Wednesday, 16 July 2008 00:00 | and posted in Book Reviews
This book will comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable, and invite believers to change the world with Christ's radical love. So says the back cover. I'm here to warn you that the back cover tells the truth. You do not want to read this book on any account if you want to remain the same. The gospel on display within the pages of this book is contagious, it's dangerous, even rebellious; it is not comfortable, easy or safe.
Shane Claiborne has earned a reputation for being a radical Christian, a rebel and a revolutionary. However, the simplest way to describe his book is to ask this question: are you sure he's not just living a normal, ordinary Christian life?
And this is why this book is so challenging, inspiring and exciting. His vision of the Christian life jumps straight out of the Gospels and the book of Acts (and it's clear he's living it out personally and as part of his church community, The Simple Way). It leaves you thinking, how did we miss this...? Why isn't the whole church like this...?
Shane is part of an emerging generation of Christians who, when reading the Bible, the gospels in particular, do not find a Jesus who is overtly concerned about the afterlife, but who is concerned far more with a life of love, justice and mercy in the here and now. He and others are challenging the idea that becoming a Christian is all about "being born again," when Jesus also said to another guy that to enter his kingdom he had to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor... Can we really make Christianity about one and not the other?
This book is a series of personal stories and theological reflections on what it means to embrace Jesus' teachings that say blessed are the poor and that the rich are to sell their possessions and redistribute their wealth. It's a tale of exploration about what it means to follow Jesus and be church.
The great thing about Shane is that he not questioning or stirring up controversy for the sake of it... he is honestly grappling with Scripture. Each story of spending time with the poor in India and in the US, of getting arrested, of breaking unjust laws, of protesting on behalf of the oppressed, of challenging Churchworld's cultural approach to economics, of critiquing American patriotism* and of visiting Baghdad early in America's bombing campaign in order to stand in solidarity alongside the Iraqi people are all underpinned with biblical theology. He and his church community are attempting to live out Jesus' teaching, the way of the early church and the jubilee principles from the OT.
You'll never be the same after reading this book. You'll want to be part of this revolutionary movement, before realising that perhaps you already are, but are not living ordinary enough... This book will transform your life, the way you read the Bible and how you relate to culture. It is a must-read!
Just start getting ready for the consequences...
You can buy The Irresistable Revolution is by Shane Claiborne on Amazon
FOOTNOTE:
* Take a look at the popular Bush fish in our play zone to see what Shane means...