Book Review: The Jesus Manifesto

This book’s intention is to make you uncomfortable. In that sense, the authors – Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola – succeed admirably, but probably not in the way they’d hoped, at least not for me.

Of the two Leonard Sweet books I’ve read so far (this one and The Gospel According to Starbucks), Manifesto is much more in-your-face. Of the two Viola books I’ve read so far (this one and Pagan Christianity), Manifesto is probably equally cruel. This leads me to believe that Frank Viola is a very angry man who dragged Dr. Sweet along for the ride. I don’t know either of the authors though. so to the book!

What’s in the Book

Jesus Manifesto is a relatively quick (under 200 pages) attack on what – according to the authors – is the most serious problem in contemporary American Christianity: a lack of focus on Jesus. Viola and Sweet load both barrels and blast away at pretty much anyone that’s not them: Christianity has become about self-improvement. Or maybe it’s about social justice. No, it’s about doing the right things! Whatever the nature of the established institution, they will deconstruct it. And I don’t necessarily disagree with many of their critiques of the modern Church.

But.

Sweet and Viola never bother to construct anything. They don’t offer answers to the critiques they levy so handily. "The question is not ‘What would Jesus do?’ but ‘What does Jesus want to do now through us?’" Okay. so how do we teach people the difference? "The essence of Jesus’ being is not His; he is continually receiving it from the Father. Could it be that those who are remade in Christ’s image live in a similar fashion?"
What? So we just ask "WWGD" instead? How is that significantly different?

Elsewhere, the authors claim that Jesus is not a social agenda. Okay, so does the Kingdom of God have political implications? Yes, apparently. er. maybe not. um. Jesus! Look at what Jesus did, but don’t imitate it! Or maybe you do.

The book does make great points. Lots of them, in fact. But just when you’re about to underline something helpful, the authors backpedal. The only word you’re really safe underlining in the book, in fact, is "Jesus". And while this may have been Sweet & Viola’s point, it’s not done in a clever enough way to be helpful. It ends up being more maddening and confusing.

And in the end, while I have my issues with the contemporary Church, maybe I’m just not ready to throw the Baby out with the manger hay.

The verdict? The book stands on Jesus, but the explanation of that stand is too confusing to be very helpful.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Review: The Given Day

You can probably still see the bits of my brain on the cover from where this book BLEW MY MIND.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m quite the Dennis Lehane fan.  The Given Day is his most recent book (2008), his longest book (just over 700 pages) and easily his most unique.

It’s a beautiful, tragic and quintessentially American novel.

Say goodbye to Lehane the noir crime novelist (or at least, see you later) and say hello to Lehane, the Chronicler of All Things American.  The Given Day is a gritty, tough and uncompromising look at America in all her… well, not glory.  And that’s precisely the charm.  Day is honest about our shortcomings.  Lehane clearly exposes our prejudice and ignorance for what they are while reminding us that those are hardly unique to America.  This book is cruel, but not unnecessarily so.  At the end of the Day, Lehane’s America is the cauldron of post-modernity.

Everyone’s worried about immigration and whether or not America the Great is becoming America the Red.  Some are seeing socialists around every corner, and they all complain that the immigrants are coming here unable to speak the language and taking all our jobs.  There are wars and rumors of wars.  Families rise and fall, and all the great institutions (government, big business, the religious institutions) are seen for the corrupt, self-serving machines they are.

You’d think The Given Day is a story of our own times.  But you’d be wrong.

The Given Day follows Aiden “Danny” Coughlin, a second-generation Irish cop in Boston at the close of the Great War, and Luther Lawrence, a black man from Columbus, OH who ends up in Boston by way of Tulsa (and yeah, that’s a good story in-and-of itself.).  These two men become the lens through which we explore all the racism, suspicion, class warfare and violence the American Empire has to offer.

The immigrants are Italian, not Hispanic, and the socialists are union organizers, not health-care supporters, but the rhetoric and the fears behind the rhetoric are the same.  Lehane refuses to take sides, and instead uses the humanity and complexity of his characters to raise the level of debate on these and other issues.  In the end, he argues that to be America is to exist in the tension between progress and power.  Between change and entrenchment.  Between the big business and the worker, the government and the immigrant.

And for those of us in the midst of all of it, what really makes us American is our freedom, our ability to choose.  To rail against the institutions in all their evil (be it the active evil of the big businesses or the passive evil of the Church’s irrelevance).  Even with all the forces of our world aligned against us – the (corrupt) government, organized religion, the class (or is it caste?) systems and sometimes even our own families, we can still stand up and choose to fight for what we want.  Life doesn’t always (or even usually) give us a happy ending.  It’s better, then, to find happiness in the endings we have.

The Given Day pictures America as a perfect post-modern Empire.

Lehane effectively mythologizes an overlooked but important period of American history, demonstrating that the more things change here, the more they stay the same.  If it’s not The Great American Novel, it’s at least a great picture of what it means to be American.  And if you’re still not convinced, Babe Ruth frames and organizes the whole story.  All that’s missing is the Apple Pie.

Bottom Line: This book is a wild adventure that probes the heart of what it means to be free.

