Should I ‘LIKE’ Max Lucado?
Recently I received an invitation via FACEBOOK to ‘LIKE’ the Facebook site of Max Lucado. In response to the invitee I wrote the following –
Dear xxxx,
I see that you have invited me to ‘LIKE’ Max Lucado. Mr Lucado is someone that I have mentioned on a couple of occasions in my writings over the years. On this link under a heading of ‘Alf McCreary and Christian Integrity’ I wrote these words – “Whilst reading Pastor John MacArthur’s devotional thoughts for 1 June in his book ‘Strength For Today’ I was forcibly struck and challenged by these words ‘Christian integrity has been defined as the absence of compromise and the presence of biblical convictions’… As I thought in particular of those words ‘the absence of compromise and the presence of biblical convictions’ I thought of many so-called ‘evangelicals’ like J I Packer, Bill Bright, Os Guinness, Max Lucado, Charles Colson and others who in recent years have signed away any Christian integrity they might have had by putting their names to the various ‘Evangelical and Catholics Together’ documents; In the case of Mr Lucado he was a signatory to the second ‘Evangelicals and Catholics Together’ document entitled ‘The Gift of Salvation’
By going to the following link you can read the actual document itself and see who the signatories were and also read a good critique of the document by my good friend, former Roman Catholic, Rob Zins. The link is http://www.cwrc-rz.org/gs.html I also mentioned Mr Lucado in a piece I wrote not long after that agreement was signed and you can see what I said by going to https://www.takeheed.info/news-from-the-front-feburary-1998/ and reading the section headed ‘Accelerating Apostasy’.
In addition Mr Lucado for many hears had denominational links with ‘The Church of Christ’ who teach the necessity of baptism for salvation and in a booklet I read that was written by Mr Lucado on the issue he was very ambiguous in his phraseology as to where precisely he stood on the matter.
There is a helpful article detailing the ‘ecumenical’ and ‘baptismal’ matters of concern and it is located on
http://www.greatpreachers.org/max_lucado.html
As well as his ‘ecumenical’ tendencies he also has ‘mystical leanings’ and you can read about those in a short review of his book ‘Cure for the Common Life’ located on
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=177
xxxx, I hope these comments will be helpful and that you will have a rethink about Max Lucado.
With all good wishes in Christ
Cecil Andrews
In a follow-up reply to a response from the invitee I also wrote the following –
You wrote quite rightly of “helping to share the gospel and win souls to Christ.” The problem with Mr Lucado is that he puts himself squarely ‘in the ecumenical camp’ with those who preach ‘another gospel’ (Roman Catholicism). He sides with those who teach that baptism is necessary for salvation (Church of Christ) and he recommends those who have and do promote and practice ‘Catholic mysticism’ in the form of ‘contemplative prayer’.
Many years ago I read some of his writings and he certainly has a ‘flowery’ grasp of the English language but the problem is he that adds (often unscripturally and speculatively) to the Word of God by some of his ‘eloquent embellishments’.
Another critique of Mr. Lucado that contains useful information is located on – http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/lucado/lucado.htm
PS In directing readers to this article I should add that I do not agree with every critique posted on this particular web site but they often contain helpful factual information
Some helpful critiques written by Pastor Gary Gilley of a few books written by Mr. Lucado can be accessed on
http://www.svchapel.org/resources/book-reviews/4-christian-living/167-the-316-promise-by-max-lucado
You will see that Gary Gilley identifies that any ‘good’ in these books is nullified by Mr Lucado’s aberrant theology and overuse of what I referred to earlier as flowery’ language.
Another book review by Gary Gilley on ‘The Ragamuffin Gospel’ by Brennan Manning is located on
Gary Gilley ends with these words – “we have a book that makes some good points, especially about God’s grace, but distorts so much about God and truth as to render it worse than useless—it is downright dangerous”. Earlier in this review we also read these words – “The Ragamuffin Gospel is praised and endorsed by Michael W. Smith, Rich Mullins, MAX LUCADO, Eugene Peterson and Philip Yancy.
These then were some of the reasons I declined to ‘LIKE’ Max Lucado.
Cecil Andrews – 5 February 2014