ReJesus ReView

I almost feel I am betraying friends to write this review.
I pray it is not so.
I more likely betray myself, and my misguided expectations of two of the most important thinkers/provocateurs/guides of our time.

I love, and recommend, all the books by Frost and Hirsch--the ones they write separately, and the ones the write together. "ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church" was no exception.

Or maybe it was.

Maybe the only thing wrong with the whole book is the subtitle.

It set up impossibly high expectations.
So, that I didn't glean much about Jesus being wild, messiah, or missional, was quite a letdown.

This was the book of theirs it felt like they were destined to write,
and the book of theirs I was most drawn to reading.

And it's the only one where each successive chapter let me down a little more;
I seemed top take less notes as it went by.

I still love lots about it, will reference it, and use it.
But in the sweep of their impressive catalog so far (and hopefully to come), it may not prove to be vital, as all their other works are (at least for me; it may have been designed with a different audience in mind from their past books). In their eventual impressive arc of their literature, I don't see it ever becoming their "Joshua Tree" or "Achtung Baby."
(Some might relate to the comparison to "the 'POP' of the U2 canon," but I actually love that maligned album. In fact, the trajectory and narrative of "Pop" might well communicate what I expected from "ReJesus." Hmmm...)

I really enjoyed the killer quotes from Ellul, for example;
and some of the sidebarred case studies of folks in history who modelled well being "little Jesuses." The brief paragraph on Kierkegard was hugely helpful for me ( SK saw himself as an "auditor" of apostles --Frost and Hirsch's point-- but in doing so proved himself an apostle--my conclusion), the snippets of Nick Cave's Introduction to the Gospel of Mark ("the Christ the church offers..denies Christ his potent creative sorrow or his boiling anger," p,21) are incredible, and the linking of Sinead O' Connor's "Theology" very key to the argument.

But that's the rub: I already own Kierkegaard, Ellul, Cave, O'Connor.
What I longed for is more of the amazing and articulate prophetic quotes that Frost and Hirsch are quite capable of.

They may be the only two on the planet who could deliver the definitive book about Jesus for our generation.

This is not it.

Though it is ocassionally extraordinarily valuable to me:


Having often asked groups and congregations which character of a Bible story they relate too, and often wishing more people had said "Jesus," but were afraid that was too arrogant, I was thrilled to read F/H wondering aloud the same after telling Scott Peck's story where only 6 out of 600 did so at a conference.

Whats up with that? Much of the book addresses that question creatively.

Great sections on epistemology; Greek vs. Hebrew ways of knowing.

Wonderful insights about dueling the dualisms so embedded in church culture and Christology.

Indeed, The Kingdom is so much bigger and broader than the church (p.30).

Amen and amen.

But we have heard all this from Frost and Hirsch before.

I was hoping to hear something more.
Or LESS:
a refocused, refounded picture of Jesus the Wild One.
It didn't quite develop for me.

I related a lot of Andrew's review:

ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church, by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, is a call to a renewal of spirituality and discipleship centred on Jesus; it describes what that renewed spirituality and discipleship might look like; it tells some powerful stories about spirituality and discipleship. It’s a wonderful book. Quintessential Frost and Hirsch.
But it is not really a book about Jesus. The authors expressly excuse themselves on this point. They are not endeavouring to outline the contours of Jesus’ teaching because ‘so many books have done a better job of that than we can possibly accomplish’; rather they are trying to find the ‘spiritual centers’ of the ‘lifestyle and faith that Jesus taught and exemplified’ - ‘to touch the wild and primal energy that radiates out of Jesus’ (41).
The rhetoric is compelling, but the argument bothers me. Frost and Hirsch call people to follow a captivating messiah, but they won’t tell us what he did, why he did it, or where he thought he was going. If we are not given the overall shape of Jesus’ teaching, how are we to be sure that the ‘spiritual centers’ have been correctly located? Much is said - and said well, if a little hyperbolically at times - about the character of Jesus: a ‘daring, radical, strange, wonderful, inexplicable, unstoppable, marvelous, unsettling, disturbing, caring, powerful God-Man’ (111). But is it wise to encourage people to follow - indeed worship - a dangerous charismatic figure without providing some basic information about his agenda, some sketch of the contours of his teaching?

-Andrew

So, overall..

