{full disclosure: To comply with federal regulations, I want to state that I received this book in return for my review. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.}

So the week leading up to Christmas, I received Chris Seay’s recent book The Gospel According to Lost; it sat in my stack of books all week. To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations for it, so I wasn’t in a hurry to read it. After being rather sick Christmas and the following day, I had down time to read. And not feeling like reading anything to substantial I reached for Chris Seay’s book.

The basic layout of the book is profiling the main characters, only at the beginning and end does he muse in general about the story the main thrusts of the plot. I was rather disappointed with this. I was hoping for some good discussion about the large sweep of the narrative. In my experience writing lit papers in college the easiest paper was the one simply about characters. So it seems, from a cynical perspective, that this book was hurriedly written to meet a press deadline to release on the tidal wave of promotion for the last season.

With that being said let me say a few positive things about it.

Laying aside all the negative things I could say about it, I think this is a great example of contexualizing the gospel via/to culture. This was done by Paul when he spoke to the Greeks of their temple to the unknown god. I think we could take this book as a model of not something to simply pass on to our non-Christian friends (which I’m sure, Thomas-Nelson Publishing is banking on), but a way of life by which to live by. We should be able to put on glasses which allow us to see everything through the lens of the gospel; so that anyone conversation can be turned upward or inward.

This became an art form for me while working at a Christian camp in college. While leading kids on backpacking trips in the Colorado mountains, we were trained to see/describe things like aspen trees or beaver damns as the interconnectivity of the Christian community or the blockage that sin causes for the flow of Holy Spirit in one’s life respectively. Those were the standards, but we loved to push things to the furthermost extent so that any random statement could be spiritualized.

I must praise Chris Seay for actually including Biblical passages. It seems many of a similar a genre of Christian pop writings will make vague corollaries without actually biblical citations. The passages are all from his The Voice translation which is actually something to praise much more than this.

On a light hearted note, it definitely helped me remember the previous seasons adding an excitement and anticipation about the coming season…just like we as Christians celebrated during Advent last month. Advent is about waiting, the anticipation of the coming messiah, as child and also as returning triumphant King—{see that’s exactly how it’s done}.

Worth buying? I have a hard time purchasing a book that I read in 5 or 6 hours. If you are a Lost fan though, you should at least look up the public library for a copy; there are some nice original iconic-style paintings of the cast members that are worth a look.