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The God Chasers and The Pursuit of God

The God Chasers
by Tommy Tenney

Pursuit of God
A.W. Tozer

Tommy Tenney's book, The God Chasers: My Soul Follows Hard After Thee, has become an international phenomenon since its 1999 publication. Tenney encourages his reader to become a "God chaser," a person "whose passion for God's presence presses him to chase the impossible in hopes that the uncatchable might catch him." The book is written with great passion . . . and carelessness.

The God Chasers errs in many ways, but two particularly disturb me. First, it teaches that the Bible is an old, "moldy," and insufficient revelation of God. Tenney says in the book's introduction that he (like all true "God chasers") is no longer satisfied with "past Truth" (by this he means the Bible); he craves "present Truth" (by this he means an experiential, emotional manifestation of God's presence). He repeatedly avows that he loves the Bible and does not intend to demean it, but he doth protest too much. The central effect of Tenney's teaching is to steer readers away from finding God in and through his Word, urging them instead to leave the "stale" pages of God's Word behind in order to experience him afresh. This is not merely regrettable; it's heretical.

The second major error Tenney commits is to encourage the reader to chase not after God but after a certain kind of experience. The pursuit he promotes is a pursuit of the sensational, "manifest presence" of God-an "out of control revival" (p.71). He looks for God in the whirlwind, in the earthquake, and in the fire, but not in the "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). In Tenney's mind, if God isn't splitting podiums and performing other spectacular manifestations, He is not present enough.

By contrast, A.W. Tozer, in his classic The Pursuit of God, says, "I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. The prophets habitually said, 'Thus saith the Lord.' They meant their hearers to understand that God's speaking is in the continuous present. We may use the past tense properly to indicate that at a certain time a certain word of God was spoken, but a word of God once spoken continues to be spoken. . . . If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God" (pp. 82-83).

And, far from suggesting the pursuit of fleeting and dramatic experiences, Tozer writes that we "need no longer fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every minute of every day" (pp. 36-37).

In startling contrast to The God Chasers, Tozer's book is an acknowledged classic for good reason. Those who would truly follow hard after God will recognize truth-past and present-in The Pursuit of God, because Tozer's writing is not only artful, precise, passionate, and moving…it is also solidly Biblical.

posted 06/22/2002
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