When I reflect back on my spiritual journey, his words and works couple have often marked milestones or transformative moments.  With his gentle spirit and meek words, especially amidst the maelstrom of insults, accusations and libel tossed his way, I have grown to appreciate the man, as well.  His works have met me at important points in my life and they continue to today.  Time and again,  McLaren has proven to speak to the heart of issues, simplify areas of complexity, and making complex that which we once thought simple and “Naked Spirituality” does it as well.

I think McLaren’s work could be typified as religious / social / political commentary a good deal of the time.  ”A New Kind of Christianity,” “Generous Orthodoxy,” and “The Secret Message of Jesus” were very clear critiques (or evaluations or whatever you’d like to call it) of modern Christianity.  In a very English-professor like manner, McLaren addresses each fallacy or difficulty and provides a thesis, body, and conclusion to his arguments (and it’s done well in my opinion).

And this is another area in which he simplifies something that has been thought of as complex: spiritual discipline.  Throughout history and even today, those that are “spiritual disciplined” are thought to be special: monks, priests, that one person in your congregation who you know prays, meditates and participates in all of the tradition of Christianity.  In addition to being unattainable unless you’re “special.” the practice of spiritual discipline (to me at least) was always unappealing.  If being “disciplined” required monastic living, it was not for me.

What McLaren does to the anxious and / or skeptic (like myself) is he provides simple, attainable practices to “remain awake to God and aliveness.”

My plan is to couple further analysis of this book with Marcus Borg’s “Heart of Christianity.”  I’ll try and post something in the upcoming week(s).

Full of anectodes, stories and life-reflections, Mr. Staub sets out to answer three questions in this “About You,” published by Jossey-Bass:

1) What can humans do to please God? 2) What was the mission of Jesus? 3) What does fully human look like?  All of these are addressed in inter-related ways.

In an attempt to answer what a “full human” looks like, he takes the beginning of the book and catalogs the theological conditions that have left humankind not “fully human” and the evidential experiences of day to day living.  To be honest, I felt like he actually spent too much time talking about what was not “fully human” instead of talking about what was which is where the next 2 questions come into play.

This is where I think the book has import.  As I was perusing the web, looking for some information on the author himself, I read one review that said that this was a primer for Christian living.  And I think it’s true.  The Rookmaker quote of “Jesus didn’t come to make us Christian; Jesus came to make us fully human” and the rest of Mr. Staub’s writing does a great job in informing the current or new believer that a life in Christ has nothing do to about religious constructs, rules or piety, that in order to be in tune with God, one must operate as a Christian.  On page 138, I was struck by a handful of questions (this was the only part of the book that I noted for myself):

“the question we should ask is not “Are you a Christian?”/..[but] “Are you becoming more fully human?”

“Not, “Are you going to heaven when you die?” Instead, “are you living a fully human life now?”

and (my favorite)

“How successful are you at avoiding the world” but “How effective are you as a loving, transforming presence in the world?”

These are spectacular questions for the new and recurring Christian!  So often, the Christian experience is limited or impaired by tenets of orthopraxy that individuals aspire to, are not able to grasp, and end up being frustrated by in the long run.

One last thing, I think what I would have liked more out of this book was about that last question: “how effective are you as a loving, transforming presence in the world?” I think I would have just liked to hear more about the external, immediate effects of becoming fully alive not just the internal affects that have external effects.

Despite that, you can tell that Mr. Staub has a passion for living which made this book enjoyable to read.  Thanks for writing this, Dick.

Much like “As Is” by Krista Finch, Ed Cyzewski’s “Coffeehouse Theology” seeks to illuminate God in the commonplace or, as Krista puts it, “unearthing commonplace glory;” however, their approaches are different.  While Krista seeks to provide almost anecdotal stories about how God is reflected in Life, Ed takes a more academic approach to provide the reader with the context (both past and present) and the tools to analyze that commonplace glory.  I think it’s fair to say that Ed’s provides the meta-analysis by which one could read “As Is.”

