Book Review: Your Jesus Is Too Safe

When I heard Jared Wilson was hosting a blog tour to launch his new book Your Jesus Is Too Safe, I didn't waste any time getting in line. I've been reading Jared's blog The Gospel-Driven Church for some time, have found it edifying and insightful, and was looking forward to what Jared would have to say in a book--especially a whole book about Jesus.

The sufficiency, supremacy, and beauty of Jesus have been gradually becoming more solidified in my thinking over the past few years. I think it's important for us to regularly reaffirm the goodness of God and the centrality of the person of Christ. Christianity is not primarily a set of beliefs about things. Christianity is Jesus.

Enter Your Jesus Is Too Safe. Perhaps it's my classical bias and my taste for mystics and poets, but I found the book rather unpolished. There are multitudinous pop-culture references, and, in my opinion, too much humor for a book of this nature. Humor is obviously a powerful communication tool, and Jared is of course at liberty to use as much or as little as he wants, but similar to another reviewer on the tour, I feel it was overused. And, please, easy on the obvious rhetorical questions!

That said, Jared does an excellent job at collecting and unpacking a lot of solid teaching on Christ and making it accessible to the average reader. The book is sub-titled "Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel-Good Savior" and that serves as the central theme in Wilson's approach. Jared takes twelve angles on Jesus in twelve chapters exploring Jesus as Promise, Prophet, Forgiver, Man, Shepherd, Judge, Redeemer, King, Sacrifice, Provision, Lord, and Savior.

One part of the book that was particularly good was the chapter on Jesus the King and the emphasis on the kingdom come/ing. I like it when Christians take the kingdom seriously, because if we don't take it seriously, the world never will, and we will have failed our task. Jared's writing about the kingdom is forceful and direct--just what is needed today.

We are too used to living as if the church were a subculture, filling a niche in society, when instead we ought to be living as a countercultural force against society as a whole. (184)

The kingdom comes in and smashes up worldviews and systems, and tears apart the bondage created by sin and Satan. (179)

Some may argue that Jesus was only foretelling the kingdom's arrival, not really heralding its arrival in himself, suggesting that when he said the kingdom was at hand, he only meant it would come someday soon. This is a bit like saying the light at dawn isn't really sunlight. (181)

Bravo.

If you don't read a lot and you're looking for a light and accessible introduction to who Jesus was/is, this would be a good book. If you're looking for something deeper, more nuanced and winsome, you may want to look elsewhere.

Thank you Jared and Kregel Publications for the opportunity to participate in this tour.

To read other reviews from the blog-tour visit: Your Jesus is Too Safe Blog Tour

Standing Up For Nothing

I can't stop staring at myself
My face reflected in this empty plate
I can't decide if it's the devil
Or if it's just something I ate
'Cause he's been down there all morning
He's patiently waiting at my gate
He's throwing rocks at my window
"Hey won't you come on out and play with me"

Every day when I get up
I see folks trading in their crowns
For all these paper or plastic lives
An opiate for the masses' hounds
And pride like a vestige of lives lost
The stench of the old folks coming around
Now with the news I heard today
I can't tell if this world is lost or found

You go, I'll be waiting here
And I'm awake, no I cannot sleep
So I'll sit upon this rock is you
I ain't standing up for nothing

I've never seen my congressman
But I can't deny that he exists
'Cause I've seen his legislation pass
I've seen his name on the ballot list
The same I can't deny this fallen world
Though not my home it's where I live
How can I preserve and light the way
For a world that I can't admit I'm in

'Cause I know who I say you are
But these crows can't be made to stop
So I'll sit denying by this fire
I ain't standing up for nothing

Lack of interest leads to
Lack of knowledge leads to
Lack of perspective leads to
Lack of communication leads to
Lack of understanding leads to
Lack of concern leads to
This complacency denotes
This approval denies
The truth

But I can't stop staring at myself
It's my face reflected in this empty plate
And I know that it's the devil...

So you lead, I'll be close behind
So you speak, I'll hang on your words
You've got to lift me from this hardened tree
'Cause I ain't standing up for nothing

Nothing

-Caedmon's Call, "Standing Up For Nothing"

What Do We Do Now?

Note: What I'm writing about today concerns a specific set of people. This set of people includes many who read this blog, but it may not include you. If it doesn't include you, what I have to say won't apply and may not even make sense.

