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Yesterday’s edition of Coffee & Markets featured Jordan Ballor discussing Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art a collection of the writings of the theologian Abraham Kuyper.  Pejman Yousefzadeh and I spoke with Jordan about Kuyper’s unique life, his ideas and the challenges of cultural and political engagement for people of faith today.

Listen Here.

I mention this because I have been avoiding posting on The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited for this reason for quite some time. I am not sure I can do it justice or engage the real meaty issues it touches on. But the good folks at Net Galley and Zondervan didn’t send me a review copy so I could fret about my self-esteem … So. Some thoguhts below.

First, what is this all about anyway? Publisher synopsis:

Contemporary evangelicals have built a ‘salvation culture’ but not a ‘gospel culture.’ Evangelicals have reduced the gospel to the message of personal salvation. This book makes a plea for us to recover the old gospel as that which is still new and still fresh. The book stands on four arguments: that the gospel is defined by the apostles in 1 Corinthians 15 as the completion of the Story of Israel in the saving Story of Jesus; that the gospel is found in the Four Gospels; that the gospel was preached by Jesus; and that the sermons in the Book of Acts are the best example of gospeling in the New Testament. The King Jesus Gospel ends with practical suggestions about evangelism and about building a gospel culture.

This is a powerful examination of what it means to speak of the Gospel and how our understanding of it impacts our “Gospeling” or evangelism. McKnight argues forcefully that to present a plan of salvation, or soterian, gospel is to miss the larger picture of scripture and God’s plan for the universe.

As noted, there is a lot packed in there and a lot you can, and should, debate.  But for now, a few thoughts …

I think the aspect that McKnight is absolutely right on is the plan of salvation focus on current evangelicalism.  This is exactly the environment I grew up in: one focused on making a decision about personal salvation.  Not that there wasn’t an attempt to connect the Old and New Testament, or that spiritual growth beyond salvation wasn’t discussed, but that the gospel was very much seen as personal salvation and the lens through which we saw everything else.  It felt like to me that this was the point.  McKnight calls this focus soterian from the Greek word soteria which we use for salvation.

For McKnight the Gospel is the story of Israel being completed in the story of Jesus who is the Messiah King. This is the Apostolic Gospel and the Gospel Jesus preached. If we lose our focus on this larger story and the context it provides we end up with an individualistic “get saved to avoid hell” type gospel not one focused on the larger Kingdom of God; of how God is writing our story even now.

McKnight presents this very well and uses stories from students and the perspectives of some pastors to highlight how this view has come to dominate. He then outlines how 1 Corinthians 15 is the Apostolic Gospel and the earliest form of the Gospel in the church.  From this start he outlines what this means and how we lost our way.  He then goes on to explore whether Jesus preached the Gospel. Peter’s perspective on the Gospel and how we approach evangelicalism and the Gospel today.

I really feel like I need to read this again to get a strong grasp on the argument and the deeper issues involved.  But the one thing that I absolutely agree with McKnight about and belive deserves to be highlighted is how the big story of the Gospel is so often lost today – the way the plan of salvation approach leaves out the wider lens of God’s action and plan for all of creation – and how the content and style that results from this mindset fails to develop disciples and build communities.

Scott McKnight has down us a valuable service looking at a central aspect of our faith, clearing away the cultural, theological and historical ruble and forcing us to think in a fresh way about what we mean when we talk about the Gospel.

The King Jesus Gospel is a challenging but necessary and, in many ways, refreshing book.

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Excuse the colloquial and inartful title, but it seems to capture my perspective on this subject.

And what exactly is the subject here? Well, my inability to stick to any particular genre or subject or age group, etc.  It seems to me that basic strategy when it comes to building an audience online is know your audience and give them what they want. Pick what you know, or want to know, and cover it well.  Unfortunately for me, I seem unable to do either. Heck, I can’t even settle on a theme or design for this blog for very long.

(I take that back. My audience is Google and I give them what they want by leaving these review for them to find in their searches. My strategy is bet the house on the long tail …)

But the more specific point I wish to make is that if any one is reading this blog on a regular basis – as opposed to surfing in from search engines (when you have a book report due or when you are looking for reviews in preparation for writing your own, trying to decide whether to read said book, or look for reactions to a book you just read) – then I want to warn you about the book reviews headed your way in the days and weeks to come.

You might already have noted that there has been a higher ratio of non-fiction of late and with a spiritual or theological flavor. This will continue. I am not really sure why but I have gotten onto a theological kick of late and so have been reading books in that realm. I have both more time on my hands and less information to process these days so non-fiction is something I am able to read more of. Right now it’s theology and spirituality but there is sure to be history, culture and politics thrown in as well.

And since I review fiction faster than I do non, I end up with a large backlog of non-fiction books to post on. I tend to post these then as I am able and am in the mood. So in reducing this backlog, I will be foisting more reviews that touch on theology and Christianity.

But as soon as those who enjoy such reviews get comfortable, I am sure I will switch back to reading young adult fantasy or literary fiction or some other genre or focus. But to be fair, the title of the blog is Collected Miscellany. Eclecticism and unpredictability is the name of the game around here.

Hence the title of this post …

One of my oft repeated phrases is: “Better late than never.”  The sad fact is that I have all too many chances to utter it.  I bring this up because it seems a perfect application to this review.  Those bloggers who are organized and on top of things tend to offer reviews when a topic, book, or author is in the news and/or the hot topic of conversation.

