Elliot Ritzema

Category: Books

  • Is There a Christian Way to Read Books? A Review

    Are you a Christian who would like to get more out of your reading, but don’t know where to start? Do you want guidance on choosing what books to read, and how to read them once you’ve started? Then Tony Reinke’s Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books is for you.

    The book comes in two parts: “(1) a theology of reading books and (2) a collection of practical suggestions for reading books.” Since, Reinke writes, “Scripture is the ultimate grid by which we read every book,” and “Our worldview convictions are too important to be based upon secondary literature,” he spends the first part of the book developing biblical and theological convictions about reading books. Readers who were expecting merely a “how to” book might get a little antsy in this section, but it provides a valuable foundation for what comes next. In the second part of the book, Reinke provides helpful advice on how to prioritize what books to read, how to find time to read, how to take notes in books, how to read in community, and (for parents and pastors) how to foster a love of reading in others.

    This is a helpful introduction to reading books as a Christian. The main takeaway is that many books have value, but not every book should be approached in the same way. Some should be savored, some skimmed, and some sampled. Some books should be our advisers, some books should be our teachers, and one book (the Bible) should be our master.

    I have two (minor) quibbles with Lit! First, a note on an image from Revelation: Reinke says in chapter 2 that Jesus will return with a sword “in his hand.” No, Revelation talks about Jesus with a sword in his mouth (Rev 1:16; 19:15, 21). The image is significant, and it actually helps Reinke’s argument because the sword coming from Jesus’ mouth points to the power of his words. Second, Reinke describes Christians in chapter 13 as “people of the Book.” Actually, Christians are not known for calling themselves this; it is a Muslim designation for non-Muslim faiths with a revealed scripture. And I don’t think it’s entirely accurate for Christians to call themselves people of the book; rather, it is more appropriate to say that we are “people of the Word” (referring both to the risen and still-present-through-the-Spirit Christ and to Scripture). The Christian relationship to the Bible is not the same as the Muslim relationship to the Qur’an.

    However, I would not let those quibbles keep me from recommending this book to the right audience. The person who will get the most out of Lit!: (1) is looking for guidance on what books to read, and how to read them as a Christian; (2) is perhaps suspicious of non-Christian literature (Reinke argues throughout that while Christians should be discerning regarding what they choose to read, they should not be afraid of reading all non-Christian books); and (3) identifies as Reformed. That is not to say that non-Reformed readers will not get anything out of this book, but those who admire the authors Reinke cites with approval (Calvin, the Puritans, Spurgeon, Packer, Piper, among others) will feel most “at home” with this book.

    Note: Thanks to the publisher for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.

  • How to Be a Saint: A Review

    There are many books on Christian conversion, and how to begin life as a new follower of Christ. There are likewise many books on practices related to Christian spiritual formation. But what does it look like to be a mature Christian? What is the ultimate goal of conversion, on the one hand, and spiritual practices, on the other? Is the goal of becoming a Christian (to caricature a common belief) to have eternal fire insurance? To wait around for heaven, or the end of the world, whichever comes first? Gordon Smith has seen a gap in the literature on what Christian maturity looks like, and he aims to fill it with Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity.

    (A personal note, before I get into the review: I attended Regent College when Smith was a professor of spiritual theology there. During that time, his lectures on spiritual discernment were recorded during an evening class on a night when I was working part-time as a janitor. I remember the students being packed into that classroom like sardines, and during breaks, my friends in the class spoke highly of Smith as a lecturer. I never managed to take any of Smith’s classes, but I did listen to those lectures after I left Regent and found them to be wise and helpful.)

    The book comes in six chapters, plus two substantial appendices. In the first chapter, Smith alerts the reader to the need for a “compelling theology of holiness.” The second chapter is the crux of the book, in which Smith maintains that Christian spiritual maturity is union with Christ. That is, “what makes the Christian a Christian is participation in the life of Christ Jesus, or union with Christ” (37). The goal is not merely to look like Christ, to ask “What would Jesus do?”; it is to actually participate in the life of Christ. “Without an emphasis on union with Christ, spiritual formation will be a frustrated effort to become like Christ” (48).

