Joyful Exiles: Life in Christ on the Dangerous Edge of Things (Hardcover)

by James M. Houston (Author)
Key Phrases: inverse dialectic, visionary life, hidden life, Being Open, Visionary Life Before God, Jesus Christ (more...)

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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Product Details

• Hardcover: 204 pages
• Publisher: InterVarsity Press (October 30, 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.com Sales Rank: #354,921 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 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 (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"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.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Amanda Killgore (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

*** 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. ***