Books That Bless: Saving Jesus From the Church (Part One)

L.D. Turner

If you are a heavy reader like I am, you will fully understand what I mean when I say that I recently read one of “those books.” One of “those books” is a book that I needed to read at exactly the time that I read it. The Holy Spirit, knowing me better than I know myself, put this book in my path at just the right time, then opened my heart and mind to the message contained within its pages. As a result, I came away from my experience with that book a changed person.

The book I am speaking of is Robin Meyer’s “Saving Jesus from the Church.” The sub-title is even more telling: “How to Stop Worshipping Christ and Start Following Jesus.” If that doesn’t grab your interest, perhaps the picture on the cover will. It is a head shot of Jesus with eyes almost closed and a strip of duct tape across his mouth. Given the book’s title and cover, I expected that this just might be a book that would both challenge me and, at the same time, make me think. Meyers delivered and delivered well on both counts.

A professor of philosophy at Oklahoma City University, Meyers is also a nationally syndicated columnist and pastor of Mayflower Congregational Church. In the book, the author explores a variety of themes that I find highly pertinent to the survival of the Christian faith. A self-proclaimed liberal, certainly much of what Meyers has to say will sit side-saddle in the mouths of those of a fundamentalist bent. Although there are several key points where I part company with the liberal wing of the faith, I can say the same about the more conservative side of Christianity as well. For these reasons, I have learned to have an open mind and perhaps it is also for these reasons that I find a book like this one so stimulating and thought-provoking.

I should also say at this point that this is not a standard “book review” or anything like that. Instead, it is just what it actually is – a blog entry. I hope, however, to be able to give my readers at least a glimpse of the importance of Meyers’ book and perhaps whet their appetites enough to motivate them to read the book and reflect on its content. I will do this by sharing several lengthy quotations from Meyers’ book, the first from near the front and the final one from the epilogue. I have selected these quotations because I think they give a generally vivid picture of Meyers’ take on the problems the contemporary Christian faith faces and possible solutions to those problems.
Near the beginning of the book (on page 10 actually) Meyers throws down the gauntlet:

“In the beginning, the call of God was not propositional. It was experiential. It was as palpable as wine and wineskins, lost coins and frightened servants, corrupting leaven and a tearful father. Now we argue over the Trinity, the true identity of the beast in the book of Revelation, and the exact number of people who will make it into heaven. Students who once learned by following the teacher became true believers who confuse certainty with faith.”

“We have a sacred story that has been stolen from us, and in our time, the thief is what passes for orthodoxy itself (right belief instead of right worship). Arguing over the metaphysics of Christ only divides us. But agreeing to follow the essential teachings of Jesus could unite us. We could become imitators, not believers.”

“Two roads that ‘diverged in a yellow wood’ so long ago looked equally fair, but now one is well worn. It is the road of the Fall and redemption, original sin, and the Savior. The other is the road of enlightenment, wisdom, creation-centered spirituality, and a nearly forgotten object of discipleship: transformation. This is the road less traveled. It seeks not to save our souls, but rather to restore them.”

If you have followed this blog for any length of time or read my writings in other venues, you should be well aware of my feelings about the whole “Fall-Redemption/Original Sin/Blood Sacrifice/Atonement” schemata and all that travels in its wake. Along with the whole “Faith vs. Works” issue, these doctrines have ripped the very guts out of the true gospel and have made transformational Christianity virtually impossible. I won’t go into that diatribe right now, for this is not the time nor the place. Suffice to say, Meyers is of the same opinion and fortunately, so are an increasing number of thoughtful followers of Christ.
Meyers goes on to say that if the church is to find healing, it must go back to that fork in the road and, as did Robert Frost, take the road less traveled. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the very heart of the faith. According to Meyers, we must go beyond the attempts to maintain the status quo on the one hand, and the quest to “demythologize Jesus” on the other. Instead, our task is to:

“…let the breath of the Galilean sage fall on the neck of the church again. First, we have to listen not to formulas of salvation but to a gospel that is all but forgotten. After centuries of being told that “Jesus saves,” the time has come to save Jesus from the church….If any priest tells us we cannot sing this new son, we will sing it louder, invite others to sing it with us, and raise our voices in unison across all the boundaries of human existence – until this joyful chorus is heard in every corner of the world, and the church itself is raised from the dead.”

To be continued……

© L.D. Turner 2011/All Rights Reserved

Book Review: A Renegade's Guide to God (by David Foster)

Mick Turner

Every now and then I run across a book that is written in an engaging style while, at the same time, carries forward a message that is both timely and thought-provoking. David Foster’s A Renegade’s Guide to God is such a book and I want to highly recommend it to any Christian that seeks to find more of a relationship with Jesus as opposed to a religion about Jesus.

Sub-titled Finding Life Outside Conventional Christianity, Foster has struck a major chord that is running through the church of the 21st Century. A growing number of Christians are beginning to express feelings that they have hidden for quite some time, feelings that they did not dare express in the past due to fear of being at best ostracized or, at worst, branded a blood relation of Beelzebub.

Either that fear is no longer a threat to many Christians or else these believers feel that there is safety in numbers. Whatever the cause, more and more earnest, sincere Christ-followers are becoming vocal about their inner longing for a deeper, more nourishing faith. Foster, founding pastor of Bellevue Community Church in Nashville, TN, speaks directly to this growing group of spiritual seekers in the book’s introduction:

God is too good and life is too short to allow rigid, self-righteous, do-gooders with a religious agenda to keep you from Him. So, if you’re done worrying about what “they” say or do, then join the club. If you are weary of the morality police and their cellophane sainthood, then lean in and let’s talk. If you’re repelled by the pointless, prosaic preaching of self-appointed prophets with a Messiah-complex, then you, my friend, might just be a closet renegade and today could be your coming our party.

It is immediately obvious that Foster does not intend to pull any punches when calling for a fresh vision of just what the life of a Jesus-Follower is like. Throughout the book, Foster refers to this as the “J-life” and illustrates in ways both clear and provocative, the fact that one of the last places one is likely to find this renegade lifestyle is the local congregation. As the book develops, Foster discusses seven characteristics of the J-life:

Honesty

Trust

Freedom

Joy

Generosity

Humility

Hunger

Describing the seventh sign of the J-life, Foster stresses that this hunger must be a true and lasting hunger, one that lines up with Jesus’ comment about those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. For Foster, this is a life-long hunger that spurs the Christian to seek an ever-deepening relationship with Jesus.

I am just finishing my second reading of this book and can say without reservation that Foster, in ways similar to Brian McLaren and Erwin Raphael McManus, is able to speak directly to the heart of a movement in the Body of Christ, a movement that is gaining momentum every day. In this informative and challenging work, Foster does more than call for a languid reassessment of the Church’s calling and mission. He is calling for “renegades;” he is calling for spiritual activists who can no longer stomach the status quo; he is calling for, well, I’ll let him tell you:

I’m calling for the creation of a renegade nation where love is the ethic and freedom is the goal. Declare your independence from lazy legalism, feeble faith, and domesticated religion. If you suspect that deep down inside you lives a vibrant, vital, virtuous soul ready to rid itself of shame-bound religion, then you’re a renegade ready to step forth free and fully engaged in the art of the J-life. You can love God passionately and with deep conviction without becoming an arrogant, self-righteous, know-it-all.

Again, no matter what your religious leaning or affiliation, I encourage you to read Foster’s book. You may be motivated with a renewed hope and enthusiasm for change; you may be shocked and appalled; you might want to hug Foster; or you might want to come up aside his head. One thing is for certain, you will be moved.

(c) L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved