Fan vs Follower! The theme question of the book Not a Fan is whether we are truly followers of Christ or just fans. A true follower is what Jesus wants us to be, but many of us fall short and are in the “fan” category. Throughout the book, symptoms of fans are described, along with traits of true followers.
I like the premise of this book, the understanding that following Christ is not a shallow addition to our lives, but actually a different life, of denial, of death to ourselves. There were several parts of the book that I didn’t love, such as hints that making our children obey and follow Biblical guidelines is setting them up for a lifetime of fandom rather than true following. I really don’t agree with that—the “Train up a child in the way he should go. . .”verse in Proverbs tells parents they should do this. I DO agree that just following the “rules” isn’t the fullness of following Christ, but it is a good place to start with our children, definitely followed by the teaching of the necessity of the personal relationship of a disciple. I certainly appreciated that the points Idleman made in the book were backed up with Scripture. This isn’t just a man’s opinion or thoughts, it is the teaching of Christ.
The book was a pleasant read, filled with cultural references (and some just plain silliness!) from today. That doesn’t speak well to a long-lasting, “classic”, but who knows, maybe the content will prevail and the cultural references will be overlooked or seen as cute comments fifty years down the road.
All in all, it was a good read. Challenging, thought provoking, and even action/attitude altering!
I received a free copy of Not a Fan from Zondervan books as a part of its blogger review program. Thank you Zondervan!
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