I was only left wondering what a Christian reading of The Given Day might look like.  We could rage with Danny against the injustice of the Empire or weep with Luther at the violence that consumes us, even pitting us against each other.  But we can do more than settle into an existential despair that finds joy despite the evil of the systems that stand against us.  We can work toward their redemption, get back up even after they crush us down.  We can work toward an ending that’s not happy despite our circumstances, but hopefully even because of them.

Noteworthy Accomplishments (of Note)

Certainly if you only have one point, then keeping your talk organized is going to be a little bit easier.  But I’ve found it’s still a great idea to use some sort of notes to keep your thoughts in order and moving forward.

One of the biggest challenges I face as a communicator is the desire I have to over-communicate, to chase tangents.  It’s not a bad thing, necessarily.  We want to provide a fuller picture of what we’re discussing, so we jump from topic to topic.

Notes keep you focused on the simple point you’re making.

Post It

How do you decide what kind of notes to use?  I started out using an outline, but I’ve since moved to manuscript (where I type out my entire talk).  I’m more comfortable with the manuscript because – after I’ve practiced several times – I can follow it easily.  Even better, if I have a thought or point I want to express in a particular way, with a certain wording, I have it written (or sometimes bolded) in my manuscript.  If you’re a visual person, try the strategy another friend of mine uses.  He draws a series of pictures that illustrate the flow of his thoughts.

What matters is that you find an easy way to keep your thoughts focused.

Do you use notes?  What are some tips you’ve found for keeping yourself on track and on task when you communicate?

Book Review: Eve’s Revenge

Lilian Calles Barger has written a profound, powerful meditation on what it means to be a woman in the (post) modern world.  Eve’s Revenge argues that our culture teaches women to hate their bodies, to view them as enemies on the path to self-fulfillment.  She explores the roots of this worldview, the disembodied reality it creates, and the insufficient response (thus far) of the various aspects of the Feminist movement.  True to her thesis, Barger doesn’t settle for abstract, theoretical answers  to the disintegrated and dissatisfied world we experience.  Ultimately, Barger believes that the solution is an embodied faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus of Nazareth, and she closes her meditation with practical, concrete advice for moving forward.

Barger writes as a women, to and for women, so as a male reader, I felt a bit as though I was listening in on someone else’s conversation, but never excluded.  Rather, I was challenged to reflect on what part I played (as a male) in creating the world Barger illuminates.  Even more, Barger’s passion drew me into her writing.  I was shocked at the reality most women today live; I mourned when I asked my wife, Amanda, about Barger’s commentary and she confirmed its accuracy.  As an academic, Barger demonstrates that she is as well-versed and clever as anyone, and the emotion of her rhetoric was a breath of fresh air.  I didn’t feel as though I was just listening to Barger’s mind; I felt as though she was baring her soul.

Barger’s book is a welcome, refreshing voice in the ongoing conversation about sex and sexuality.  With honesty, clarity and transparency, Barger invites us to find wholeness by resisting what our culture teaches us about ourselves – body and soul.

Bottom line: It’s a difficult book on a lot of levels, and if you read it, you won’t look at yourself or the world the same again. So what are you waiting for?

Speaking of… Conversations on the Road

How often do you speak or teach?  Or how often do you communicate ideas to someone else in the hopes that they’ll change their thinking or behavior?

I’ve been writing and delivering talks for about 6 years now in a pretty full-time capacity (on at least a weekly basis).   That means I’ve probably prepared over 600 little nuggets of wisdom that some poor souls were fortunate (?) enough to endure.

Because believe me, most of them have been pretty rough.  And while I’ve wrestled with the content of my talks/lessons/studies/sermons/discussions/etc. as long as I’ve been speaking, it’s only been in the past couple of years that I’ve really put much effort into the style of my talks, the way I deliver them.  And I have to say that as I’ve put more work into the style, the degree to which my audience absorbs and adopts my content has improved dramatically.

I’ve learned that just saying something true isn’t enough to change someone’s life.  We have to learn how to say it well.

So over the next few weeks, I wanted to reflect on some of the lessons I’ve learned in the past few years about speaking.  And whether you’re a speaker or not, I hope you find some stuff that will help you communicate better.  And share your tips with me!

Today, just this:

Who you’re addressing should affect what you say.

One of the study groups I put together in Guatemala in order to figure out where they were.When I prepare a talk, I look at it as a journey.  I am usually trying to convince you (my audience) of the truthfulness of an idea, or the worthiness of a practice to be implemented in your life.  So as I prepare, I think about what your thoughts and opinions are.  In most of my speaking engagements so far, I have been able to assume (rightly, as it turns out) that most of my audience are on the same basic journey that I had to go on, so I have been able to craft my talks so that they follow my own journey of discovering this particular truth or practice.

But one time…

Two of the youth workers with whom I got to bum around Quetzaltenango for two days. I was invited to speak at a pastors’ conference in Guatemala, and when they found out that I was a youth minster, they scheduled a youth rally.  They asked me to speak three times on youth ministry – once to the Guatemalan youth workers, once at the youth rally and once to the senior pastors about Youth Ministry.

