Quick Book Reviews

I've had an ever-growing stack of books sitting by the computer for several months now, things I've read that I've intended to review on the blog. I just want to cull the pile a little at this point, so here are some pithy insights into:

They Like Jesus But Not the Church: Insight from Emerging Generations by Dan Kimball
The jist: Kimball is an evangelical pastor who realized that he spent all his time with churchy/churched people, and that wasn't cool, so he started purposely holding office hours in coffee shops and such, and started chatting up the non-churched/de-churched folks he met there. He discovered most of these folks didn't have such a problem with Jesus the man, the rabbi, even Jesus as the Son of God - their beef was with the institutional church, which they perceive to be: pushing its own political agenda; too male dominated and oppressive of females; homophobic; arrogant; fundamentalist; etc.

Kimball is mainly speaking to fellow evangelicals, and trying to couch these well-deserved critiques in language that will actually be heard and taken to heart. To the extent that all pastors are prone to the occupational hazard of only hanging out with churchy people, and to the extent that the mainline is subject to the same perceptions (or misperceptions) about the church, this book is helpful in revealing what non-churched folks are thinking and what mistaken narratives need to be retold and which paradigms need to be broken open both within the institution of the church and within the hearts and minds of those outside the church.

BUT, at the end of the day, Kimball is still an Evangelical, and I am still a Lutheran. He's ultimately going to say you've got to make a choice for God, when I'm ultimately going to say that God makes a choice for you. Maybe it's due to this insurmountable chasm between our understanding of God, but throughout the book I couldn't shake the feeling that his theological underwear was showing - like, he's going to these great lengths to befriend people and earn their trust and show them he's not your stereotypical smarmy tract-dropping evangelist, but his underlying agenda is still to lead them to a Come to Jesus moment, begging the question - does a gentler, more patient altar call make it any less creepy? To me it still feels smarmy and underhanded, but I will give the Holy Spirit the benefit of the doubt - perhaps this is the way the Gospel is reinventing itself among this particular expression of the body of Christ.


Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms, edited by Rolf Jacobson
Full disclosure: I am completely biased, as I went to seminary and/or am friends with most of the folks responsible for this little volume, which is both educational and entertaining. Accessibly unpacks weighty theological terms and ideas with a liberal dose of tongue-in-cheek humor. Every church library should have a copy on its shelves, and every pastor should be sure to read it. In addition to enlightening your mind and spirits, it could be a great tool for launching discussions in confirmation, bible study, council meetings, etc, and/or a great gift for your favorite church nerd!

The Shack by William Paul Young
It seems people either love or hate this book, very few folks I've talked to are indifferent to it. Personally, I find Young's writing style kind of annoying, and there are some theological points with which I would quibble, but on the whole I appreciated the way he takes some very deep, difficult process theology (much of which I would agree with) and explains it in a way that is highly accessible, and opens people for whom these are entirely new thoughts to thinking about and discussing these ideas together. We pastor types can learn from that, or at least use this book as a tool to open up such discussions and ideas with our people (case in point: this was our selection for September's book club, and it was the best turn out and best discussion to date). Breen had essentially the same take on the book (both complaints and appreciation), so she adopted a reading strategy to put the book down and walk away for awhile every time she felt herself becoming too literarily or theologically critical, before she got irritated enough to stop reading altogether. I read the bulk of it on a layover back from MN in August, and it was the only book I had on me, so I just kept plugging along, but I think I like her strategy better. Especially if you find yourself feeling like you "hate" the book - just put it down for a while and come back to it.