Mario Murillo

Evangelist Murillo's central thesis: the "cool" church of "big screens, skinny jeans, and fog machines" has played the role of an inoffensive feel-good pill-dispenser instead of Surgeon. While the current "seeker-friendly" paradigm has swollen its ranks, it's been a numbers game of quantity over quality, and all at the expense of truly transformative social impact. I didn't see any direct treatment of "demonic spells" pe se in his book, so the title might be a little misleading.

Overall, the book frames a powerful message to mega-churches to return to an authentic spirit-fueled eccesiology as demonstrated in the Book of Acts. Do that, or, despite the worldly signs of success, continue to effectively fade into irrelevance. The message is not likely to appeal to the "traditional" liturgical churches, but rather for those with an immanent and urgent eschatology. While Murillo's views are framed by the American experience, I'm not sure his criticisms can be leveled equally at Pentecostal churches at, say, in Brazil, Australia & etc. Touché, though; American ecclesial trends tend to become broadly adopted elsewhere, so I'd judge his book as clarion cry to the church universal.

Vessels of Fire and Glory is an easily read book, but quite thought-provoking nonetheless. Overall, I highly recommended this book for Christians who aren't entirely sure why it is that they're fed up with politically correct and/or singalong churches where people "come as [they] are and leave just the same." I strongly suspect that Murillo's book will both clarify the reasons for their inchoate dissatisfaction and whet their appetite for authentic Spirit-uality.… (mer)