HAPPILY EVER AFTER
By Jonty Allcock
The Good Book Company. 63 pages. £2.99
ISBN 978 1 784 984 717
This short book takes a look at our natural desire for a happy ending and how, by being connected to Christ, this happy ending can be found.
Taking an interesting angle of a ‘Friday ending’ versus a ‘Sunday ending’ from the salvation story, it challenges readers to face their mortality.
‘The great question of life is not “Will it end?” (We know it will.) But will it have a good ending or a bad one, a sad ending or a happy ending?’
The usual longings for something better, be that through escapism or hard work, are presented. Their elusiveness is acknowledged. The brevity of success is countered by the Bible’s certain end to disappointment and frustration: an end to end all ends. Using language designed to resonate with a post-Christian audience in a therapeutic culture, the idea of ‘connection’ with Jesus is explored.
Substitutionary atonement is explained well, as is the Christian’s unity in Christ (Jesus’ ‘Sunday can become our Sunday’). But there is one reservation – the book’s own ending. In the final chapter, John 5 is quoted. Here Allcock explains that one is connected to Christ by hearing. ‘There isn’t a ritual to perform or a test to pass.’ Likewise, on the final page, the suggested ‘connecting prayer’, calls the non-Christian to hear and to believe.
In the Gospels, however, Jesus declares that connection with Him comes (not only when one hears and believes) but when one repents and believes (Mark 1:15).
It is not that any aspect of repentance is missing entirely from the book, but Christianity extends beyond both ‘I’m sorry I’ve broken the connection’ and a desire to have what reads almost as a ‘Sunday ending’ insurance policy.
It’s not that every aspect of salvation must be covered in depth in every evangelistic book or sermon. But on this occasion, it seemed that the connection between being a sinner and being saved was a little loose.
