Book Review-The Believer’s Guide to Legal Issues
Stephen Bloom’s new book, The Believers Guide to Legal Issues (2008, Living Ink Books), is mis-titled. While the book is very generally about legal issues, it is more of a consumer protection guide for Christians. Possibly it should have been entitled, The Legal Services Christian Consumer Guide.
The book is written in the current form of the Christian book: it is infantile and tawdry. It uses novelized short stories at the outset of every chapter to make a point, most of which are dripping with emotional resonance but distant from reality. Mr. Bloom assumed or was told that no Christian would sit and read a real book. Compare the book to Sekulow’s real book, Witnessing Their Faith. Nevertheless, Bloom’s book gives some excellent consumer protection tips to the Christian trying to navigate the legal system or deal with problems that seem legal.
Thus, and the book is RECOMMENDED for this purpose, if someone wanted to teach a Sunday School class to a group of adults of mixed ages and educational levels about legal problems Christians might face and how to deal with them, this book could be helpful to the class (although it would not do much for a teacher not already an expert in such things). The only thing missing from the book are the sentences with the blanks to fill in that seem to be the standard in most Sunday School teaching materials.
Thus, for the Christian with limited interest in reading, the Christian without formal education beyond high school, and the Christian with little experience in the business world, Bloom’s book could be very helpful.
But, Bloom’s book is NOT a Believer’s Guide to Legal Issues, except in the sense of consumer protection. Mostly, he tries to warn Christians to avoid being mesmerized by the secular legal system’s approach to problems and remember that there are alternatives, some of which are biblically recommended. While he quotes Scripture at length and does try to make certain applications, the book is simply too short and too much of an over simplification to be meaningful as any sort of actual guide. Bloom seems to assume, too, that Christians end up in legal problems because they did not pray hard enough or did not talk it all out. Bloom does not seem to recognize that in a Jeffersonian Democracy, some disputes cannot be resolved except by the legal machinery, especially those disputes with large commercial entities and institutions.
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Rod, thanks for your thoughtful review of The Believer’s Guide to Legal Issues. While I would, of course, respectfully dissent from your characterization of the book as infantile and tawdry, you do offer some intriguing perspectives.
Titling the book was one of the more challenging aspects of the project and your alternative title is a good one.
And you’ve correctly pegged my goal of writing in a style accessible and engaging for non-lawyers. Obviously, you feel I’ve gone too far in my efforts to simplify, but I do find some measure of comfort in your reaction, as an affirmation that I successfully avoided writing a book of dull legalese.
In my practice and church work, I’ve found most people’s tolerance for complex legal discussion to be quite low. The reality I’ve come to recognize is that people just want to get to the heart of the matter. So that’s what I’ve tried to do. And I’m already receiving encouraging responses from readers who’ve been helped by the book, regular Christian folks, the primary audience I’m striving to reach.
And yes, I agree there are some systemic challenges I did not address in the book, like the complex commercial and institutional disputes you deal with every day in your practice. There is much work to be done in ascertaining and communicating appropriate Christian responses to these sorts of situations. Perhaps you will be the one to write that book!
As a brother in Christ, I appreciate the opportunity to dialogue with you. Peace and blessings in your work and ministry.
Stephen Bloom, author of The Believer’s Guide to Legal Issues
Thanks for your comments Mr. Bloom. Just to make sure there is no confusion, we have amended our review to make it clear we are recommending the book, possibly for one of the very purposes for which it was written.