The Church of us vs. them: A review

addcca7e85a23b42a35f5f92e5bad291-w204@1x.jpg

David Fitch recently released the book The Church of us vs them: Freedom from a faith that feeds on making enemies. I can’t imagine a book that is more timely, more spot on, and more in need of being read by all followers of Jesus. Progressive Followers of Jesus need to read this. Conservative followers of Jesus need to read this. And those who don’t identify as either progressive or conservative need to read this.

All one has to do is go on social media (Facebook or Twitter) and see the vitriol between people about almost anything (be in social issues, theological issues or political issues). All one has to do is get into face to face conversations with people to see the antagonism that can exist when people disagree about various things. Many people (both followers of Jesus and those who aren’t) in the midst of these issues fall into one of two responses to differences…they either want to fight or they want to flee. But beneath both responses we see people taking sides, making the person on the other side- the other, and forgetting the call of Jesus to love- those you agree with and even more so, those you disagree with.

So what is the alternative to fighting or fleeing, and making the other person (or people, or type of person- i.e. conservatives, progressives, etc..) the enemy? Making that group “them” and opposition to “us” They are wrong, we are right. How do we move beyond this bifurcation of our world? God calls us out of this enemy making space and into a space beyond enemies. Fitch puts it this way, “Beyond speaks to the way this place is not a middle space or a place of compromise between two positions. Rather, this space is from God, opened by the presence of Christ and always working for something new that could not have been anticipated. If the world is ideological in the sense described above, we must get beyond the ideological. So beyond is not a third way that mediates between the two previous ways in conflict. It is a space where we are still able to be who we are. Indeed, we come more of who we are because, in this space, we can extend further into being faithful to Christ and his Kingdom.”

So it isn’t fight or flight. It is open up space for Christ to work. Dan White Jr. in his book Love over fear would calls this affection. To pull up a chair, invite people over for a meal, sit with them, listen to their story, ask questions, and pray for God to open up the space for healing to happen.

This is the space beyond enemies. And the table is a crucial part of opening up the space. My prayer is that this book will help all of us (because we are really in this together as followers of Jesus) make space for Christ and His Spirit to work and move us beyond an us vs. them church.

Do yourself a favor. Pick up this book. And may it help us to regain the call of Jesus to love. And instead of seeing us vs them, to just see us.

Impolite Questions for a Generous God

51S46qDNHNL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Before I start this review of the book “Impolite Questions for a Generous God” by Jeremy Armstrong, I need to let you know that I was given this book by the Speakeasy Blogging program in agreement that I would write an honest review of the book.

I also need to say that the below review is my thoughts and feelings and ideas, and may not necessarily reflect the beliefs, opinions, and thoughts of the Veritas community.

When I got the e-mail highlighting the opportunity to read this book, I jumped at the chance to review it. The title struck a nerve with me. Especially the part about questions. I feel like the church in general, unlike Jesus, is afraid to ask questions, preferring already digested morsels of answers. Jesus in his ministry asked 307 questions, was asked 183 questions, and only answered 3 of them. And so questions were a huge part of the life of Jesus. In fact, Rabbi’s used questions as a means of mentoring and discipling their students.

And so I was eager to delve into a box that by it’s title alone contained cutting edge questions that our postmodern, post-Christendom culture struggles with. I tuned the page and looked at the questions, Some pretty standard questions, “Does God answer prayer? Is God in Control? Does God protect us?”, some questions that I couldn’t wait to dig into “Is God violent? Does God hate Gay People? Why did you let my Mon Die?”, and some questions that I didn’t see as impolite or personally that relevant or important, “Why does Christian music suck?”

Overall, I felt like the book did an okay job on answering some of the questions (prayer), but I felt that his chapter on the questions about violence was a little lacking. The Chapter on violence contained more conversation on horror movies, than really engaging with the question of God and violence. Though with that being said, I think two really good quotes from that chapter do a fairly good job of helping us understand violence within the Old Testament. The author says, “We forgive the unforgiveableness of the ancient Israelites mostly because they were…ancient.” and “It was an evolution of a people’s understanding of God. An evolution that continues today even though it’s found it’s culmination in Jesus.”

The Chapter entitled “Does God hate Gay people?” could have used a much better title, unless people actually don’t think the answer to that question is of course he does (And I am sure there are people out there in our world today who would answer that question as a no.) The quote that I think best represents his approach in this chapter is actually a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy’s hatred, the greater his need of love. (An enemy) has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love.” All too often the LGBT community has been seen as “the enemy” of the church and the church hasn’t done a good job of living the call of God to love all people, including “the enemy” (I don’t consider the LGBT community as the enemy btw…our enemy as Scripture says is not flesh and blood, but principalities and the powers).

Probably his best and most real question relates to the question regarding divorce, as he opens his heart and shares from his experience living through a divorce. He lets his guard down, shares his heart, his struggle, and his journey. And I really appreciated him being willing to tackle this very personal question born out of his experience.

I am grateful for more and more writers using questions as a means of understanding and growing in our faith. I feel that questions are more and more important as we go further into our postmodern and post-Christendom culture and I am thankful that the author wanted to tackle questions, that others may consider as “impolite”.