Book Review: The Irresistible Revolution

I realise this review (in hindsight I am not sure this even qualifies as a review) is about five years after everyone else has probably read the book.  But it is one of the occupational hazards of being a incurable non-conformist… if everyone is reading it then I almost always don’t want to.

The book made such an indelible impression on me in a couple of ways that I thought I would scribble down my thoughts anyway.

This is generally an easy read, a bit repetitive at times, a bit circular in theme and logic at times.  It reads more like a story but a story with a definite agenda.  The theology is at times a bit wonky and at other times down right dodgy.  With a few good bits mixed in.  Although both Claiborne and I would calls ourselves evangelical I am not sure we would both agree on what that meant.  I suspect Claiborne has jigged the term a bit to his own end.  Tim Challies has a mostly decent review that looks at some of the theological problems a bit more.

The impact of the book for me is that here is a guy who tangibly puts his life at the service of his theology.  Here is a guy that has read his Bible and come to an understanding about what it means to follow Jesus and now he is doing it.  Again I do not agree with all of his thinking or actions but you cannot deny that here is a Christian who has put it all on the line to follow Jesus.

My biggest frustration after reading this book is less with Shane Claiborne (although there is quite a bit of that too!) but with those of us who have a better theology, a more robust theology than Claiborne.

Critique his theology all we like (and critique we must!) but let us ask ourselves what is the fruit of our better theology?  If Claiborne with his wonky theology can serve the poor, seek justice for the oppressed, move into the forgotten areas of our city and live and love there, practice community at a deep level, welcome the outsider, feed the hungry, question the rampant commercialism of our societies and then follow Jesus in counter-cultural ways that actually display the love, mercy and justice of the Kingdom of God. And there are some great stories of this in the book…

Then surely we who have better theology should be doing the kinds of things Claiborne is doing but just better, deeper and richer.  As our theology outstrips his so should our practice…

If we believe what we say we believe… then we ought to know better than him dammit…

Why should I have to read a book filled with wonky theology to be inspired to follow Jesus more radically and counter-culturally.

I am surrounded by those with better theology and yet our track record is terrible in most of the ways Claiborne and his community is brilliant – justice, mercy, community, serving the poor and  moving into the forgotten or undesirable areas of our city.

Ordinary Life: On Mission Together

What would mission look like in a simple church?

The Gospel is a Word:

Let me nail my colours to the mast, I believe that the gospel is primarily a Word about God and his Kingdom.  About His Saviour, Jesus and His great Story of restoration for all of Creation.  It is a Word that must be proclaimed, explained and shared.  The primary means by which we do this is by teaching the Bible, God’s Word to us.  Coupled with that the primary way in which the Spirit works is through the Word of God.  Our mandate as His people is to open the Word daily to encourage one another, to remind one another and to explain to others the good news of the gospel.

Social justice issues are integral to the gospel life and inseparable implications of the gospel among us.  They are, however, not the gospel message.  It is the gospel message at work in us that both compels and makes possible work for restoration and reconciliation in our communities.

Without a prior and continual proclamation (and explanation) of the Gospel Word these actions while good in and of themselves will become badges of pride by which we measure our own goodness, rather than an overflow of God’s gospel work among us and in-breaking of God’s Kingdom life now among us.  It is the understanding of the gospel Word which must change the passion and desires of our heart.  With renewed mind and changed heart-desires we are now free to live as people of God’s Kingdom of justice, restoration, reconciliation and generosity.

The Gospel is a Working Word

But the gospel is not simply a word that must be proclaimed, studied and taught.  The Gospel is not simply information that must be heard, agreed with or understood.  It is God’s working Word to his world.  The Gospel is a word about God’s plan to restore humanity.  As that word is proclaimed and people follow Jesus as King, so the gospel work of restoration begins.  Now broken-in imperfectly in hiddenness and weakness – one day in fullness of revelation and glory.

The community of God’s people is the demonstration that through the gospel message the Kingdom of God has now broken in.  Thus the Christian community is central to the mission of God.  It is not only as we proclaim the Gospel Word that people understand the Gospel but also as we demonstrate it through the new life of restored humanity of the gospel community.  It is in the life of the Christian community where people may “taste” the effectiveness and goodness of the Gospel.  The Christian community now is a weak and imperfect “taste” of the future life of God’s Kingdom come in all it’s fullness.

As a result when we think of mission, we ought not to think only of proclamation of the Word but also demonstration of the life of the God’s new community.  We do not simply “preach at” people but rather we invite them in to come experience the life of God’s new community.  To taste a piece of restored humanity.

