaren’s book “The Last Word and The Word After That” which is one of the best emerging church books I’ve read as well as “If Grace is True” by Gulley and Mulholland.

Burk and Taylor do a great job of presenting a more inclusive notation of grace and salvation than their more conservative evangelical counterparts but they are not willing to go so far as fully embracing the universalistic notion of ultimate inclusion. I think this brand of theology is sort of a “softer” Evangelical brand of universalism. C.S. Lewis toyed with this notion in some of his later writings so it isn’t the first time Evangelicals have taken this view. The main thrust of the book is that grace is a concept which we are born into and may only choose to “opt-out” rather than the traditional orthodox view that we have to “opt-in” (i.e. be saved) in order to go to heaven.

The biggest problem I have with theological notion is that it is still focused on afterlife as the meaning of salvation. I think they make the same mistake as harder forms of Evangelicalism because they too see salvation as a state of existence after death. In either the older Evangelical view or this newer more inclusive Evangelical view, the problem is a potentially bad status in life after death and the solution is found in something Jesus did (softer version) or something we must believe about what he did (harder version). For me, both versions miss the point of the Bible entirely. Both of these versions of theology reject the view that the Bible points us to a new way to live our lives NOT a better status in afterlife.

The only thing heretical about these self proclaimed heretics is that they are willing to allow more people in the ark but they still see a storm brewing on the horizon. I don’t see the big problem as an inevitable monsoon, but instead the current drought is what concerns me the most. It seems to me that until Evangelical Christianity stops looking for rain and being consumed with building shelter it will continue to fail as a viable religious option in the civilized world.

I still think this book is a big help since it opens doors and invites conversation in places where conversation has been limited. This book is a sign of hope for traditionl Christianity.