throwing rocks
The title, Grass Doesn't Work...the Rocks Do!, is taken from a short anecdote at the beginning of the book.  An old man trying to get a boy to stop stealing his apples realizes that talking or throwing grass at him doesn't work, but hitting him with rocks gets his point across.  Bradlee Dean takes this analogy and applies it to america and christianity, decrying an overemphasis on God's love without an equal emphasis on God's wrath and hatred of sin.  This book is Dean's equivalent of throwing rocks in his attempt to wake people up to the fact that everyone is a sinner deserving of hell, and therefore desperately needs to accept Jesus' payment for sin on the cross.<br /><br />This book is written at a very popular level, a "street ministry" level, which Dean is involved with (from what I can gather).  You won't find any intricate philosophical arguments, or detailed apologetics; his emphasis is conviction of sin.<br /><br />He covers everything from alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity, to evolution, television, and government corruption.  He actually prints out the articles of amendment to the constitution in the back of the book, in his section covering his views of limited government.<br /><br />I can't say that Dean is a great writer, or that the book flows smoothly.  His practice of embedding the definitions of difficult words right in the text (with parentheses) was annoying to me.  He basically just hops around from one topic to the next, telling short stories and making analogies to drive home his points.  However, he also puts a ton of scripture in his book too, even to the extent of entire chapters at times.<br /><br />I can see how this book could be really helpful to certain individuals, and how Dean could use this profitably in his ministry.  There was nothing I disagreed with in the book, but nothing that stuck out to me as eye-opening or profound, although I did enjoy reading the amount of scripture that he included, which is always profitable.
Rating: 4 stars