What I mean by this is, Krista’s book involves the refreshing, insightful musings of one who experiences God in the “commonplace,”

“Coffeehouse Theology” would provide you with the tools to properly understand Krista’s musings (although, granted, Krista does do a little contextual theology of her own throughout her book).  For example, Krista’s observations regarding the young men and women at the gym, one might be curious about where those thoughts and ideas have come from.  What happened in Krista’s life that made her respond (initially and subsequently) to those individuals?  Or, even before that, how has God interacted with the world and the world with God up until this point that has helped shaped the cultures she is a part of.

That is the tool that Coffeehouse Theology provides.  It first analyses the centuries which have shaped and formed not just the theology that Krista may or may not hold but also the culture in which she lives, the customs of which she is a part, the gender roles that were a part of her responses, and on and on.

One thing that I appreciated most by both his and Krista’s book is reminding the readers that God is present in all things, the mundane and the commonplace, and man can understand it in their own context.  It reminds the reader that God permeates existence and experiences.  God is omnipresent in man’s surroundings and within.  And one of the better parts of Ed’s book is the reminder of the various lens through which one can analyze experiences and culture: gender, ethnicity, class, region, country, race, etc.  It reminds me a little of my undergrad studies

On a little more critical note, I felt like, at times, this book was a little too much like a primer to be used in a classroom or other academic setting.  I felt like this is just a little ironic especially given it’s emphasis on contextual theology.  The context of this book being read is probably not a classroom.  It could have just been toned down a bit.  That being said, this was a wonderful, thorough book.

Read other blog reviews of this book by following this link.

down my ideas as I read, highlighting things, writing questions in the margins. This time, I just want to write about how this book spoke to me. This isn’t really a “book review.” I mean, it involves a book but it’s more about what this book said to me that I want to write about.

Recently, I had actually been feeling quite down for various reasons. Work was stressing me out. Things with the loved ones in my life weren’t how I wanted them to be, fighting, breaking up and more fighting. And I had been keenly attuned to the failures in my life to live up to what I wanted and perceived my life in Christ to be.
I had actually taken a break from doing these book reviews because I needed to de-stress myself and trying to read a book within a relatively short period of time (when your life is chaotic as mine had been), trying to make the review meaningful and all the while allowing the book to speak to me seemed too much.
Then I got my message from Mike (I’ll be honest, I love it when I receive a message from him). More books have become available for review. I remember the Naked Gospel being available with another book that I actually thought looked much more interesting; however, I felt compelled to go with this book.
I set all of this up for you, my fictitious audience, because this is an important work. This book has spoken to me more deeply than many have in the past (which is partially why I’m apparently super-verbose right now).
In no sarcastic way — I cannot do this book justice by going chapter by chapter and review it.
What I can do is describe what has happened within me.
I, like many others, have lived a life defined by what I knew of the Gospels, of salvation, and of life. This book has drastically, wonderfully altered that. Remembering why I came to place my trust in Jesus, being reminded of my place before God, and encouraging me to life more fully because that’s all that I desire — this is what the book has done for me. I became a Christian because the promise of a redeeming God, a sacrificial son, and a guiding Spirit were so good, so real, that I surrendered myself to it. To be ensured that I was loved by God and that Christ took up dwelling within me was the most exhilirating experience of my life.
All too shortly after that, I was told that my life was to reflect a God who demanded constant repentance or risk losing mine and other souls.
You know what, I digress. And I’m going to leave this digression in here because its a reflection of what’s happening in my mind right now. It’s a confluence of spirit, goodness and life and leads me to talk and talk and talk.
This book will help you identify yourself. And you are in Christ and he in you. Be encouraged by that. Take that truth and live. That’s what we’re supposed to do with it.

