The Gospel According to LOST by Chris Seay

In a few days the premiere of the 6th and final season of LOST will hit the air waves and as if there wasn’t enough to think about during the show, after reading The Gospel According to LOST there will more to think about. I’d always heard people talking about the spiritual implications that this show has, but never really thought too much about it. Chris Seay takes us into the world of some of our favorite and maybe not-so-favorite characters on the island including Hurley, Sayid Jarrah, Kate Austen, James “Sawyer” Ford, Jack Shephard, Eko, John Locke, Sun and Jin, Benjamin Linus, Jacob, Desmond Hume and Penelope Widmore, and Daniel Faraday. We get a look into their characters and what they had to deal with in their life, on and away from the island, their struggles with each other and with what they believe. Chris Seay says this on the back cover of the book:

Inside you’ll discover what LOST has to say about

• the clash between faith and reason, on the island and in real life;
• the struggle with guilt that consumes each character – and sometimes us too;
• the dichotomy between fatalism and fate, and what the Bible advises;
• how being lost – on an island or in society – presents and opportunity for reinvention that liberates some and paralyzes others.

I believe the metaphors that are found in this book between the characters, the island, the show and faith are best summarized in the chapter dealing with Desmond and Penelope, the ultimate display of love between two characters but also between God and those He created. These are two characters that you would never imagine to be together. They come from two very different walks of life yet somehow end up together. Even though things got messed up between them, they never stopped loving each other. There was forgiveness in a broken relationship and eventually they found their way back to each other. We have messed up in our relationship with God through our own sinful nature, but God’s unconditional love never stops pursuing us. Because of Christ’s work on the cross and through His blood we can have forgiveness and a personal and intimate relationship with the Creator of the whole world. Chris Seay best says it in that chapter, “No matter what we’ve done, it’s never too late – because in His perfect love there is always forgiveness.”

Special thanks to Thomas Nelson and BookSneeze for providing this complimentary book to read and review.