I just finished reading
Rob Bell’s
new book,
Jesus Wants
to Save Christians.
It’s a manifesto
for the Church
in exile.
It was really good.
Challenging,
and inspiring.
(You would have to have read some of Rob’s other books to get what I just did above.) Anyway, yesterday I read Rob’s newest book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians. It’s a ‘manifesto for the church in exile’ written by Bell co-authored with Don Golden, senior vice president of church engagement at World Relief.
No matter where I land on the “is Rob Bell a heretic?” argument, I still think he’s a brilliant storyteller and he challenges me and my faith.
I read this book in about two hours, but I’ve spent the last 24 thinking really long and hard about how to blog a ‘review’ of it.
This book, in my opinion, is a primer on social justice. It’s a call to the Church to wake up and see our current reality and the needs around us on a global scale. Justice is a hot issue right now… from the ONE campaign to Invisible Children. But, while all those things are good, the reality is the Church should be the ones leading the way. Christ commanded us to care for the orphans, the widows and the refugees. Justice and the call to serve the needy is nothing new, it’s just that people are finally waking up to see there’s a big world out there that is in great need.
This book has some strong things to say about the Church in America… here’s a few quotes that stood out to me:
- A Christian should get very nervous when the flag and the Bible start holding hands. This is not a romance we want to encourage.
- For a growing number of people in our world, it appears that many Christians support some of the very things Jesus came to set people free from.
- God cares about the suffering of the world and will not allow the indifference of his people to stand in the way of his plans to relieve that suffering.
- It’s possible to be with Jesus every day and yet miss who He truly is and where we really are.
- In empire of indifference (America), as it becomes harder and harder to understand the perspective of others, it becomes easier and easier to confuse blessing with entitlement.
- It is very dangerous when a church becomes known for being hip, cool and trendy.
- A church is not a center for religious goods and services, where people pay a fee and receive a product in return. A church is not an organization that surveys its demographic to find out what the market is demanding at this particular moment and then adjusts its strategy to meet that consumer niche. The way of Jesus is the path of descent. It’s about our death. It’s our willingness to join the world in its suffering… it’s our weakness calling out to others in their weakness. To turn that into a product blasphemes the Eucharist.
- The gathering of the church, in a service or worship or teaching setting, is to remind, instruct, and inspire people about being the body of Christ for the worlds they find themselves in.
- The authority that the church has in culture does not come from how right, cool, or loud it is, or how convinced it is of its doctrinal superiority. A church’s authority comes from somewhere else – it comes from how we’ve been broken and open and poured out, not from how well we’ve pursued power and lobbied and organized ourselves to triumph.
- A church is an organization that exists for the benefit of nonmembers.
- If our church was taken away – from our city, our neighborhood, our region – who would protest?
- Jesus wants to save our church from the exile of indifference.
Using the story of the Israelites from the Old Testament, Rob compares their journey to the journey of the Church in the USA. The Israelites, having seen God work the miraculous in setting them free from their slavery in Egypt and having an open invitation to meet with God at Sinai turned their blessing in the Promised Land into an empire that enslaved and caused oppression. God raised up many prophets to warn them of their actions but they turned a deaf ear to those cries and to the cries of those they oppressed and in the end their empire was crushed and they were sent into exile. (That’s my Cliff’s note summary of about five chapters.)
They basically say America is that empire and that the Church in America is in exile. They also call us out on the fact that American’s self-indulgent lifestyle is causing the oppression of poor people around the world.
They plead a really strong case and present some startling statistics and rationale for why we’re so blind to see it. I was definitely challenged and convicted (especially as I was sitting in Starbucks drinking my second $3.50 latte listening to my iPod)… and think that what they had to say (for the most part) was true.
They hit all of the controversial topics: the war in Iraq, oil, SUVs, environmentalism, the war on terror, homeland security, mega-churches, politics… you name it, it’s in there.
When I finished reading the book I felt like it was lacking something. Everything they said was good, and the case they presented was very strong but there was no particular call to action or “where we go from here” type of thing. And maybe that was the point. Maybe we just need to go out and change the world and live our lives differently. But there was no clear-cut path set to follow. There were no stories (which Rob usually has in his other books) to illustrate and show us people who are doing what they say we should be doing. There were no examples of stories of churches that are being and doing the things they say the Church should be doing.
But regardless, I understand more clearly now that we, the Church, are part of God’s plan to bring justice, healing and hope to our broken world. We have more than enough and have the resources and ability to bring rescue to the orphans, the widows, the refugees… and we must act.
What that looks like, I’m not sure, but I know we have to do something…
Otherwise,
we
could
be
with
Jesus
every day
and yet miss
who He truly is
and
where we really are.