    Chapters three through six look, in turn, at four characteristics of mature Christians: they are wise, they do good work, they love, and they are joyful. In each chapter, Smith looks carefully at what each of these means, and doesn’t mean. Finally, in two appendices Smith addresses the question of what this looks like in community: the first dealing with congregations, and the second dealing with Christian educational institutions. Although they are set apart as appendices because their goal is different from the chapters earlier in the book, they are just as substantial as the chapters.

    The audience that I can see benefiting most from this book are Christian congregational leaders and educators, i.e., people who are responsible for shepherding others into maturity. I would not say that an average church attender could not get anything out of this book, but readers should not expect this to read like a popular-level “Christian living” book. It does not have short chapters or a lot of stories. It is published by InterVarsity Press’s academic imprint, and could be daunting for a reader who is not used to, or not expecting, a more academic style of writing. It demands to be read and re-read slowly, with pencil in hand.

    Note: Thanks to InterVarsity Press for providing me with a review copy of this book. I was not asked to give a positive review.

  • The War on Christians: More Important than the “War on Christmas”

    John L. Allen begins his book The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution by dropping this bombshell: “However counterintuitive it may seem in light of popular stereotypes of Christianity as a powerful and sometimes oppressive social force, Christians today indisputably are the most persecuted religious body on the planet, and too often their new martyrs suffer in silence” (1). How persecuted are they? Allen cites a leading estimate that says that 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world are directed against Christians.

    By beginning his book this way, Allen, a Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, hopes to get Western Christians, and those who have power more generally, to care more about this war on Christians around the world. Too often, Western Christians care more about the so-called “War on Christmas” than the fact that their brothers and sisters around the world are suffering and dying because of their faith. Allen is careful to distinguish between what he calls the “war on religion” in Western countries, which is about creeping secularism in public life, and the “war on Christians,” which is about violence and overt persecution. While the former is certainly happening, the magnitude of the latter causes it to pale in comparison.

    In the first part of the book, Allen gives an overview of anti-Christian persecution around the world. In the second part, he looks at five myths about the war on Christians: the myth that Christians are at risk only where they’re a minority, the myth that no one saw it coming, the myth that it’s all about Islam, the myth that it’s only persecution if the motives are religious, and the myth that anti-Christian persecution is a political (only right-wing or left-wing) issue. In the final part, after talking about some of the fallout, he gives suggestions on what can be done: prayer, raising consciousness, thinking globally about the church, micro-charity, humanitarian relief, political advocacy, resettling refugees, and partnering with Christians from other parts of the world.

    Allen’s claims in this book about the scope of anti-Christian persecution do not seem at all controversial. I made note of several articles about it while I was reading the book. Clearly, it is happening. An interesting angle that Allen takes is that he thinks the motives of the victims of persecution are just as important as the motives of the persecutors. For example, he tells the story of Sr. Dorothy Stang, a nun who was murdered in Brazil in 2005 because of her advocacy on behalf of the poor and the environment. While she was not killed because she was a Christian per se, she is a victim of the global war on Christians because she took the positions she did on account of her Christian convictions.

    The only thing I would change about the book is that I wish Allen had included footnotes. He defends his omission of footnotes early in the book, saying that their inclusion “would become unwieldy” (26). All the same, since the intent of the book is to lower barriers to awareness, I think the inclusion of at least some citations would have helped his readers educate themselves even more. With that said, I would recommend that any Western Christian or member of the media read this book. While is not “light” reading, it is not intended to be. It is, as the back cover boldly proclaims, “time to wake up.”

    Note: Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

  • Power Was Made for Flourishing: A Review

    The word power has the ability to make even the least squeamish among us flinch. It can call to mind images of violence, abuse, and selfishness. When we hear the word power, we think of Lord Acton’s saying, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It is bad guys who have power, we think—even though it was He-Man, not Skeletor, who said “I have the power” in every episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Even people who want to use their power for good (so common knowledge tells us) must wield it cynically, unable to keep themselves from being dirtied by it. People who don’t want to compromise must avoid power at all costs.

    Andy Crouch will have none of this kind of thinking. His contention, in his book Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, is that power is good. It is a gift. It is, he writes, “the ability to make something of the world” (17). He sets out to show us in this book what power was meant to be, and what it still can be. It is not always a zero-sum game, in which my increase in power means a decrease in someone else’s. We have been taught to think this way through the influence of thinkers like Nietzsche and Foucault, and it is reinforced during even the most civilly contested elections—which theoretically exist, somewhere. No, the best kind of power is when powerful people create new power in other people without the total power being reduced, as when a teacher teaches a student. In other words, not all power is domination. When we believe that all power is domination, and that the ultimate nature of reality is a power struggle, we believe a lie.