Mission is the organising principle of church life

Most of what I have said I do not think is particularly radical or new.  I would hope that most church leaders, pastors and other garden variety Christians can agree with what is written above.  However where I think we most often undermine ourselves is that the organising principle is not mission.  Whatever our creeds, constitutions or strategy documents may say the functional reality (as opposed to the desired reality) is most often that singing, fellowship, comfort, small groups, preaching, Sunday services, denominational loyalties or existing programmes are the organising principles of church life.

Now none of these are wrong in and of themselves, but my contention is that when these become the organising principle of a church community then mission suffers or is sidelined behind our own preferences, programmes, comforts or traditions.  However when mission is the organising principle then each of these other aspects of church life are enhanced, deepened and seen as expressions of the in-breaking life of the Kingdom

You may also be interested in “Church planting without planting a church”; “Ordinary Life: Gathered around the Word”; “Ordinary Life: Sharing Life”

I am not a radical!

A few weeks back I was waiting to speak at a camp for high school leaders and as I sat down to have some coffee beforehand, I got talking to one of the leaders.  As I explained what it is that I do and (more realistically) what I hope to do, he remarked that I was quite a radical guy.

In the next few weeks that comment has rankled me somewhat, and the more I think about it the more it has frustrated and irritated me.

As a sidenote it also exposed me as well and truly in my mid-thirties.  My 20-something year old self would have been delighted with that kind of comment probably would have put it on my business card or as a tag line on my blog.  Naturally I had neither of these either.  But instead of feeling delight I felt irritation… time for early nights and cups of tea it would seem.

Back to the main point; what is the big deal about this comment?

I think it is because our vision is in so many way very ordinary.  It is all about ordinary people living ordinary lives with gospel intentionality.  This is not a radical vision for taking the gospel to North Korea on a motorbike.  Or starting a big tent revival ministry in Saudi Arabia.

The Crowded House, Woodstock (still under construction) is all about helping a neighbour clean their yard, playing soccer with the kids, serving the local schools, becoming good neighbours, throwing parties, giving gifts, making friends, telling stories.  It is about eating together, sharing life together, being present in our community, praying for needs, picking up rubbish, caring for neighbours and our neighbourhoods.  It is about watching rugby, visiting the pub, drinking coffee, fixing cars, moving furniture… this is our grand missions strategy!  There is nothing radical here – no jumping through flaming hoops of fire or running naked over the polar ice caps.  Just a bunch of ordinary people, sharing ordinary life – with the hope that as we strive to be the neighbours, friends and colleagues everybody wants we commend Jesus to people in such a way that they ask us to give a reason for the hope that we have.

This is so ordinary, anyone can be a good neighbour.  Anyone can make coffee, pick up rubbish, greet a stranger or throw a party.  That anyone can call this radical can only mean that the church has forgotten what it means to be truly human.  That we are so busy debating our doctrine and fine-tuning our meetings that we forgotten what it is all for… God is busy creating a new community where his gospel is on display in the lives of his people, where we may glimpse a weak and imperfect picture of God’s new Kingdom.  God’s restored humanity.

Related: Everyday Church: Mission by being good neighbours; & The call to be unproductive

Good News to our City: Economic Inequality

On the radio station I used to listen to growing up – Friday was “old skool” day.  So I thought I might continue that trend for a while (maybe even sporadically) and on an “old skool” Friday I will re-post an old post of mine that I think might still have some value.  So if you have read this before maybe ask yourself – has anything changed?  If this is new to you, I would love to hear your thoughts and reactions.

Good News to our City: Economic Inequality

Let us begin with a statement of fact – whites (including Christians) are (present tense intended) the benefactors of the apartheid system.  Yes, we all know that “all that discrimination” is in the past and that now we are all even (?!)  But to imagine that 40 years of institutionalized (that is even to ignore the fact that racial discrimination was crippling black people long before apartheid was on the statute books) can simply disappear overnight and that previous privileged and disadvantages are no longer valid is simply naive or ungodly.

Let us try an analogy: It is as if we whites and blacks have been playing a game of football and for the first half all the black players have one arm and one leg tied behind their back.  Predictably the score at half time is 28-0.  At half time the whites realize the error of their ways (best case motives allowed) and untie the blacks for the second half but do nothing about the score.  And when the black players, understandably, protest – the white response is anger, whilst pointing out the only now even (?) playing field.

