I liked Crazy Love (my review), Francis Chan’s first book. It was a challenge to live your life as if you actually believed all of that stuff that we as Christians claim. It was a good book but I did not think that it really broke much new ground.
Forgotten God is much better, much more of a long term important book. The basic premise is that many Christians are living as if the Holy Spirit did not exist. Or worse, actually do not think the Holy Spirit exists. I started this about 3 or 4 days before the Barna Group released a study on Christian’s view of the Holy Spirit. I had no idea how many people (Christians) have wrong views of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. This study was an attempt at understanding how people of different generations view the Holy Spirit so the results are by generations. Only 56% of Christians (older Christians were 64% ranging down to 38% of young Christians) believe that they “consistently allow their lives to be guided by the Holy Spirit.”
What was most disturbing is that overall 58% of self identified Christians view “the Holy Spirit as a symbol of God’s power or presence, but not a living entity.” This mean that 58% of self identified Christian reject the orthodox view of the Holy Spirit as a separate person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit has always been viewed as a co-equal and full member of the Trinity, with a separate “personhood”.
So Forgotten God is not over reaching in it title or thesis. Significant numbers of Christians really have forgotten the Holy Spirit.