My first impression:

After all these guys have written that is riveting and revolutionary , why does this (the only book promising to be riveting and revolutionary) seem like a zillion evangelical apologetics I read in the old days? I felt like I was back in the conservagelical movement, defending an orthdox doctrine of Christ in the face of the liberal relatvism.
Been there, done that, may be necessary (?), but feels old school..
It almost reads like "we just need to believe in Jesus a little harder."

My second impression:

For a book that promises, via subtitle, to introduce us to a wild Messiah, I picked up little wildness.
The press and the subtitle lead us to believe this is to be something along the lines of McManus's "The Barbarian Way." I wish it was.

Len suggests it's "Soul Survivor meets "Wild at Heart."
It could have/maybe should have been that and more.

My third impression:

I love that the book was about reframing, "refounding" all of church and life on Jesus.

But it seemed odd and ironic that such focus was never seemed to come into ..well, focus! Nor placed securely enough in the contet of the community of the Trinity (and the community of the Bride).
Maybe this is another book, but I could have used a few more paragraphs and pages on the amazing, loaded and leaded sentence, "the physical embodiment of the Trinity is in the people of God" (28). I would pay big money to hear someone the calibre of Frost and Hirsch unpack that for an hour.

I was shocked to finally arrive at a section entitled "a quick word on the Trinity" (136) ! Excellent material, but far too brief...and ultimately the truth argued for there seemed negated by the rest of the book.

Certainly, Jesus is somehow "center" of Trinity, and though the authors are careful to (briefly) plant him in the context of the community of the Godhead. I just don't see how the wildly missional Messiah that Jesus indeed was and is, can ever be such sans the context of his own missional community/communtas (see
(Moltmann, Steve Seamands, and a hots of others who pick up this card).
In particular, I felt we needed more connection/connexion to the Third Person, and what is sometimes called "Spirit Christology" (see the third section here, regarding why this is so crucial to book about Jesus):

But if we start with pneumatology, and move to a Spirit-Christology, we affirm de facto a Trinitarian frame and we start with ontology. Thus we begin with our common humanness; a starting point among rather than above. -link, Len Hjalmarson

See Len's posts on the book for more implications here.
Also, ironically, the authors delightfully discuss three other "trinities":

• Christology, missiology/ecclesiology (p.6)
• God as Missio Dei/Church as Participati Christi/world as imag Dei (38)
• Orthodoxy/orthohopraxy/orthopathy (158)

As I posted earlier:

Nowadays, when the emphasis is more on conversation and culture than doctrine;
it almost sounds old school to some to call for a renewed focus on the doctrine of the Trinity..

..but those of us who "believe" this doctrine definitely assume it's not just that,
but life and relationship..
..and somehow foundational to everything else we do, say and pray.

Having been moved for years by Moltmann's "The Trinity and the Kingdom,"

and captured in recent years by Eugene Peterson's writings
("Trinity is the most comprehensive and integrative framework that we have for understanding and participating in the Christian life."),


and Capon's clever take (often comparing the Trinity to three Jewish guys in conversation):

"Before anything was made, it was all already done within the Trinity. The whole thing was accomplished before it started... Pure monotheism is dangerous. The doctrine of the Trinity embraces the paradox of mutuality in God himself without violating the unity of God—because it can only be presented as a paradox and a mystery. Paradox can take you on trips that religion can’t even buy a ticket for."




Check these two random and unrelated (yeah, right!) quotes:


1)"Theologian Kevin Giles..says that the Trinity 'is the model on which ecclesiology should be formulated. On this premise, the inner life of the Trinity provides a pattern, a model, an echo, or an icon of the Christian communal existence in the world.'

Simply put , the Trinity is the paradigm for the church's native expression."
-Frank Viola, "Reimagining Church," p. 36

and

2)"William McLaughlin, an astrophysicist..., says..'The doctrine of the Trinity represents a revolutionary form of logic which is ideal for new forms of computer systems. Instead of one master control chip, a Trinity computer would have three...(such) would be adept at intuition... non hierarchical authority...and lateral thinking, otherwise known as fuzzy logic, where the solution to a problem lies outside the system being studied."
-Adrian Berry, "Galileo and the Dolphins," 172-174.
link

Having said all that, this may be the perfect book for someone who has not read (and may not ever) the other books by this dynamic duo. And I am sure I need to read it again...yet I am not sure I will.

That will likely be my loss. So pray I get "ReJesus"-ed again.
I may even have to write sequel/apology for this review.
That would be a great sign I got my Christology straight...
..and RePented.