While The Shack is still the topic of conversation around the country and around the world, the story is by now well know and thoroughly debated. (See this New York Times article for a flavor)

I first read the book back when it was much more a burgeoning phenomenon but never got around to putting my thoughts and reactions down in pixels.  But when my church’s Sunday School class offered this as one of its book discussions I decided to go back and resist it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the book here is a brief description:

Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever.

After a second reading, I found that while its literary merit left a lot to be desired, and its theology was shaky in parts, as a whole it was a thought provoking and worthwhile read.

Below I will look at the book’s literary, theological, and philosophical implications. I’m not sure this matters at this point, but there will be “spoilers” involved.The first thing that needs to be said is that as a “novel” the book fails.  It isn’t that the action leading up to, and following, the encounter with the Trinity that makes up the bulk of the book isn’t interesting in some ways, or even well done in places, it is that it really isn’t a novel at all.  Oh sure, if you want to get hyper-technical it is a “fictional prose narrative of considerable length” aka a novel.  But really the story isn’t the focus or point of the prose.

To me the book is really a conceptualization or thought experiment.  It uses fiction and story form to help readers challenge their assumptions and think about theology and spirituality in different ways.  Dinner with a Perfect Stranger and God’s Debris are two – very different – examples that come to mind. Didactism first story only as need to allow for dialog, etc.

Not surprisingly then, if you are looking for literary merit in the traditional sense you likely won’t find it in The Shack.  There isn’t much plot, suspense, deft description, character development, etc.

What there is a lot of is emotion.  Given the author’s background and the subject this is also not surprising.  Sometimes the emotion leads to evocative, and even powerful prose, and sometimes it leads to an overly cheesy style.  On balance I didn’t find the style distracting or off-putting – because I wasn’t really looking for literature – but obviously people’s tastes will differ on this aspect.

In the heart of the book Mack encounters The Trinity in the form of a African-American woman, a Jewish carpenter, and an Asian women with a hard to pin down quality (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit).  Over the course of a weekend Mack interacts with and learns from these manifestations of God.  Basically, the interactions are physical representations of his spiritual healing and growth. Whether his encounter actually happened or is the result of drugs administered after a nearly fatal car crash is left unanswered (more on this later). If you are interested in theology and spirituality I think these are interesting and engaging chapters

And to me this highlights that the point of the book is to explore the theology of the Christian’s response to pain and suffering.  While there are tangential aspects dealing with the problem of evil, the real focus is how does a person of faith deal with life altering pain or suffering.

And if there was one insight I think the book offers is the way it portrays, and works through, how it is necessary to really believe God is good in order to trust him.  Now many Christians might casually think “Of course, God is good. This is part of his nature.”  But anyone who has suffered, or struggles with questions of justice, might not have fulled unpacked their emotions and deeper feelings.  This is the case with Mack.

In a critical section where Mack is discussing his spiritual growth, Papa tells him:

The real underlying flaw in your life, Mackenzie, is that you don’t think I am good.  If you knew that I was good and that everything – the means, the ends, and the processes of individual lives – is all covered by my goodness, then while  you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me.  But you don’t.

I think this is a very valuable idea to contemplate. I find it is a bigger problem then most people might think.  A proper understanding of God’s character and a true belief in those characteristics is crucial to not only good theology but spiritual growth.  Once Mach wrestles with this he is able to remove some the blocks and see growth.

I don’t have time to get into all the other theological issues involved (for the most popular critique see this review), but I wanted to note that the over-arching flaw I saw is the emotionalism of much of the interactions Mack has with God.  Mack always seems to ask the right questions and God in various forms is so attractive and loving that Mack is immediately drawn in and able to tackle his most serious issues.

There is a great deal of emotion, and a sort of romanticism, tied up in these interactions.  But they leave out the complications and difficulties people so often struggle with “real life.”  Sure, envisioning some of this discussion in a fictional way might help people see things differently, and think about issues they might not otherwise have, but after you put the book down you don’t have a physical Papa, Jesus or Sarayu to interact with nor do you have the incrediably beautiful and peaceful setting in which to do it.  In many ways the shack is helpful in helping people work through these emotions but in other ways it uses emotions in place of the necessary hard work of spiritual growth.

The other aspect I found the most unsatisfying is the books discussion of hierarchy and authority.  At times the Trinity describes relationships – with God and others – as a sort of radical egalitarian, near anarchical, structure where everyone gives up their will to power and submits to others.  And again, there is some insight and truth to some of this philosophical perspective.  Faith is not about power in the traditional sense (political, economic, social, etc.) and there is a very real danger of coming to worship institutions and rules rather than the God they are supposed to point us toward.

But ultimately the loosely laid out ideas that are touched on in the book leave you with a mistaken notion of how human beings actually opperate; and more dangerously the idea that the phrase “all God wants is a relationship with us” captures the true nature of God.  At times it is an overly-touchy feely Opraphied sort of perspective which distracts from the more orthodox, and insightful, sections.

I have always had a lot of problems with the Christianity isn’t a religion type thinking.  As if spreading the Gospel all over the world could be accomplished without organization or structure. As if human beings can function in the long term without habits, processes, and institutions that help guide them.  Just because institutions fail doesn’t mean we don’t need them.

To wrap this overly long review up, I think The Shack is an interesting read that has some theological insights and packs some emotional punch but leans toward emotionalism and lacks coherence on a few issues.  I don’t think it is a threat to orthodoxy as some seem to think, but neither do I think it should be the basis for spiritual guidance on its own.

It has obviously touched a nerve and that should be explored. Think of it as a conversation starter instead of a book with answers.