That is Cape Town/South Africa today, we may be 14 years into our new democracy but whites have conveniently forgotten that blacks started this era of democracy 28-0 behind. In order for South Africa to work towards significant economic equality white people have to be prepared to give something up.  The question for Christians in Cape Town today is – where does the Kingdom of God fit into all of this?

Martin Luther once said: “If you preach the gospel in all aspects with the exception of the issues which deal specifically with your time you are not preaching the Gospel at all.” (quoted in Ron Sider p52).

If you have any doubt as to whether this is one of the issues of our time here are some statistics:

According to the 2007 statistics on the City of Cape Town website results:

• Unemployment in Cape Town is at 16,9% (2007)
• 58.4% of people aged 20+ have an education level less  than grade 12. (2007) whilst a further 23,6% have Grade 12 as their highest education level.  Leaving only 16,8% of people aged 20+ with a tertiary qualification.
• 8.4% of people 20+ have less than Grade 5 (2007)
• 38.8% of households are living below the poverty line (2005)
• 6.7% of households have no access to safe drinking water (2007), and 5.8%  no access to adequate sanitation (2007) and 2.8% no access to electricity for lighting (2007)
• 108 889 – informal dwellings were serviced by the city in 2007 (this obviously does not include those that were not serviced)

According to the 2004 Study on Informal settlements:

• Amongst those living in informal settlements only 16% have Grade 12 and this drops to as low as 2% among the unemployed.
• 25% of those living in informal settlements are regarded as functionally illiterate.
• 98% of these were Xhosa speaking with 92% having been born in the Eastern Cape.
• 39,5% of adult residents were unemployed (34% men and 66% women)
• 52% of the unemployed had never worked in paid jobs before
• Average household income was R1315 per month (inclusive of state grants received by 41% of households). At the time of the survey the Household Subsistence Level was R1900.  More than 80% of households fell below this level.
• 54% of households spoke of times when they had no food for the day.  Whilst 61% did not always have enough to eat.
• On average 30 people were sharing one toilet cubicle
• 83% of residents experienced serious problems with flooding around or in their shacks.

According to the Informal Dwelling Count for Cape Town 1993 – 2005 (June 2006),

• The city had a backlog of housing of 260 000.
• The 50 informal settlements in 1993 had grown to over 200 by 2005.  Khayalitsha for instance has a total of 13 informal settlements containing  42 170 shacks.  And Philippi with a total of 23 informal settlements containing 15114 shacks.
• Since 1993 informal dwellings have grown from 28 300 to 98 031 in 2005.
• Impacting the lives of approximately 400 000 people, almost 13% of the Cape Town population.

According to the City of Cape Town’s Employment Status of Potential Labour Force (those aged 15-64):

• The total unemployment levels in Cape Town are 19,4%
• Of those Black Africans have a 34,8% (225473 people) unemployment rate, comprising 31% of the population
• Coloureds have a  15,8% (147250 people) unemployment rate, comprising 48,13% of the population
• Asians and Indians a  7,1 % (2072 people)  unemployment rate comprising 1,43% of the population
• And Whites a 3,1 %  (11987 people) unemployment rate comprising 18,75% of the population

Thoughts:

1. In SA this is largely a black-white issue and this is how it is at best perceived and at worst intended.  We cannot get away from the reality that white people including Christians are the major beneficiaries of apartheid.  If we are serious about racial reconciliation (see part 1 of this series) then we must ask questions about an economic system that entrenches the divide not only between rich and poor, but often also between white and black.  If the gospel is to be good news that works to our city then it must be seen to overcoming these divides, uplifting the poor, changing the priorities of the wealthy etc.

2. White Christians (this is a generalization) need to give up their love affair with Western capitalism.  Out of the West and particularly the United States comes a form of Christianity which is often too closely wed to capitalism. Capitalism as an economic system is about the maximum profit for the minimum expenses.  As Christians in business, running businesses, endorsing and using businesses, this “raw capitalism” is most often at odds with the people-centred, looking after the vulnerable, type economics of the Bible.

We have to practice and endorse and look to encourage whatever form of economic system (in one sense that is irrelevant) best looks after “the poor and the widows”, the vulnerable, those who are without means and resources.  Whatever system best allows the greatest number of people to rise above poverty, unemployment, unsanitary living conditions, lack of access to proper healthcare and education is the system/policy/party which we ought to be endorsing.

