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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
New Offering from The Emergent Village, November 5, 2009
This review is from: The Justice Project (Hardcover)
The Justice Project is the latest offering from the Emergent group. It is a book of essays that all deal with biblical justice and our world today. With contributers like Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Joseph Myers, and Doug Pagitt you know you'll find something that connects with you. Broken down to 5 sections, you'll read essays that deal with: The God of Justice - how we see God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit work out justice. The Book of Justice - the justice we find in Scripture Justice in the U.S.A. - the history of justice (native Americans), up to the "values voters" A Just World - moving outside our national borders to bring justice to the world and within our "burbs" A Just Church - how we can epitomize justice. Too many people have complained that religion is America has become too politicized with the Religious Right's involvement and obvious collapse, and now with a seemingly growing number of Liberal Christians rising behind the star power of President Obama. This book removes all areas of complaint and brings out what God has called His people to do with regards to justice in our world. Let's stop the name calling and get to work.. This book was provided for review by BakerBooks Publishing.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Recommend this Book, December 14, 2009
This review is from: The Justice Project (Hardcover)
I highly recommend The Justice Project to anyone concerned with faith's intersection with the public sphere. With that said, I do not think that any review I can write will do this book justice (pun intended). Nevertheless, I will try to encapsulate this excellent book and my thoughts on it. Edited by Brian McLaren, Elisa Padilla, and Ashley Bunting Seeber, The Justice Project, is a compilation of essays on the topic of justice (big surprise, I know). The essays are collected according to their topics: God, Scriptures, the USA, the World, the Church, and Final Conclusions. Each of the essays are written at around six pages, making them each quick and easily digestible. Moreover, as we have come to expect from Emerging Church books, these essays have been constructed for the average reader. There is a no overblown vocabulary full of political and theological jargon. The complexity of these essays comes in their application, rather than in their reading. Lastly, this volume has intentionally reached across ethnic, geographical, and especially across liberal/ conservative lines. Although this book has articles by the Emergent mainstays Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Samir Selmanovic, The Justice Project also includes articles from multiple members of Willow Creek Community Church (Including Lyne Hybels). The Justice Project laudably models the type of egalitarian community it hopes to create. A specific Gem of an essay in this book is "My Name is Legion for We Are Many: Exorcism as Racial Justice" by Anthony Smith. The essay fascinating argues that "Mista Charley," the structural racism that exists via apathy in America, needs to be exorcized as a "national demon." Here is a brief quotation, playing on the Legion passage from Mark 5: "We stand in an imperial graveyard. Our body politic has habits that render it nearly impossible to get at the deep terrain of racial privilege, dominance, and vast economic iniquities that persist along racial lines. We scream in privileged agony, cut ourselves off from the painful history of others, and are unable to be chained to a profound practice of repentance. What would it look like to be clothed and in our right minds again?... We wouldn't attribute our success solely to our "work ethic" and "rugged individualism," but would see the racial dynamics that play into the success of some and the struggle of others" (Smith, 106). This book has both challenged my complicity in theologies and structures of injustice, while making me believe that change is possible. This is the kind of book that I will read over and over again.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant. A call to action., November 24, 2009
This review is from: The Justice Project (Hardcover)
The Justice Project is a collection of essays devoted to understanding social justice issues. There are over thirty chapters dealing with issues as diverse as urban poverty, justice for Native Peoples in the U.S., reading the Bible justly, and racial justice among many others. I appreciate the conversational rather than adversarial tone used in these essays. You will hear from liberals, and conservatives, you will hear from evangelical, mainline, and emerging believers, you will hear from seasoned voices whose names we all recognize and you will hear from the next generation of Christian thinkers that will amaze you with their passion and intellect.
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