I was excited, but also at a loss.  I had no idea what Guatemalan culture, Church culture or Youth culture were like.  What struggles they faced or what questions they were asking. 

We landed in Guatemala City and spent a day traveling to Quetzaltenango on the other side of the country.  Our driver, Carlos, was the head of the Guatemalan Baptist Youth Conference, so I was able to question him a bit.  But I really wasn’t able to write my talks until the following night, after I was able to share a room with the Guatemalan youth workers.  We spent a couple of hours just talking about how they do ministry and what their challenges are.  I learned that almost every ministry there faced two common problems:

  1. The persons they invited to their church communities didn’t come back.
  2. Their senior pastors would not let them implement creative, nontraditional strategies for sharing the Gospel.

I spent the first night, then, teaching on a model of community that encouraged return visits.  And the next day, I spoke with the pastors about creative, nontraditional incarnations of the Gospel in Guatemala (and that talk was followed by 45 minutes of questions and answers).

Because I learned their journeys, I was able to communicate effectively a message they needed and wanted to hear.

As I consider who my audience is and where they are on the conceptual journey I want to travel with them, I am able to craft my talk in such a way as to invite them on that journey with me.  My steps become their steps.

And because I invite them to engage my material this way, they are more likely to own my conclusions as their own.  They don’t just take my word for it; they have walked this road themselves.

So when you speak, who is your audience?  And what are you doing to lead them to your conclusions (as opposed to standing at the end of the road and yelling at them to catch up)?

A Death in Reflection

The final installment of my reflections on the life and death of John Barnes, my grandfather.

FW - Barnes I had driven down that road dozens of times.  And I had parked in that driveway just as often.  Every step I took towards the door was intimately familiar.  As was the doorknob I gripped and the entry way.  It wasn’t until I turned the corner into the living room that I noted the first difference.

A hospice bed.  Where the couch had always been.

And on the bed a wizened, crumpled form, barely larger than a child, and wrapped in a white sheet.  It took me several moments to realize that form was my grandfather John.

Amanda and I had flown into Kansas City to spend a few of John’s last days with him.  His kidneys were shutting down as a result of his lung cancer, which in turn had resulted from smoking for three quarters of a century.

John’s long and full life was almost over.

And I couldn’t help but observe how undignified death is.  I’d experienced death before, but this was the first time I’d ever watched someone in the process of dying.

For the next two days, we sat with John as he wasted away.  We fed him bits of toast and pieces of peaches.  He slept often and while he was awake he was barely coherent.  He didn’t know where he was, occasionally didn’t recognize us.  And he was scared and sick and all of this made him mean.  Undignified.  But as I sat with him, I saw two pictures of grace, beauty that even then grew out of the indignity of death.

These two moments will remain with me forever:

John had pulled himself up to sit on his bed and was complaining that he was tired and wanted to go home (he was home).  And my grandmother, Helen, went to him.

She sat down beside him.

And she spoke softly to him.  Whispered into his ear.  And scratched his back.

She held him and sat with him and even as he lashed out at her she stayed beside him.

John and Helen would have been married 60 years this July.  And in their interaction, in Helen’s loyalty and faithfulness to John, I bore witness to a picture of God’s loyalty and faithfulness to us in the midst of our pain and suffering.

God is faithful to us even when we lash out against him.

In another moment, Helen and Amanda had left, and I was alone with John.  He woke up, and in one of his more lucid moments looked at me and scoffed, “You and your tattoos.” (John was never a big fan of my ink.)

I laughed and we had a brief conversation about God.  My mom had told me that in the last year or so of his life, John had begun to doubt his picture of the afterlife.  I and his pastor had both had conversations with him, and one of those conversations must have come back to his mind in that moment, because he looked at me and spat out, “You don’t have any more idea than I do what happens next.”

I have discussed in two of my previous posts John’s faith, which he expressed primarily through his embodied life as a part of the Mound City, KS community.  John was an active part of his faith communities throughout his life, and his faith was lived out through his physical presence in the world – his generosity and service – much more so than through his thought and contemplation.

I sat by John as he lay dying and questioning and I wondered if a short season of doubt at the end of a long, full life can invalidate a lifetime of service and giving, of embodying the Gospel.

And I thought of the man who came to Jesus, asking for his daughter to be healed.  Jesus told him that all things were possible to them who believed and the man cried out,

“I believe!  Help my unbelief!”

Jesus told the man – doubts and all – that his daughter had been healed.  And the guy had to leave, travel a day and a half back to his home, not knowing anything about his daughter’s health.

His actions proved his faith, even when his thoughts couldn’t.

I held John’s hand as he slid back into the stupor of the dying.  And as he slept, I reflected on these things.

God is faithful to us.  And I truly believe that our actions speak at least as loudly as our words.  And hopefully, sometimes, even louder.

John was dead less than two weeks later, his body finally giving up in its long struggle against death.  And I mourned then, and mourn still, but it is a sorrow laced with hope.

I believe that, because Jesus’ resurrection is an embodied reality, I haven’t seen the last of John.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
— 1 Corinthians 15:55