Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What kind of Church, and so what?, 2 Jan 2009
Sub-titled, 'A Manifesto for the Church in Exile', this is Rob Bell at his best.
Using the story of the Israelites and their journey from Egypt (in slavery) to Sinai (how to live in freedom) to Jerusalem (how they failed) to Babylon (the consequences), Bell begins to outline how we as Christians, and the church, should live in this world and seek to change the world for the better.
This is not about empire building, such as some Christians (particularly in the US think) but being people of change within the empire, like Jesus, and seeking to bring change from within.
It's challenging and written in Bell's refreshing style (often one sentence paragraphs!) and I found it is exactly the sort of 'manifesto' for describing what type of Christian we are to be, and what the church should be like, and should be doing (caring for the poor, fighting injustice, introducing people to Jesus).
Highly recommended.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wish there were more like this..., 16 Feb 2009
I read this book in the last stages of the Obama/McCain election, and was profoundly relieved by what it had to say in the context of the religious debates that were going on at that time. I am not American, but spent some time in the States just prior to that, and was really affected by the polarization of views between my 'liberal' and 'religious' friends there.
As a result of personal experience and philosophical conception, I have little doubt that my relational faith in God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit is both rational and real - a genuine part of my day-to-day 'human-ness', as well as aspiring hopes & ideals. That said, I am often knocked for six by the experience of Christians who seem to me to display close-mindedness to the point of bigotry and judgementalism which preaches devastating hatred rather than *unconditional* love. It often feels like moral high-ground can be taken over issues, which - if thought through - actually contradict their conceptual basis, and this is hard to deal with. Particularly when we live in a time of - in many ways - broad humility and spiritual interest amidst religious distrust.
'Jesus wants to save Christians' was a genuine relief and encouragement to read. Intelligent, honest, heart-felt, constructive, Biblical, real, and a boot up the backside. It pulls no punches on the 'calling' facing people who try to live in relationship with God and the real world - but is tremendously empowering (both theologically and generally) for those who believe that a life's art is in facilitating the beauty of other people, rather than a shiny new church roof. I am nervous of big churches and success stories because of seeing so many go bad, but I have to say I am impressed and inspired by these guys - their lives seem to bear out their words, and their words are those of people who seek, who have studied deep, and who believe that God can and will collaborate with people to contagiously affect the world for good.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Great message, terrible delivery, 8 Mar 2009
Although this book is written by Americans, for what seems to be an American audience it still has a lot of relevance for Christians in the UK. The authors explore the story of God's intervention in humanity through the Bible, looking mainly at God's heart for the poor and oppressed and his desire to bring people out of slavery (the first Exodus) and sin (the exodus through the sacrifice of Christ). One of the other principal themes in the presence of empire and how empire whether Egyptian, Babylonian, Israeli or American is usually the force of oppression and the church often finds itself seeking empire power instead of the way of Christ, which was a way of descent and sacrifice.
This book could easily have fit into 40 pages, if they had not insisted on having lots of one word sentences, which took up a whole paragraph. Whilst I am not particularly gifted at English grammar, this book was absolutely awful and ended up feeling like bullet points, which the authors had jotted down for a sermon. Surely the editor should have offered some advice on this. Examples of paragraphs in this book are:
"All." or,
"For the world." or,
"Us too." or,
"Subtle."
No, I am not joking. It is exhausting to read. In the end the only way I could try to follow what they were saying was to try and read it aloud.
All statistics and Bible verses are referenced in the end notes, which take up 38 pages of a 218 page book and it became tiresome having to refer to the end note section to verify the Bible references. Unusually for US authors there are actually quite a few refernces to works by British theologians.
The poor layout and writing style of this book was such a great pity. It seemed like a desire to be cool in the format made the message, which is really important, so difficult to absorb.
I have noticed that the content is available in Audio format and I would strongly recommend that you obtain it in that format. It is a message written to be spoken and listened to not to be read.
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