I received the following email note yesterday from “M”:
Greetings. This weekend I was exposed to "Grace Walk" by an excited friend. Although I understood her joy over allowing herself to be free from her self-imposed burden of pleasing others, I was shocked at her excitement about destroying spiritual disciplines. I have logged several hours of research on this book this weekend. I have read several chapters and have pondered the poison that is mingled with truth. Finally, I searched for reviews. Yours was the first that I found. Actually the copy that I read was someone else carelessly reviewing your review. I wanted to thank you for your efforts. No new information for me...but it was very refreshing to read a kind, logical, Biblical review. I have also read some material from Grace-Walk-followers. Apparently this life-style produces anger, slander and a free-flowing tongue. I believe your review was a few years old, but I want you to know that your solid words are still comforting. It's all about Him. Thank you for serving me by serving Him.
I wrote that review for The Evangelical Forum Newsletter (now The Reformed Baptist Trumpet) back in 2004 when Steve McVey was invited to speak at the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV, the moderate Southern Baptist state association) annual meeting. The review was then posted online. I have received more online feedback from that review than just about anything that I have written. A handful of those have been negative, attacking me for the review. Most have been positive, either from people who had gotten caught up with the Grace Walk philosophy and who then realized it was unbiblical, or from people (like "M" above) who were trying to minister to friends (or churches) that had adopted the GraceWalk mindset.
When I made the transition from my former church to my present one in 2009, the review was taken offline. Despite that, rarely does a month (or even a few weeks) go by that I do not hear from someone who found and read the review somewhere online. I have now reposted it to my GoogleDocs book review page. You can read it here.
Blessings, JTR
2 comments:
Good day Jeff, I recently found out there is a rift between my parents and my grandparents around McVey/Grace Walk. I know nothing about it, and am looking to understand what this is all about. I have had difficulty finding any reviews (let alone Reformed reviews) speaking against Grace Walk. I tried your links here for your review, but they seem to be broken. Would you be able to supply your review to me?
Anon,
Thanks for pointing this out to me. Yes, I removed the book reviews from google docs and put a good number of them on my academia.edu page, but I don't think the GraceWalk review has been posted there yet. I will try to post the review there at some point. Till then, if you send an email to the Christ Reformed BC email account (find it at the church website) I'll send you a pdf.
Blessings, JTR
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