    Instead, Crouch argues that the ultimate nature of reality is that God created us to bear his image. When we fail to worship God as his image bearers, we worship idols. “The question is whether we are making idols—investing created things with ultimate significance—or whether we are being ‘idols’ in the sense of Genesis 1:26, images and signs of the ultimate truth about the world” (97). The bad uses of power that we see on a regular basis are not the inevitable result of the nature of power itself. Rather, abuses of power are brought on by idolatry, and “in the beginning it was not so.”

    Probably the most eye-opening parts of this book for me were the chapters “The Hiddenness of Power” and “The Lure of Privilege.” I am, like Crouch, a white male citizen of the United States. By virtue of those three things alone (not to mention other factors like education), I am privileged, and in ways that are mostly invisible to me. For example, I once heard a few friends, who were women, talk about their experiences of hearing whistles and catcalls as they walked down the street. Before hearing that conversation, I thought that sort of thing only happened in the movies (and old ones, at that), not in real life. I have never had that degrading experience, merely because being a man has granted me certain privileges that I did not ask for, and that I mostly take for granted. Crouch writes of Jesus that while he did not give up exercising power, he did give up the privilege and status that could have accrued to his power. I’m not entirely sure I agree with Crouch’s precise distinction between privilege and status, but I do agree that inherited power can be good at some times and bad at others.

    I haven’t even touched on Crouch’s chapters on institutions, which are a helpful challenge to people who are suspicious of institutional power. This book is worth pondering slowly, and perhaps with a group of people. I found it difficult to read quickly. It is not that Crouch’s prose is undecipherable; he is in fact a clear and lucid writer. But his subject matter is such that I had to pause frequently and reflect on what he was saying. This book is worth reading, and re-reading, especially for anyone who is suspicious of or cynical about power.

    Note: Thanks to InterVarsity Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

  • Resisting the Culture and Building Wealth: A Review

    Dave Ramsey has created a successful career out of telling people what to do with their money. I’ve listened to his radio show several times, and I can see why he is so popular. He has a no-nonsense demeanor, and his moral universe seems to have few or no gray areas. You’re either right or wrong, smart or dumb. His personality is perfect for getting people motivated to get out of debt and build wealth. But the ultimate goal for Ramsey is not just to build wealth; it is to become generous and leave a legacy to one’s family and community.

    The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition is the fourth edition of Dave Ramsey’s most well-known book; the most recent update before this one was 2009. There are a few minor differences between this edition and the previous one, but they are largely the same. In it, Ramsey takes readers through his baby steps for getting out of debt and building wealth:

    1. Save $1,000 fast
    2. Pay off your debts in order from least to greatest (the “Debt Snowball”)
    3. Finish an emergency fund of 3–6 months of expenses
    4. Maximize your retirement investing (15% of household income)
    5. Fund your kids’ college education
    6. Pay off your home mortgage
    7. Build wealth and give

    Popular as he is, Ramsey has received criticism from various quarters (here, for example). This criticism ranges from his specific financial advice to the way he talks about poor people. While I think Ramsey could certainly be more nuanced than he is, I think the criticism of the latter misunderstands who Ramsey’s audience is and what he is trying to do. Ramsey is a motivator. He wants to get people fired up about getting out of debt. His comments about being poor are not intended to be nuanced, taking into account every reason why people might be poor. I think, for example, that he is wrong to generalize that poverty caused by injustice is not a first-world problem.

    In his moral universe, poverty is something to be escaped. When he talks about poor people, he is not talking about the poor in spirit to whom belongs the kingdom of God. He is not primarily talking about people who are poor because they are oppressed by people with more power than them. He is talking about the kind of poor people—people who waste money on frivolous spending and servicing debt—that his primary audience doesn’t want to be anymore. His advice to that demographic has helped many of them escape debt and build wealth, and he is (rightly, I think) beloved by them. Ramsey is at his best when he is counseling people to resist a culture of overconsumption. He is at his worst when he makes generalizations about the causes of poverty—as are we all. Even the Bible doesn’t generalize about the causes of poverty. Compare, for example, Proverbs 13:23, which attributes poverty to injustice, with Proverbs 10:4, which attributes it to laziness. If even the Bible doesn’t make sweeping generalizations about the causes of poverty, we shouldn’t either. Ramsey should stick to what he does best, and his critics should recognize what he is trying to accomplish.

