..Book Reviews..

He tries to mix humor and faith as he explores some of the odder aspects of Christianity, including altar calls, WWJD bracelets, and the condemnation of rock and/or roll.

While you can tell Turner has a dislike for fundamentalists, it's not clear whether he wants to poke fun at Christian culture or help the reader genuinely navigate the aisles of a Christian bookstore.

Sometimes he's dropping zingers about Sunday School and church hopping, other times he's slipping into the very churchy language he decries to talk about salvation. It's truly a survival guide, treating Christian culture as a necessary evil, something we need to live with and not dismantle.

Sometimes he's hilarious with top ten lists and comebacks to those awkward questions eager pastors ask visitors after church. But other times he's trying too hard, listing so many stereotypes they all blur together. At one point he chastises a church's lengthy volunteer recruitment process that includes a background check. But with the recent sexual abuse controversy in the Catholic church, it seems like a no-brainer for any church to protect their children by thoroughly screening their volunteers.

The whole point is that Christianity is about more than Christian music and potluck dinners. Turner deserves an amen for that one. But where do we go from here? How do we begin to take apart this backward Christian culture? How do we avoid slipping into it? How do we attend messed up churches without giving into cynicism? Unfortunately, Turner leaves these questions unanswered.