Both from my own observations and from conversations with friends, I believe many conservative Christian families are facing a generational dead end. What I mean is that young people who have grown up "in the faith" are not translating that faith to adulthood. Either they don't know how, they don't see the point of making the effort, or they simply don't realize there's something missing.

There are several reasons I see for this situation. First, there is a set of expectations - a status quo - that exists in some Christian circles quite independent of any spiritual reality. This is dangerous. As long as you do the right things and look a certain way and speak a certain vernacular, you can fit in. The name of the game is conformity and good behavior, and it's not that hard to catch on to the charade and the accompanying lingo. What this means is a lot of chaff in the wheat, a dilution of the Gospel, and a general lukewarmedness.

Second, I think our conservative Christian circles have become altogether too isolated and clique-ish. The practical effect of this is to blur the picture of what constitutes "mere" Christianity. The Gospel is no longer stark and stunning; it begins to have all sorts of things attached to it. Certain trivial externals like wearing dresses or reading the King James or not drinking alcohol or not listening to rock music are integrated into Christianity as de facto doctrines. They don't belong there. Those are subjective personal convictions, and if you preach them as Gospel, you're working against the kingdom in two ways:

1) You're giving nonbelievers the impression that the Gospel is primarily about morality.
2) You're giving nominal Christians the impression that they are saved as long as they abide by "the list."

Both are grave distortions of what Jesus is really about.

So, we have this sub-culture that we thought was a good thing that is turning out to have some rather disturbing repercussions.

What do we do now?

I presume it's an unnecessary disclaimer to say that I don't know the answers. At most I may have some useful thoughts to contribute to the discussion. In the end, this takes all of us.

To begin remedying the first problem, it's imperative that we create in our communities the sort of atmosphere where the real thing can't be faked. What would a community like this look like? I submit it would consist of people who see the difference between trees bearing spiritual fruit and trees that merely look nice. Lots of trees look nice, but there's nothing to eat on them. "Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, whatever is born of the spirit is spirit." You can't fake that.

To address the second problem, we need a less complicated understanding of the Gospel, a broader experience of Church, and a bigger context for God. We need to see firsthand how God works in other believers of other nations and cultures and backgrounds who are very different from us. We need to rediscover a sense of the Gospel being especially for people who don't have it all together, and to recognize that that includes us. We need to acknowledge that we aren't in any way better or more holy than Christians who have tattoos and watch R-rated movies and read The Message. We're all the same. To those who think themselves superior, Jesus has this to say: "The tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you." As this realization of our common plight soaks in, we may just become more like Christ and less like little Pharisees.

For us young people, we have our own uncomfortable confessions to make. We need to repent of a spirit of apathy. We need to acknowledge that we say a lot of things that have no real meaning to us. We need to recognize that we haven't taken responsibility and instead have freeloaded on our parents' spiritual initiative. We need to admit that we really aren't any better than the so-called "worldly Church" or "institutional Church." We're messed up. We need Jesus. And we need to start at the same place as everyone else: completely bankrupt, totally dependent on the cross and the blood and the reality of the empty tomb.

This is a tough transition, and there's no formula or guide book for negotiating it. We need to strip down our rhetoric and start rebuilding a meaningful phraseology on solid and simple foundations. We need to take ownership of our own "pursuit of God" and take seriously our commission of communicating Life to the world, not to some vague group of people who are "the lost", but to our generation, right here, right now. Keith Green said each generation of Christians is responsible for that generation of people. Have we realized this task is ours? What are we doing about it?

Make no mistake: I'm asking these same questions of myself, and many days I don't know exactly where I stand. But I'm learning to rely on Him who is able to make me stand (Romans 14:4) and keep me from falling (Jude 24).

I conclude with this admonition from Galatians, and I pray that we have ears to hear.

For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.

-Galatians 6:3-5

Image courtesy of bigyellowtaxi.files.wordpress.com

Hite Cove

The Grand Miracle

The story of the Incarnation is the story of a descent and resurrection. When I say 'resurrection' here, I am not referring simply to the first few hours, or the first few weeks of the Resurrection. I am talking of this whole, huge pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again. What we ordinarily call the Resurrection being just, so to speak, the point at which it turns.

Think what that descent is. The coming down, not only into humanity, but into those nine months which precede human birth, in which they tell us we all recapitulate strange pre-human, sub-human forms of life, and going lower still into being a corpse, a thing which, if this ascending movement had not begun, would presently have passed out of the organic altogether, and have gone back into the inorganic, as all corpses do.