    Note: Thanks to Thomas Nelson for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

  • Let’s Talk Turkey: The First Thanksgiving and How to Think Historically

    American Thanksgiving is coming! (after living for four years in Canada, I can’t help but add the “American”) As we gather around the table with family and friends, many of us may be in a reflective mood about what we are thankful for and the history of this holiday.

    If you, like me, enjoy filling your reflective moments with reading, then have I got a book for you. The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us about Loving God and Learning from History, by Robert Tracy McKenzie, is the best book I have ever read on the history of Thanksgiving (admittedly, I haven’t read many). It is not just a historical account of the Pilgrims who founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620, although there is some of that. It is also a treatise on how to think as a Christian about history: approaching the past with humility, and neither glorifying nor demonizing the people we find there.

    I’ve written a brief review on the Vyrso blog, which I encourage you to check out. To whet your appetite, here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

    We must beware of the temptation to go to the past for ammunition instead of illumination—more determined to prove points than to gain understanding.

    A genuine Thanksgiving holy day, as the Pilgrims defined it, always was a response to God’s “special providence,” and God’s “special providence” was, by definition, unique. A regularly scheduled Thanksgiving holiday flies in the face of this understanding.

    As applied to history, we engage in moral judgment when we use our critical faculties primarily to determine the guilt or rectitude of the people, events or belief systems we encounter in our study. In contrast, we approach history as a medium for moral reflection when we determine to make ourselves vulnerable to the past, when we figuratively resurrect the dead and allow their words and actions to speak to us, even “to put our own lives to the test.”

    We who name the “name above all names” have all too often acquiesced, in part by convincing ourselves that, given America’s “Christian culture,” there were no hard choices to be made—that our religious and national identities were mutually reinforcing, if not downright indistinguishable. But if knowing we are pilgrims means that our true citizenship is in heaven, it also means that we are “strangers” and “aliens” here on earth—yes, even in the United States—and this means, in turn, that we should expect the values of our host country to differ from those of our homeland.

    UPDATE: The publisher, InterVarsity Press, has posted a video about the book:

    Also, here are two articles about the book: First, an interview with the author. Second, a review by historian Thomas S. Kidd.

  • On Loving Our Dead Neighbors: A Review

    It was the author, rather than the subject matter, that drew me to Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was. In fact, I had never heard of the “axial age” or “dark green religion” before reading this book. I was, however, familiar with Iain Provan. I studied at Regent College, where he teaches, and I found him to be one of the most careful, nuanced thinkers I had ever met. If he decided that a subject was worth writing about, I knew it was going to be good.

    Although the specific subject matter was new to me, the broader issue of reconstructing the past so it is more useful for present purposes is not. I see this frequently when it comes to the history of the United States. There are some Christians who emphasize the role of faith (and specifically Christianity) in the founding and early history of the country. The implication is that in order to get back to “what the founders intended,” the advance of secularism in public life needs to be reversed: we need to display the Ten Commandments in courthouses, pray in schools, teach history in a certain way, etc. There are, on the other hand, secularists who seek to downplay the role of faith in the country’s history: pointing out, for example, that God is not mentioned in the constitution and that there has never been a religious test for office in national government. The implication is that in order to get back to “what the founders intended,” government needs to be separated from religion. I have written before about this issue in my review of a DVD curriculum called the Truth Project. I will sum up my thinking here: treating history as a tool to advance a present agenda amounts to a failure to love our dead neighbors.

    That is part of Provan’s argument as well. In chapter 1, he introduces readers to Karl Jaspers’s theory of the “axial age” (800–200 BCE), which Jaspers called “the most crucial turning point in history; it was then that man as he is today was born” (8). In this age, despite the differences in the religions that emerged, humanity had a unifying goal of self-transcendence. Jaspers’s theory has been advanced more recently by people like Ewert Cousins, and popularized by the likes of John Hick and Karen Armstrong. In chapters 2 and 3, Provan points out some criticisms of this theory and argues that, based on historical data, there never was such a thing as the axial age. It ignores or twists too much data that go against it, and the theory should be abandoned.

