What do you get if you combine John Bunyan's classic "The Pilgrim's Progress," "The Wizard of Oz," "The Shack," and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," committing such a project to a couple of gentlemen (or not) known for satirizing both the church and the government? Yep, it's "The Postmodern Pilgrim's Progress" by the brains of the Babylon Bee, Kyle Mann and Joel Berry.
I am giving this book 5 stars, because of its ambition and complexity and trying to make all the parts work well together. The rating has nothing to do with whether I enjoyed the book or if I thought it effectively handled its ambitious aims. My hunch is most of the readers would say it did; I didn't think so. But that's due to my taste (or, perhaps, the lack of taste of others).
I go out of my way to give limited info on the book for the purpose of avoiding spoilers, and I'm attempting to do the same here. I can give this synopsis: Ryan attended a mega-church solely because of a promise to his dying younger brother, and gets hit on the head by a falling video monitor. What follows is a long dream that takes place in seconds of real time.
The thing that took away from my enjoying the book the most was the narrator who was from a different reality. Then again, some might love that narrator.
One last comment. This book does a good job at pointing out where modern Christianity has drifted in certain practices, but Mann and Berry did not include political satire in this book. In my opinion, it's aimed more at Christians rather than an evangelistic tool.
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