The Underground Church: Reclaiming The Subversive Way Of Jesus (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
This book was hard to rate. As to what the author is saying and his eloquence of prose, 5 stars. This is a message the Church needs to hear. As someone who currently lives in a country that continues to directly employ a kind of Constantinian model of Church and state, I see how the Church having an official seat in government harms the very soul and mission of the Church. As a result, we have a Church that looks the other way to an abortion rate of over 3 per woman of child rearing age per year because they don’t want to appear to be out of step with government social policy (which is to ignore family and women’s health all together). Further, they would rather have this than approve contraception or admit that there are a lot of “friends with benefits” in their dioceses (who then must resort to abortion for contraception). I have also watched the government look the other way while priests of the Church rounded up thugs and tasked them with brutalizing men and women (and reporters) who attempted an LGBT Pride march in the capital city. I’m a guest here, and despite all this, I do see the vast amount of good the Church does in this country, but the power is corrupting Her and government too often takes advantage of its relationship to the Church in ways that treat Her something like a cheap whore (something of course She most certainly is not). This could be another way of looking at the “whore of Babylon” metaphor that that the author discusses toward the end of the book in regards to money. Of course, it is not like this does not happen in the US where both political parties, but particularly the Republican party, has “had its way” with the Church paying Her with perceived power and an unofficial seat at the table. Anyway, the author’s point is well taken; it’s ALWAYS a bad thing when the Church becomes part of the government, always.As much as I was moved by the ideas the author presented, I felt like they were overstated, both in loudness and length. Much of what he is proposing, as necessary as it is, will be hard at best to employ…yet one feels like he is beating the reader over the head with a big stick. I also felt his “stick” was a bit rotten. I am only a casual student of Church History and I recognize that most of what I have read is “official” Church History, but the author seems to paint a picture of the early Church that seems revisionist. While the early Church was not what we see today in any of the modern or “ancient” Churches, it did have a hierarchy (though still rather flat) as can be seen in the writings of Ignatius (around 107 AD). It also had an orthodoxy, again nowhere near as complex as today as can also be seen in writings of the Church fathers. Related to the loudness, he can tend to ramble (like me). A third of this book could have been edited away with nothing being lost. He could at least cut out much of the abrasive liberal conservative talk that is never good for unity no matter how “fair” one thinks she/he is being. As a slow reader, when books get like this, I start to get annoyed and ultimately distracted away from the good message the author is trying to communicate. I would imagine many readers “skim” large portions of this book and “roll their eyes” in others. In this area, I would give the book 2 stars. Bottom-line, this book has a message the Church needs to hear, but listening can from time to time be a bit of a chore. This is an outstanding examination of the current state of the church and a vision for a new church that is more like the person the church was supposed to emulate.I have the great privilege to be a member of Mayflower Church where Robin Meyers minsters. This book spells out his vision of what the church should be and what Mayflower is trying to become. We want to be a place where all feel included regardless of their beliefs and/or lifestyles. We have no doctrine, simply a covenant to help each of us to realize all that God wants us to become. I recommend this ebook to all those who feel that the church needs to do more than simply do more than to affirm the status quo.
What do You think about The Underground Church: Reclaiming The Subversive Way Of Jesus (2012)?
Really like this book. Very thought provoking. This would be a good discussion group book.
—RawrR
Thought provoking look at the church. Reforming renewing and moving into the future
—Ava
This book reflects a lot of what I think about Christianity.
—inday
