Last week I picked up a book that I’ve been looking forward to reading for several months now. I didn’t even know that it had been released until I was wondering the isles of my local Barnes & Noble and bumped into the display for Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw’s new book Jesus For President. I’m about a third of the way through it now and it’s everything I was hoping it would be. Claiborne & Co have taken theologians and biblical scholars close to my own heart and made them scandalously accessible to an general audience. The book (so far) is tackling our own ideas about empire by taking a look at God and the people of God and their relationship to empire. The book is a creative mish-mash of art and prose and Kingdom Propaganda. This book provokes us towards a Christian imagination of politics and calls us to seriously rethink where our hope and allegiance really lay. Go pick it up now!
Hey,
Me too dude! And I’m also about a third of the way through it, and I love it! Thanks for posting the video, and your summary of what you’ve read so far.
Hey Chuck,
to read many of the people that he takes stuff from while at Loma. Happy Reading.
I am totally working my way through this book myself and it is nice to feel like I actually understand some of the stuff that he is talking about because of being forced
Megan (Marsh) Reyes
I haven’t read the book, but the interview makes me want to. I have felt a “political” stirring for a long time, without being able to identify it with words. That is to say that our response as a Christians is firstly to meet the needs of our culture, regardless of the political process involved.
Kevin,
Thanks for your comment bro. I think I resonate with what you’re saying but I might nuance it a bit differently, saying that our response as Christians is firstly to live faithfully to God in the way of Jesus Christ. Doing that will determine what “needs” our host culture says it has really are valid. After all letting the culture set the terms is not unlike the temptation Jesus had in the desert to turn rocks into bread and thereby “solve hunger.”
Hey Charlie,
I can’t believe I never stumbled upon your blog before. I loved reading this book last summer, I lent it to a friend and haven’t gotten it back yet. Oh well. I think it needed to be shared rather than collecting dust on my book shelf.
Kevin