Book in Review: ReJesus

ReJesus - by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost 

Beware of encountering the Jesus of the scriptures. He will call you to give all of you, every aspect of your life: work, family, thoughts, leisure, sexuality, religion, morality, material possessions, everything. He calls you to live a life as His disciple which is no small undertaking. – My own reflections from encounters with Jesus.

 FYI: I have not written a book review since high school, but I decided that it would be a fun habit to pick up after reading an interesting and inspiring book. It will be my attempt to summarize what I have just read, and internalize the content. If the topic is something you find interesting,
you should get the book. I will be posting these book reviews on my blog and maybe as notes on facebook. Thoughtful and thought provoking comments and critique appreciated.  I will be quoting extensively from the book in review since my own words are far less eloquent and to the point. Enjoy.

Note: While reading ReJesus it struck me that this book was written in a very unique style compared to other Christian theological works I have read thus far, and indeed the method was very fun and flowed quite naturally. Each chapter has a great thesis statement and the introduction of the book is likewise a great thesis for the entire book. The chapters are ordered quite well and the conclusion is incredibly applicable. I will just be covering the introduction as I feel that it is a decent overview of the rest of the book.

Introduction: Read This Bit First - Opening of the book

The authors begin the book with a look at three different stories highlighting their concern about what has been and is done in the name of Jesus. The first is about the Christian religious tone of the KKK in Mississippi during their history and in particular prior to the 1964 massacre in Neshoba County Mississippi. The next is about a visit to the beautifully designed and ornate St. Peters Basilica of the Vatican City with its centuries of inspiring awe and grandeur which has attracted crowds of sightseers, but some of those visitors being left wondering where they were to encounter the poor itinerant rabbi Jesus amongst the many extravagant depictions of Him. Likewise they recall a visit to the reconstructed Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The building is both a magnificent Cathedral and is ornamented with icons of the saints and apostles. The frescos are of both religious and patriotic Russian scenes. Indeed, there is so much patriotism that it would appear that the gospel is in competition with tsars for the attention of the devoted. To add to this, as they head on their way out of the great piece of architecture, they see the poor begging from “disinterested passersby”. They write,

“While it was difficult to see the real Jesus in the cathedral frescoes, it wasn’t hard to recall Jesus’ words about what we do for the “least of these” being done as if for Him. According to Jesus’ own words, he should be identifiable in the ragged image of the suppliant pauper outside the cathedral far more than in the astonishing flit iconography inside.”

The point they want to make is about how people who would say they believe in Jesus portray Him and refer to Him. To be clear, they are not trying to liken the Catholic or Orthodox churches to the actions or teachings of the KKK, but that the image of Jesus that is presented by them doesn’t match up with the Messiah found in Scripture. Across denominational lines and modern church movements one can find the radical ways of Jesus abandoned for religious intuition and its resultant expressions. In another chapter the authors spend time critiquing our cultural portals of Jesus and how they lead to our perception of Him; bearded lady Jesus, creepy halo Jesus, buddy Jesus, and the rest. 

From this they pen the key point of the book in several different ways. “In Mississippi, Rome, and Moscow, the name of Jesus has been invoked as central to movements that do not seem to be in accord with the Jesus we find in the pages of the Gospels.”   Further on, “All of these are unsettling insights that speak directly to the purpose of this book because they raise disturbing questions about the continuity between Jesus and the subsequent religion established in His name,” and “The core task of this book will be to explore the connection between the way of Jesus and the religion of Christianity.”

Here are some of the many questions they ask and then discuss in later chapters.

“What ongoing role does Jesus the Messiah play in shaping the ethos and self-understanding of the movement that originated in him?

How is the Christian religion, if we could legitimately call it that, informed and shaped by the Jesus that we meet in the Gospels?

How do we assess the continuity required between the life and example of Jesus and the subsequent religion called Christianity?

In how many ways do we domesticate the radical Revolutionary in order to sustain our religion and religiosity?

And perhaps most important of all, how can a rediscovery of Jesus renew our discipleship, the Christian community, and the ongoing mission of the church?”

Here they lay out another idea crucial to understanding of this topic when asking questions of Jesus and the church. Indeed, this is in some ways they most pivotal, thought provoking, and impactful bit. It is found in their other books and it cannot be missed or overstated.

“We have elsewhere asserted that it is Christology (the exploration of the person, teachings, and impact of Jesus Christ) that determines missiology (our purpose, function, work in the world), which in turn determines our ecclesiology (the forms and practices of the church).“

Being an engineer, I think of it in this way. Christology > Missiology > Ecclesiology = View and focus for a disciple of Jesus. Change the order and the results of ones views change. The centrality of Jesus is something that cannot be missed. We are called to be disciples, not Christians. Disciples were all about becoming like their rabbi, and to be like our rabbi we must focus on him and emulate him. To focus then on Jesus is to join in His mission. Church flows naturally from a community whose lives have been altered by of Him. Love it.

“It is all about Jesus, from the beginning, let us say that we believe that the only way we can truly authenticate ourselves as an expression of Christianity is to somehow measure ourselves against the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, our Lord… whether the ostentatious excess of the Vatican, of the tawdry grab for the hearts and minds of the aspirational middle class by prosperity-style Pentecostalism, the Christian movement has been subverted… But Jesus is still calling us to come and join Him in a far more reckless and exciting adventure than that of mere church attendance.”

Another thought that I found powerful is this statement.

“For far too long Christology has been the province of academic and professional Christians, who seem far more concerned with and examination of how the divine and human are related in Jesus’ person than they are in the details of his life or the content of his teaching and vision. As theologians attempted to use speculative philosophy and ontology [Ontology asks the question, what can be said to exist?] to explore the two natures of Christ, Christology became something of a complex science that in effect excludes the theologically un-initiated person. When Jesus becomes the sole province of theologians and religious professionals, when it is done in abstract and divorced from our daily concerns and from the missional context of the church, it will tend to degrade the vitality of our Christianity.”

The book while containing many theological terms does a really good job breaking them down and so while being theology packed was also very simple to follow and understand. Also, they reference a myriad of other sources so they aren’t writing on their own. The end notes are full of resources for further reading with other writers such as Bonheoffer, Kierkegaard, Luther, and many more. I am also currently reading two other books by these authors, Frost and Hirsch, and find them very inspiring and communicate very clearly things pertaining to Jesus, Mission, and Church. I would leave with a quote by them but I have the book on my Nook which has currently a dead battery because someone left his charger in Alaska. Oops. I hope that your curiosity was roused, and that you would consider learning more about Jesus the Messiah from the original text and with an understanding of Jewish culture and practice in the 1st century AD.     

Oh, the rest of the book falls under these chapter headings.

How Jesus Changes Everything

ReJesus and Personal ReNewal

ReJesus for the Church and the Organization

I’ve Got a Picture of Jesus

The Shema Schema (One God, One Lord)

Three… Two… One… Engage

The Church That Jesus Built

Conclusion: Read This Bit Last