One has a picture of someone going right down and dredging the sea-bottom. One has a picture of a strong man trying to life a very big, complicated burden. He stoops down and gets himself right under it so that he himself disappears; and then he straightens his back and moves off with the whole thing swaying on his shoulders. Or else one has the picture of a diver, stripping off garment after garment, making himself naked, then flashing for a moment in the air, and then down through the green, and warm, and sunlit water into the pitch black, cold, freezing water, down into the mud and slime, then up again, his lungs almost bursting, back again to the green and warm and sunlit water, and then at last out into the sunshine, holding in his hand the dripping thing he went down to get. This thing is human nature; but, associated with it, all nature, the new universe...

A man really ought to say, 'The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago' in the same spirit in which he says, 'I saw a crocus yesterday.' Because we know what is coming behind the crocus. The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned.

-C. S. Lewis

Trees, Fruit, and Work That Endures

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

1 Corinthians 3:11-13

The foundation of salvation is Christ. There is no other name given under heaven. Every disciple must enter at the same gate and begin at the same place.

Salvation is not just something that happened to you once-upon-a-time. Of course, it is that too, but it's also an ongoing process, incremental and cumulative. Some people say "I was saved" as if that settled the matter. We don't even treat ice cream that way. If you tried ice cream once when you were eight, would you be satisfied for life? I doubt it.

The question is not "Were you saved?" but "Are you saved today?" Salvation is a foundation, yes, but it is also what we build on that foundation. (Phillipians 2:12) It's pursuing the likeness of God daily, taking up your cross, building with gold and silver and precious stones.

We can't just "know what we believe" and do the Christian thing to satisfy the status quo. That's wood and hay and stubble, and it's going to burn up. What we need is a vital awareness of God's love, God's holiness, and God's will, to empower us everyday to live sacramental lives of worship.

But wait: this sounds awfully like doing "works." We can't do "works", because we believe in "grace", and "works" and "grace" are not compatible.

Really?

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

James 2:14, 17

There is no such thing as faith without works. It's like marriage without love or the ocean without water. We need to get our faith into our lives somehow. We need a faith that is lived forward, not analyzed, because sometimes what we think is analysis may actually be nothing more than an autopsy.

This brings us to another realization, which is that the whole debate about faith and works is a mirage. If we couch the question in terms of whether we are saved by grace or works, we will succeed splendidly in spinning our minds in circles, but I don't think we will find many helpful answers.

It isn't our good works that make us Christians - it's our good works that show that we are Christians. (John 13:35) Our good works do not establish or create our Christian identity, they only validate it. Indeed, they must.

You will recognize [false prophets] by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

Matthew 7:16-20

For a tree to produce good fruit does not make it a good tree, it merely shows that it is a good tree. Similarly, the good works we fulfill (Ephesians 2:10) do not make us righteous, they simply show that we are righteous. And that righteousness, though it must and will produce good works, can only have its beginning in grace. (Ephesians 2:8)

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. Amen.

All scripture quotations from the ESV

Image courtesy of fwco.com

A Forum for Hope

Exclusive Oakhurst news preview! The article below will run in the Sierra Star next Thursday, covering the Town Hall For Hope event being hosted in Bass Lake.

Over the last few months, there's been a lot of talk about the economy. Everyone has something to say: investors, politicians, business owners, and taxpayers. Despite the wide variety of theories and opinions being expressed, all of this talk has one thing in common.

It's all negative.

Layoffs and deficits and business failures dominate the headlines, but there's no reason they need to dominate your mind. If you're tired of the pessimism and ready for something different, you're not alone.

On Thursday, April 23rd, area residents are joining together to focus on a different message - a message of resiliency and confidence and optimism. In a nationwide event called Town Hall for Hope, national radio show host and New York Times best-selling author Dave Ramsey will be streamed live from Oklahoma City, sharing his vision of hope for America's financial future and answering questions from viewers all over the country.

It's time to stop talking about how bad the economy is and start working on making it better. Come and listen as Dave Ramsey shares real strategies and real answers you can use to better your financial situation and negotiate these challenging economic conditions.

Town Hall for Hope will be hosted at 7 p.m., April 23rd at The Little Church in the Pines, Bass Lake. To learn more, contact Jeremy Becker at 760-7522 or visit TownHallForHope.com.

Image courtesy of jonathanignacio.files.wordpress.com