10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reasons for Remaining Christian, May 20, 2010
This review is from: The Jesus Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity With Jesus (Paperback)
If you have sensed that politics (through the ages) has distorted the message of Christianity but do not have a theological education that could provide you with a compelling, non-apologetic, intellectually substantial reason for remaining a Christian, then you will find it in Michael Hardin's excellent book The Jesus Driven Life. I am a lay person in the Episcopal Church who has mentored the fine Education for Ministry course for three years. However, it was not until I became acquainted with the anthropology of Rene Girard that I was able to understand the "why" of Jesus. But I wondered how this information could this be introduced and organized for the layperson. Hardin's book has the makings of a fine course and I look forward to the DVDs. I have recommended this book to my rector and bishop and will continue to recommend it to Christian formation educators.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's all about Jesus, July 7, 2010
This review is from: The Jesus Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity With Jesus (Paperback)
The landscape of American Christianity, indeed, of world Christianity, is changing. Of that there can be no doubt. Terms like "postmodern Christianity" and "emergent Christianity" permeate our culture. Unfortunately, while few people actually know what these terms mean, there is a palpable sense that change is afoot. That change scares many, while it excites others.
In his book The Jesus Driven Life, Michael Hardin explores the transformation Christianity is experiencing today. He has one primary answer for the many dilemmas facing 21st century Christians. That answer is simple, but far from simplistic. The answer, of course, is Jesus. And that's the obvious answer - middle school youth groups throughout the United States (including mine!) implicitly know the answer to difficult questions posed in youth group meetings is always an emphatic . . . "Jesus!" Unfortunately, the wisdom of our middle school students has become blurred in American Christianity. This is one of Michael's greatest points, as he argues that North American Christianity has a "theology (a doctrine of God) without a Christology (a doctrine of Jesus)" (157).
The problem of a Christless Christianity is nothing new. For much of its history, Christianity has scapegoated Jesus right out of the Gospel. We have unconsciously replaced the God of Jesus with what Michael terms a "Janus faced god." I think this term is very helpful, for Janus was a Roman god with two heads that faced in both directions. The two heads of Janus symbolized the god's dual will to violence and to peace.
The spirit of Janus infects all of human culture. Indeed, it even infects the Bible. Using the insights of mimetic theory, or mimetic realism, Michael makes a cogent and a very understandable case that humans project our own violence onto God, or the gods. This process justifies our use of violence against one another, for if the gods are violent, our violence is justified, too.
Michael points out that, despite the biblical affirmation that God is One (Deut 6:4), the people who wrote the Bible often fell into a Janus faced view of God. This is one of the strongest aspects of The Jesus Driven Life. Michael doesn't run away from the violence in the Bible, but offers a way to interpret that violence. For Christians, the answer is not our own interpretation of the Bible, but to interpret the Bible through the lens of Jesus. If we neglect Jesus in favor of our own interpretation, we will succumb to the spirit of Janus. (Sola scriptura no longer works!) Michael claims, "As far as I am concerned, in Christianity, it is all about Jesus or it is about nothing" (273).
Throughout his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus finally and concretely reveals that God is One and thus does not have a dual will. Rather, God's will is love. For example, when Jesus was asked which commandment in the Law is the greatest, he replied, "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22:36-40). Michael reflects on this move that Jesus makes in the transformation of the human understanding of God from a Janus faced god to the Abba of Jesus, stating, "God is not a mixture of yin and yang, good and evil, terror and love. God is consistent with God's self. The gods of our theologies might be mixed up, but the one who made the heavens and the earth is and always will be the One we are called to love because God is Love" (35).
Placing Jesus at the center of our lives changes the way we understand not only the Bible, but also our personal lives, our relationship with others, and our relationship with the world. Let me provide an example. I know Michael, and I think he would appreciate me saying this: Michael is no saint. He has no pretense to holiness. But Michael knows something at the core of his being. He knows that Jesus changes everything. I once asked Michael how he could be so sure that there is no wrath in God, but that God's only desire is love. "Brother," that's one of his favorite terms, "I know God is love because I trust Jesus."
Indeed, when Christians begin to trust in the all-embracing love of God revealed in Jesus, the world will be transformed. I hope and pray that The Jesus Driven Life will become a primary guide for Christians as we continue to move into the 21st century.
For more, see ravenfoundation(.)org.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Bible Through Jesus' Eyes, June 7, 2010
This review is from: The Jesus Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity With Jesus (Paperback)
In today's violent world it is more important than ever that we learn to read our Bibles the way Jesus read his. Michael Hardin's goal (accomplished, I think) is to show us how to do that. Many Christians today still think more like John the Baptist than like Jesus. John believed in a wrathful, retributive God, but Jesus had a relationship with a loving, forgiving Father, whom he called "Abba" (Aramaic for "father," but in the endearing sense of English "papa"). For Jesus, it was all about offering love to Abba, just as Abba offers love to the world, making his rain to fall upon both the just and the unjust. And it was about living this out by extending love to others -- even the enemy other!
This redefinition of God as non-violent and non-retributive was a HUGELY radical move on Jesus' part, and something that many people in his day (and ours) did not want to hear, for the simple reason that we like a "kick-butt" God on our side (and, of course, God is always on our side, no?). Then as well as now, we create gods Hardin calls "Jansus faced," referring to the Roman god Janus who had two heads looking in opposite directions. We find this Janus faced god within the very heart of much Christian theology, which conceives of God as kind and loving, yet also as wrathful and condemning. Hardin's book is an extremely intelligent (yet layperson-friendly) critique of this Janus-faced god in the light of Jesus' teaching, life, death, and resurrection. Yes, there are texts in the Bible, especially in the Hebrew Scriptures, where this Janus faced god is proclaimed and worshipped. But Jesus didn't read his scriptures in a "flat" way, giving equal weight to every paragraph, every line, every word. Jesus had a lens, an interpretive grid, through which he read his Bible, which Hardin carefully fleshes out, so that those who wish to follow Jesus can be assured that they are doing so. As Hardin says, if we do not begin with Jesus, we will not end with him.
Hardin shows how Christianity has been largely driven since Constantine by a "sacrifical" understanding of God (that God desires and requires sacrifice, that in order for cosmic balance to be restored and maintained someone has to die). He deconstructs sacrificial Christianity based on the groundbreaking work of Rene Girard, and shows how this kind of deeply ingrained sacrifical thinking distorts our reading of biblical texts. Christians have too long been driven by the sacrifical paradigm, Hardin says. It's time that they allow themselves to be driven by Jesus.
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