    In chapter 4, Provan shifts to talking about the “dark green golden age.” This was a much earlier age filled with “dark green religion,” which, according to Bron Taylor, refers to “religion that considers nature to be sacred, imbued with intrinsic value, and worthy of reverent care” (44). This idea (and the idea that this is something we need to return to) is promoted by people like David Suzuki and Derrick Jensen. Just as with the axial age, Provan takes two chapters (5 and 6) to argue that there in fact never was such an age of dark green religion, based on historical and anthropological data. He writes, “We have never lived in a world in which people manage and take care of their environments, making sure that they never misuse or overexploit anything and consequently enjoying a world in which there is plenty for everyone” (66).

    Chapter 7 is the turning point of the book. In it, Provan explores the question why so many well-meaning people have believed two theories that are so clearly lacking in historical truth: “The answer, I believe, is that they need to be true if the past is to be useful to advocates in pursuit of a particular understanding of our present moment and a particular vision of the future” (85). He goes on in chapter 8 to give a (very) brief overview of ancient history, emphasizing the ways in which it deviates from the axial and dark green accounts. The next chapter contains some specific ways in which axial age and dark green religion advocates have misused Provan’s own area of professional knowledge: the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. He concludes in a final chapter: “The mythmakers behind the myths of the axial age and the dark green golden age do violence to the ancient religions and philosophies they claim to describe. They do so in the course of distorting the past in general. This is problematic in terms of ethics. It matters, because it is morally wrong. We should not disrespect the past or the peoples of the past. We have a duty to tell the truth” (121).

    Convenient Myths is brief (just 127 pages, not including endnotes), but it has the potential to do a lot of good. This is not a hatchet job; he has many positive things to say. Throughout, Provan is deeply sympathetic to many of the goals held by advocates of the axial age and dark green religion. He, too, wants to live in a world that is more compassionate. He, too, wants to live in a world in which humans take care of their environment. However, he argues that the ends do not justify the means. This is an important book to read, not just for those who are tempted to believe in the axial age or dark green golden age, but for any people who are tempted to disrespect their dead neighbors by distorting history to pursue a present agenda.

    Update: The book launch lecture for this book,”Reading Culture: The War of Myths and the Mission of the Church,” is available FREE (as of this writing) here.

    Note: Thanks to Baylor University Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

  • You Can Be Free: A Review

    Mark and Lisa Scandrette have completely paid off their house. That in itself is impressive, but two other facts made me want to listen to what they have to say about finances in their book Free: Spending Your Time and Money on What Matters Most. First, they live in San Francisco, which is consistently listed as one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. Second, they have never made more than an average teacher’s salary.

    In this book, they set forth seven steps toward aligning our money and time with what we value most. Those seven steps are:

    1. Name what matters most to you. Ask, “Who am I and what do I want to be about?”

    2. Value and align your time. Time is not an infinite resource; be deliberate about how you are going to spend it.

    3. Practice gratitude and trust. Be grateful for what you have, and believe that God is able and willing to give you what you need.

    4. Believe you have enough. Be content, in spite of the many messages you receive every day telling you not to be.

    5. Create a spending plan. Like time, money is not an infinite resource. Decide in advance how you are going to spend it, and don’t spend more than you have.

    6. Maximize your resources. Reduce costs wherever you can. Practice frugality. Ask, “Do I really need this?”

    7. Live generously and spend wisely. If you live out the first six steps, chances are that at some point in your life you will have more money than you need, and you will have freedom to choose how to spend your time. Be generous with both.

    Throughout the book, they include exercises and questions to help readers implement this process in their own lives. There is even an eight-session group learning guide in the back for those who go through this process together.

    There is no shortage of books on the market that purport to give financial advice. There is even no shortage of books on the market that purport to give financial advice from a Christian perspective. What sets Free apart is the Scandrettes’ holistic vision. What you do with your money is related to everything else you do, and everything you do is in turn related to everyone around you. Freedom is not individualistic; it is not the ability to do whatever you want without other people interfering. No, freedom is the ability to live out of who God made you to be, and to help others live out of who God made them to be.