The sad reality is that most of our decision-making and values are played out not by reading the for instance the Old Testament prophets but by the values which we inherit and endorse as those who are the (continuing) beneficiaries of an unjust economic system.  White Christians fail to critique or even see anything wrong with our capitalist economy mainly because we are the beneficiaries and propagators of an unjust system which continues to make the (white) rich richer and the (black) poor poorer

3. White Christians need to consider their living standards and priorities in the light not of first world countries but in light of Africa.  In a city where hundreds of our brothers (if we limit it to Christians alone for the point of illustration) regularly go to bed hungry how is it that rich Christians so easily justify the luxury motors, holiday homes, bigger and better homes, gadgets, television screens etc?  How is it that rich Christians have wardrobes full of clothes they never wear whilst their brothers and sisters have no shoes or warm top?

How can it be that those who claim to disciples of  Jesus and citizens of the Kingdom of God, have the same lifestyle as unbelievers just without the smoking, sex and foul language?  How is it that whilst are values are supposedly radically different yet our lifestyles are exactly the same?

4. Reformed theology has traditionally  had a defective theology of the Kingdom: we are obsessed with saving souls for heaven,whilst God is busy calling us to join with him in reconciling all things to himself.   While we are busy preaching a message which inadvertently has lowered expectations of life now (what is called under-realized eschatology), God is calling us to live now as citizens of his Kingdom of justice, peace, mercy, compassion, and self-denial.  We are exclusively concerned with personal holiness while God is calling us to lay down our rights, give away our excess, feed the poor and join with God in demonstrating the in-breaking effects of the new life of the resurrection now.

“For the first Christians, the ultimate ‘salvation’ was all about God’s new world; and the point of what Jesus and the apostles were doing when they were healing people, or being rescued from shipwreck, or whatever, was that this was a proper anticipation of that ultimate ‘salvation’, that healing transformation of space, time and matter.   The future rescue which God had planned and promised was starting to come true in the present.  We are saved, not as souls, but as wholes.” Tom Wright: Surprised by Hope p211

5. As I alluded to earlier reformed theology has traditionally had a deficient theology of the church.  We are all about me and my personal salvation.  At best church is a collection of individuals who share common interests and values and who help each other out occasionally.  The biblical picture has at the centre of God’s working, not the individual but the people of God, the church.  We need a far more communal identity than we often practice.  The biblical picture is that of a family, a body, a building, a people belonging to one another, one new humanity.

A more biblical picture of church cannot accept a situation where we buy a new car, or a bigger house, or more shoes whilst our brothers and sisters go to bed hungry or homeless – and we don’t even care enough to pause and consider what we are doing!   “Our understanding of the poor, it seems reveals a lot about our understanding of God’s grace.” Tim Chester p29

6. This is not a call to give money to poor people.  That may come in time but what white and black, rich and poor need more than anything else in South Africa and Cape Town today is to meet and connect with one another.  As Christians we have to stop giving money to appeals or projects (to ease our guilty conscience) and we need to start giving ourselves.  Ask yourself this question, where would you find Jesus if he was living in Cape Town today?  Among the poor, in the townships, on the gang-ravaged Cape Flats, among the HIV positive crisis?  Where do you think he is calling you to be today?

Stop fearing the consequences. Stop worrying about the future.  Stop thinking about all the logical reasons why you should maintain your comfortable middle-class white bubble.  If you know where Jesus is calling you then why aren’t you following?  That is the only question worth answering!

“It is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we are all invited to devote our lives to the subversive cause of the mustard seed that is destined to redeem a people and transform a world.” Tom Sine: Mustard Seed vs McWorld p27

 

What is the relationship between church and kingdom?

Tim Keller on the relationship between the church and the kingdom:

What is the relationship of the church to the kingdom? On the one hand, the church is a “pilot plant” of the kingdom of God. It is not simply a collection of individuals who are forgiven. It is a “royal nation” (1 Peter 2:9), in other words, a counterculture. The church is to be a new society in which the world can see what family dynamics, business practices, race relations, and all of life can be under the kingship of Jesus Christ. God is out to heal all the effects of sin: psychological, social, and physical.

On the other hand, the church is to be an agent of the kingdom. It is not only to model the healing of God’s rule but it is to spread it. “You are . . . a royal priesthood, a holy nation . . . that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). Christians go into the world as witnesses of the kingdom (Acts 1:6-8). To spread the kingdom of God is more than simply winning people to Christ. It is also working for the healing of persons, families, relationships, and nations; it is doing deeds of mercy and seeking justice. It is ordering lives and relationships and institutions and communities according to God’s authority to bring in the blessedness of the kingdom.

Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, p54.

(HT: Robert Sagers)

RELATED: How Tim Keller Found Manhattan