"The Gospel According to Lost" by Chris Seay

The Gospel According to Lost

by Chris Seay

Snack of choice:
Tortilla chips, cheese, salsa, sour cream…. Oooh yeah…

Story behind the story:
I recently signed up with Thomas Nelson for some free books as long as I reviewed them. Being the book collector that I am, I couldn’t refuse. This is my first book from the publisher.

Story Line:
*Sigh* - You would think this book would be about two things… Lost (the ingenious ABC contribution to pop culture) and the Gospel (the good news of Christ’s sacrifice). Well… it was about Lost…

The author focused on characters and how they relate to a “walk of faith”.


The Real Story:
Lost is great TV on so many levels. I love hearing references, ideas, philosophies, that have their root in Scriptural (Biblical) thought. But I never really had the time to think about the extended implications and deeper meanings. I took it at face value – enjoyed it and moved on. “The Gospel According to Lost” was going to be my cheat sheet. These Cliff’s Notes were going to remind me of those “spiritual” moments in Lost and deepen my appreciation for its inclusion in the show. It wasn’t.

I don’t know if I missed it or what.

The shocker to me was that the lack of the Gospel. The central message of all of Scripture – God loves us; We’ve separated ourselves from God; Jesus, being God, entered the world to bridge that gap and give us abundant life now and in eternity; He accomplished this through His death and powerful resurrection – was absent? There were a couple of muffled voices of truth toward the end of the book, but it was the kind of muffled like a man locked in a cellar with his hands tied behind his back and tape over a mouth stuffed with an old sock kind of muffled.

Even when he spoke of Christ, I got an eerie feeling that he and I would not agree on our Christology.

Here’s what we do agree on. I do see that the writers of Lost are on a journey of faith. They may not know it, and they may never finish it (I have no idea), but they are hearing the voice of God and it’s coming out in their work. This book helped me to appreciate that fact.


Check out:
"Just Like Jesus" by Max Lucado,
"The Jesus Chronicles: Mark’s Story” by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
and as a “Gospel” alternative try any of the Four.

Rating:
2 out of 5 “Losties”…. the rest went to see Peter Pan.