How to Be a Perfect Christian: Your Comprehensive Guide to Flawless Spiritual Living

The book is written in The Babylon Bee's typical style: satirical, ironic, exaggerated. The writers' primary aim is humour, which they (successfully) achieve by overdramatizing some of the usual stereotypes associated with contemporary evangelical culture. \\r\\n\\r\\nBecause of its heavy use of irony, the book may be misunderstood by readers who aren't familiar with TBB's usual style. It achieves humour by intentionally misattributing quotes, misquoting Scripture, making borderline personal attacks (""""'Doctrine? Is that some kind of Pokemon?'-Joel Osteen"""", p. 121), and making claims that are blatantly false (e. g. , the Great Commission is a command to offend as many people as possible, p. 158). \\r\\n\\r\\nFor those who understand the writers' intentions, the book surprisingly contains a helpful message. It's roughly divided into three parts: chapter 1 concerns finding a man-centred church; chapters 2-5 are about looking like the perfect Christian; chapters 6-10 answer the question in the book's title (all ironic, of course). All this builds up to the conclusion, which explains why the """"perfect Christian life"""" described in the book is inferior to life under the true gospel--the former is essentially life according to works. But this point is also made ironically: after describing the true gospel of grace, the book concludes """"alas, it is not to be"""" (p. 192). \\r\\n\\r\\nAn excellent book overall, but I'd be careful who reads it.