I think I just converted to Christianity. Oh, I said a prayer forever ago, and I've served my time in ministries and such. But reading Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw's new Jesus For President is making a whole new believer out of me.
First, I keep hearing people say this (and I think I honestly agree), that this may be one of the top five Christian works of the past century. It's concise (only a 350 page read), provocative, heavy on history and back-story, and compelling. The book offers probably the most in-depth back-story to the Scriptures that I've ever seen offered in a non-academic work.
Content aside, this book is worth the price of purchase just for the artwork and creativity throughout. Every single page's background imagery is uniquely crafted to fit the text to lend a more holistic understanding of the message the authors seek to convey. I remember two particular pages at a tense moment in the text, and I noticed what looked like tear drops on the page, as if the authors were conveying weeping over the message. But as my eyes turned to the next page, the tears turned to splotches of blood- evoking the subtle imagery of Christ weeping intense tears of blood in His last hours. It's that type of thought that goes into every page of this book.
Claiborne/Haw trace the Christian story from the Patriarchs of the Tanak up through the early church until the alleged conversion of Constantine. They present the Judaic/Christian story as a story of a people constantly rejecting a love covenant in favor of empire and control. It happened in the Garden. It happened under the old kings. It certainly happened under Constantine. The implication is that man has a tendency, no matter how "saved" he sees himself, to reject humility or power-under in favor of domination and power-over, and this runs contrary to the ideals of Yahweh. They trace how Christianity emerged as a politically polar opposite to Rome and empire, causing the religiously highly tolerant Rome to have to outlaw the Jesus movement full of men and women who would not pledge their allegiance to anything/one but Christ. It was this movement of people who would not serve in the military or any public office connected with killing, and a people who would not pledge allegiance to king or country that Rome found traitorous and needing extinction.
Claiborne/Haw have a section that I've heard Claiborne speak much of, "Amish For Homeland Security." As much as he's talked it up, I was surprised it was a mere couple pages of the book. But it conveys the point. He refers to the way, after the 2006 massacre in a schoolroom, the Amish community embraced the murderer's family. Several of the Amish even went to his funeral in an impressive show of solidarity. They even asked that a portion of the money donated to the Amish for support be given to the killer's family. The world watched such forgiveness with awe, seeing a deep picture of reconciliation. Claiborne/Haw play around with the question of "What would it have looked like if exhibited this Amish style, Matthew-5-esque forgiveness and creativity after 9/11?" What if instead of bombs, we have devoted the same money to building schools, supplying water, helping with food, etc. It's very hard to hate someone who's providing you with food and water and taking nothing in return for themselves. It is this creativity, love, and hope that is at the very heart of the gospel.
Jesus For President ends with a mountain of small suggestions and glimmers of hope for how this theology and idealism can practically flesh itself out in the world we find ourselves in. I loved the extremes you see here in how far these guys go to live out the theology and idealism they preach. These guys are ordinary radicals, with home-tested pragmatism to back up (or push forward?) their theology of hope.
I'm recommending this book to everyone I talk to. This will absolutely challenge the way you understand history, Jesus, violence, gospel, idealism, empire, allegiance, pragmatism, economy, social action, creativity, and the list goes on. But fair warning: it may kill your esoteric, uber-spiritualized version of a politically apathetic Jesus. ----