    The Scandrettes write near the beginning of the book, “We hope to offer a resource that connects personal economic practice with spiritual values, questions of meaning, global justice and ecological sustainability” (16). I believe they have done just that.

    Note: Thanks to InterVarsity Press for a (free!) copy of this book in exchange for my review.

  • The All-of-Life God: A Review

    If you’re not too busy in our sped-up world, you’re probably dead. It seems like nearly everyone has more demands on their time than they have time to fulfill those demands. Christians, whose relationship with Christ is more important than anything else, still struggle to devote time to the spiritual side of life.

    With God in my Everything: How an Ancient Rhythm Helps Busy People Enjoy God, Ken Shigematsu has written a book for all those Christians who feel, as Bilbo Baggins said in The Lord of the Rings, “like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.”  I first heard of Shigematsu when I was attending Regent College several years ago. He was, and is, pastor of a church that was very popular among Regent students, Tenth Avenue Alliance Church (or as it is usually called, Tenth Church). I never attended a service at Tenth, but he did come to speak at Regent in my Introduction to Preaching class once. I could see why his preaching spoke to so many people: he has a great sense of humor, but he also gives the sense of having a deep, relaxed, and authentic friendship with Christ.

    In this book, Shigematsu attempts to convince stressed-out people that the solution to their harried existence lies in monasticism—not by giving up everything and joining a monastery, but by living according to a rule of life. In a rule of life, instead of letting life happen to us and rushing from one emergency to another, we prioritize the things we regard as important and make time to do them. Throughout the book, Shigematsu uses the image of a trellis: something you construct deliberately, on which the rest of life can grow and be supported. 

    The book comes in five parts. Like a good preacher, Shigematsu has made sure their titles all begin with the same letter. The first, “Rules,” explains the concept of a rule of life. In the second, called “Roots,” Shigematsu introduces readers to three foundational aspects of a rule of life: sabbath, prayer, and sacred Bible reading. The third, “Relate,” shows how a rule of life can be crafted in our friendships, sexual lives, and family. The fourth, “Restore,” looks at the rule of life in the areas of exercise, play, and money. Finally, “Reach Out” looks at the rule of life with respect to work, service, and sharing Christ with others.

    Throughout, Shigematsu masterfully moves the reader along by using stories from his life and others to illustrate various points. He also stresses application of the lessons of the book in readers’ lives. Each chapter ends with discussion/reflection questions, and there are also spaces for the reader to craft his or her own rule of life. One very helpful aspect of the book was the inclusion at the end of example rules of life from people who are in various stages of life. While the idea of a rule of life was not new to me, I very much appreciate the way Shigematsu was able to make it relevant to a wide variety of people. I highly recommend this book, especially to busy people. And who, besides dead people, isn’t busy these days? 

     

    Note: Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

  • What the Kingdom Is and Isn’t: A Review

    Everyone who has read the Gospels knows that Jesus talks a lot about the kingdom of God (“kingdom of heaven” in Matthew). What kind of kingdom was this? Was it something to be looked for in the future? Was it something to be looked for in the present? And why don’t Christians tend to talk about the kingdom as much as Jesus did?

    Rick McKinley, pastor of Imago Dei Community in Portland, answers all these questions and more in his book This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God. The first edition of this book was released in 2006, and a revised and updated version was published in July 2013.

    The book comes in three parts: “Discovering the Kingdom,” in which McKinley describes what the kingdom of God is; “Re-Visioning Life in the Kingdom,” in which he describes where to look for it; and “Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom,” in which he describes some ways in which Christians can live out the kingdom today. Imago Dei Community embraces the arts, and most chapters end with a brief poem or creative bit of prose from a member of the community.

    This book is short (less than 200 pages) and readable. McKinley writes in a conversational and accessible tone, using no footnotes. McKinley’s description of the kingdom of God as “already and not yet” will not come as news to people who have read New Testament scholars such as N. T. Wright, Scot McKnight (who are not mentioned in the book), or George Eldon Ladd (who is)—or, indeed, the New Testament itself. His emphasis on discipleship carries echoes of Dallas Willard. This book will be most valuable to those who are looking for an accessible introduction to what the kingdom is, and how to live out its beauty today—in the midst of the mess.

    ★ ★ ★ ★

    Note: Thanks to Waterbrook Multnomah for a review copy of this book. I was not asked to give a positive review.