If you are wondering about why Christians should care about justice, read this book. If you’re curious about areas in which you could be dedicating yourself to justice, read this book. Allow this book to be a catalyst for judicious studies of justice and know that this book forces you to delve deeper. It’s compelling summaries mandate that you peruse other volumes for more.
And, most importantly — since no book can make you fully aware of the injustices in this world that you are called to address — it asks you to put down the book and experience the injustice and proclaim the Gospel in word and deed against it.
“Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.” – Proverbs 31:9

I, like other reviewers of this book have noted, found the concept behind this journey to be one of the more intriguing component of this study of the Lord’s Prayer. Far too few attempts have been made to journey with a Jewish brother through our shared testament and, especially, the New. Most Christian studies, I would presume, that involve some form of reflection and etiology would be executed with preconceived notions derived from the perspective of a person coming from that faith tradition. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this approach. It is understandable to undertake, as a Christian, a study of the Jewish heritage and words with the intent to arrive at a new-found conclusion by studying the context of the literature; however, the basic premise of this book, that two individuals from different faith traditions who cherish a similar sacred text could enthusiastically and collaboratively study the components of one tradition derived from the other and the contexts that inform that tradition, is refreshing. Their journey together through the Hebrew texts surrounding the Lord’s Prayer was informative, especially for a Jewish history and Israeli geography novice, such as me.
What was simultaneously interesting by way of random archeological facts and somewhat boring by way of the flow of the book was the first half of this book. While it does lay a sort of frame work for the second half of the book, so much more time could and should have been dedicated to a discussion around some of the findings and their implications, socially, historically and religiously. The story does carry a sort of adventure feel to it which could have made for great fiction but detracted from the theological robustness of this book.
Knowing that the “implications” of the findings would be different for each author, I can understand why the majority of these findings were discussed in somewhat vague, Abrahamic-faith tradition language. And, don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. More conversations need to take place regarding the shared tradition and similarities between the traditions in order to promote interfaith peace and cooperation as we achieve God’s calling. But, as a Christian looking for more insight about the Lord’s Prayer and what that means for my life, I found myself not entirely motivated by the amount of time dedicated to research, discovery and shared experience and implications.
That being said, the last 90 pages of this book offered almost tidbits of theology which both piqued my curiosity and whet my appetite. The breakdown of every line in the Lord’s Prayer and spending an adequate amount of time discussing both the Hebrew text and the contexts in which they were written provided new insight to this reader. And, while each section revealed something new to me, the part and analysis of that prayer that most grabbed me and, I think, has the most devastating effect on many contemporary theologies while also being inspirational and excited is “Your Will Shall Be Done on Heaven and on Earth.”
Although disappointing that only a few pages were dedicated to this section, the addition of the word “shall” (an appropriate addition that was not included in the Greek version) is extremely significant. Nehemia discusses the implications:
“While the Greek version of the Avinu Prayer contains a call to action to do God’s will, the Hebrew contains a statement of fact: ‘Your will shall be done in heaven and on earth.’ (128-129)
While I am not sure that what follows this statement throughout the rest of the chapter about what this change means is entirely new nor incredibly insightful (e.g. “These Hebrew words…express the idea that our heavenly father is all-powerful” (129)), to me this change is of monumental importance.
When a Christian reads this change and hears the words of Jesus time and time again throughout the New Testament that “the Kingdom of God is upon you” and that it is now, not set in some ephemeral plane sometime after we die, it should inspire. As people suffer under in the Kingdom of Man, to know that God wants us to enact the Kingdom of God here and now on this earth should provide fresh motivation. It should spur the believer to decisive action and announce the Gospel as the good news to the poor, the sick, the homeless, the hungry, the orphan and the oppressed. For, as the Hebrew rendition of this prayer suggests, God’s will shall be done on earth. As Christians, it is our responsibility to make that happen.
At the end, while the book’s conclusion makes sense structurally (with a resounding “Amen” chapter), I found myself left hanging, confused that this brief journey was over. I was hoping for more substance. And, again, while the journey of two men from two different faith traditions was unique and interesting, personally, I would be interested in Mr. Johnson expanding on his findings, shedding more light to the implications this Hebrew prayer may offer to a Christian in a supplemental sequel. All in all, as a light, well-written book, it’s worth reading.