I reached the halfway point of the book. After reading the first paragraph of each new chapter, I think to myself, “Crap. This is going to be good and it’s going to hurt all at the same time. These are my thoughts and passages I liked so far in paraphrase:
- Â missional: ‘Remember, in a pluralistic world, a religion is valued based on the benefits it brings to its non-adherents,’ claiming the first half of God’s promise to Abraham without the second is ludicrous, blessed in this life to be a blessing to everyone on earth.
- evangelical: better with the small e, the good things are not oft remembered about Evangelicals, if anyone can bring passion, it is the evangelicals.
- post/protestant: so much history in this chapter, more protesting than i could handle, love the idea of pro-testifying, we realize that (a) we aren’t superior to one another, and (b) we ave a lot to learn from the very people we’ve been protesting and defending against. He goes even further to say that we can come together searching for what we are for, something nearly everyone forgets. This is life giving. It’s good stuff.
- liberal/conservative: i’ve considered God as associated with no political party since college, where i realized that republicans were far from the ‘chosen’ people in general. he says both liberals and conservatives are stymied, but in different places and in different ways. i couldn’t agree more. i really wish there was a place between current polarization. plus, questioning the biblical interpretations offered by one or the other side is too critical to let go.
- mystic/poet: pascal is music. imagination does not breed insanity, but reason does. knowing truth in ways that are heard, felt, and sung. i crave it. best line thus far: What is needed… is a new kind of preaching, preaching that opens out the good news of the gospel with alternative modes of speech, that is dramatic, artistic, capable of inviting persons to join in another conversation, free of the reason of technique, unencumbered by ontologies that grow abstract, unembarrassed about concreteness. (the kicker) reduced speech leads to reduced lives. (credit Walter Brueggemann, Finally Comes The Poet for most of this)
- biblical: old testament as narrative is the best possible way to see into God’s heart for people. it’s brilliant.
Probably the toughest thing for me to wrestle with was in the chapter “Jesus: Savior of What?” It deals with the self- and hell-centered approach to salvation, which does a lot for what happened at one point, and what will happen when I die, but has nothing to do with Jesus as Lord. It really doesn’t. If there were just one chapter I could read over and over from this book, this would be it. I highly recommend it. I’ll leave you with this: “Jesus needs to be saved from Christians who have slimmed him down or fattened him up or otherwise converted him into our own image. Can we trust Jesus to save himself from the mess we’ve made of his name, and in so doing, save Christianity? If not, there is no orthodoxy to be generous about.”
