87 BOOK REVIEW McKnight, Scot, and Laura Barringer. A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing. Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 2020, 222 pages. $22.99 Hardcover. A July 2024 study from Lifeway Research revealed that fewer than onethird of Americans trust the church and organized religion.1 A continual string of high-profile failures within the elite ranks of American evangelical leadership causes one to wonder if any church can escape the scrutiny of a skeptical public. Sadly, the headlines likely only represent the tip of the iceberg. Some believe that the low-profile and unreported cases may exceed the headline examples by a factor of ten, as highlighted in the Houston Chronicle’s 2019 investigation "Abuse of Faith."2 In Matthew Chapter 7, Jesus warned his disciples of the danger of wolves disguised as sheep. As his undershepherds, Jesus had charged them with protecting the flock. Today’s churches face a categorically worse situation because the wolves disguise themselves in shepherd’s clothing. Those called to guide, provide, and protect the flock are often responsible for the harm, a shocking reality that deviates far from the example of the Savior. Is there a path forward to reestablish scriptural leadership principles to guard against these abuses? McKnight and Barringer’s A Church Called Tov is a beacon of hope in this leadership crisis gripping the American evangelical church. Exploring the concept of goodness emanating from the Hebrew word tov, they propose a roadmap to reclaim the church from a culture of consumerism and the cult of personality to restore a culture of goodness that mirrors the ministry of Christ. With over 700 instances of the word tov in Scripture, the authors argue that “our Bible is the book of Tov” (86). In Part 1, Forming and Deforming a Church’s Culture, the authors thoroughly examine how a toxic church culture takes root. Illustrations guide the reader to understand the formative nature of communal church experiences and how the congregation “becomes a self-reinforcing agent of both change and conformity” (15). The congregation’s role is crucial, providing the all-important context for leadership success and failure. Each successive chapter describes how toxic church cultures respond to crises with sobering detail provided by the author’s first-person ex-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODc4ODgx