Joyful Exiles: Life in Christ on the Dangerous Edge of Things [Hardcover]

James M. Houston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 2006

Winner, 2007 World Guild Best Leadership/Theoretical Book Pastor and teacher Jim Houston reviews the insights he has gained over his years of teaching, counseling and mentoring Christians. He passes on what he has come to regard as pivotal concerns for leading a faithful Christian life in current society and culture. This is an advanced discipleship book for those who want to learn from someone with mature spiritual insight who has gone before them. If you are interested in Christian maturity, faithfulness, spiritual formation, and life, and want a guide through the "currents and eddies" of our society and culture, this book is for you.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Having mentored many a scholar, pastor or counselor who went through the college he founded-Regent in Vancouver-Houston now passes along to the rest of us some of the wisdom he's gleaned from living the Christian life in constant dialogue with culture watchers, literary authors and theologians. Two of his supreme interests are lifting the idea of personal calling outside the walls of religious institutions and warning institutions against courting the idea of worldly success, noting that "success is a public and cultural rating, whereas faithfulness to God remains hidden and divinely evaluated." He covers these topics well. His rhetorical method is to dialogue about his faith with some of the great minds of Christian history-Augustine, Dante, Kierkegaard, Jonathan Edwards and Dostoyevsky. Houston's section conversing with Dante's Inferno will be illuminating, even to those not intimately familiar with the original work. At times, Houston's fascination with historical figures and philosophical themes lends the book a highly academic tone, but at other times it reads like a rich spiritual memoir. Houston is sharing his life with us here, and those wishing to peer into the long life of a highly respected, intellectual Christian mentor will find a rich feast.
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Review

At a time when bookshelves seem dominated by easy spiritual self-helps and quick-fixes produced by following seven or nine steps, Houston has given us substantive, disturbing, intellectually rigorous, and sage guidance for the Christian spiritual life. (Lauren F. Winner, Duke Divinity School, Christianity Today, May 2007 )

Two of [Houston's] supreme interests are lifting the idea of personal calling outside the walls of religious institutions and warning institutions against courting the idea of worldly success, noting that "success is a public and cultural rating, whereas faithfulness to God remains hidden and divinely evaluated." He covers these topics well . . . Houston's fascination with historical figures and philosophical themes lends the book a highly academic tone, but at other times it reads like a rich spiritual memoir. Houston is sharing his life with us here, and those wishing to peer into the long life of a highly respected, intellectual Christian mentor will find a rich feast. (Publishers Weekly, August 16, 2006 )

"Eugene Peterson defines the Christian life as 'a long obedience in the same direction.' James Houston now gives us the fruit of such a life. Houston reminds us that the Christian life is not merely a set of beliefs, a pattern of behavior or a structure of dogma--it is life in a vital, living, mystical relationship with God in Christ animated by the Holy Spirit. For anyone desiring to explore the depths of life with God in this postmodern culture, this book is a must." (M. Robert Mulholland, Professor of New Testament, Asbury Theological Seminary, author, Invitation to a Journey and The Deeper Journey )

"Be forewarned. This book is seriously countercultural! It presents not just a challenge to secular culture but more seriously a challenge to the comfortable ways we have shaped Christian culture. It is a call to embrace our identity as exiles and to live joyfully and prophetically from this place. It is a call to live on the edge, for it is there and only there that we can be truly open to God's presence in the world and the invitations to engagement with the world's problems and challenges. This is a tremendously important book--perhaps the most important book written by this much loved and highly esteemed wise Christian author. I recommend it with enthusiasm." (David G. Benner, Ph.D., C.Psych., Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Spirituality, Psychological Studies Institute, Atlanta, and author of Desiring God's Will )

"Countless of us disciples of Jesus look to James Houston as a kind of 'spiritual father.' Whether it is through his books or lectures or times around a cup of coffee, God has spoken into our lives through his. Thanks to his son Chris, who asked his father to write this book, we now have in print spades of the wisdom he has imparted to us in bits and pieces. Here Dr. Houston opens his heart and mind to us as never before. Here is Dr. Houston at his clearest, deepest, warmest, massively insightful best. Here is the legacy of a father for his children which we can also pass on to our daughters and sons. Come sit at his feet as he teaches us to live wisely." (Darrell Johnson, associate professor of preaching and pastoral theology, Regent College )

Product Details

• Hardcover: 204 pages
• Publisher: IVP Books; Print On Demand Edition edition (September 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830833242
• ISBN-13: 978-0830833245
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #443,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars christian wisdom from an elder pilgrim, January 17, 2007

By 

Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joyful Exiles: Life in Christ on the Dangerous Edge of Things (Hardcover)

"Exile has certainly been part of my family's narrative," writes James Houston. After twenty-five years at Oxford University as a student and then a tutor, Houston uprooted his wife and four teenagers to become the founding principal of Regent College in Vancouver. That was thirty-five years ago. Now in his mid-eighties, with forty books under his belt and a lifetime of Christian wisdom to share, Houston wrote this book for his son who asked him to "write out the basic convictions I have sought to live out in my Christian faith." The six essays are organized into three parts: Christian Faith as a Way of Life and a New Identity, The Priority of Personal Calling Over Institutional Life, and then Maturing in Community, Transmitting Faith in Person.

Houston takes his title from a line of Robert Browning, "our interest's on the dangerous edge of things." Unfortunately, many Christians and much of Christendom play it safe. Throughout the six essays Houston laments the professionalization of the clergy and its scholars at the expense of service, careerism over calling, conventional morality over radical discipleship, technical means that eclipse moral ends, and triumphalism rather than repentance. In his view, "the Christian life is truly scandalous to the world." Believers, by definition, must be counter-cultural pilgrims, strangers, and exiles who are nevertheless confident and joyful. We must rediscover a genuinely Christian identity in a pseudo-Christian church and culture. In the words of GK Chesterton, "our perennial spiritual and psychological task is to look at things familiar until they become unfamiliar again."

I especially enjoyed Houston's story-telling--about his own life, the people he's known (CS Lewis, Nicholas Zernov, Polanyi, etc.), the poetry he loves (George Herbert and Dante), and the author-mentors to whom he returns again and again (Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard). He also does a fine job of walking the thin line between bold affirmation and critical caution. The Christian life, for example, is hidden but not privatistic, visionary but wary of self-delusion, transformative but patient because change comes ever so slowly, joyful but fully engaged with the woes of the world, and so on. Near the end of his earthly pilgrimage, and after a lifetime of rigorous study among some of our best Christian scholars, Houston affirms that people are more important than ideas, and that Christian faith belongs to the "amateurs" and the "dilettantes" who "take delight in God" rather than to the so-called experts. That's a cause for joy.

6 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 stars, November 3, 2006

By 

AK "Bro" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joyful Exiles: Life in Christ on the Dangerous Edge of Things (Hardcover)

*** Six essays are collected inside this slim tome in an effort to present the author's Christian journey. His main focus is what he has discovered via the discipline of dialectics. Though interesting, the text is somewhat rambling and difficult to glean much in the way of coherent insight. ***