I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ed Stetzer's latest book, Subversive Kingdom. The title created an irresistible curiosity in me from the start - who are we going to talk about subverting here!?
Stetzer lays the groundwork for subversion nicely:
"Think of Christ, the conquering King, appearing as a humble baby in a Bethlehem manger, born in obscurity to humble parents, raised as the son of a poor carpenter in the backwaters of the Roman Empire. Think of his first thirty years spent without unusual notice or public attention, with only one or two events recorded from his early life. Think of forty days spent fasting and praying in a darkened wilderness, quietly and carefully setting the stage for his ministry to begin. Think of his riding into Jerusalem on the back of a borrowed donkey rather than on a royal steed with a phalanx of soldiers by his side.
This is not open warfare. Jesus did not march on Rome. He never called together a zealot army. He never wrote a political manifesto. He simply announced that because he had come, the kingdom had come - and it would move out from Jerusalem in surprising ways. Not by might, but by the subterfuge of lives lived for King Jesus."
This book really does as it claims, and that is, to turn what has sadly become known as "conventional Christianity" on its head. It revives again the hope in the everyday Joe (or Jo) that, they too, can be effective, powerful, and full of the kingdom without altering their individual, small operations called their daily lives. No mega-churches or power-house ministries need be formed, no credentials need be claimed, no permission need be granted. Sigh... it's relieving to remember things like that in our over-structured, ultra-complicated hierarchical society.
Stetzer highlights what has become sacred as defined by our culture, and tears it down: publicity, perfectionism, professionalism, slickness, formality... all things too polished to be real, and reminds us that our Savior told us it would be the foolish things that He'd choose shame the worldly wise. It would be the small, unrecorded, unnoticed, unmarketed acts of selflessness that move the Kingdom forward. It would be the humble, lowly, overlooked, kind of awkward people that Jesus would use to bring this subversion - which, after I have read this book - have come to understand is a simple willingness to love against the grain, tolerate the odd, pay attention to the small, and go against the flow of what is officially proper in certain circles when truth and love demand it. Never for the sake of going against the flow, always for the sake of going against the wrong kind of flow.
Far from promoting rebellion, Stetzer is calling for the rebels against the rebellion that is modern Churchianity to rise up and realize that Jesus laid it out exactly how He meant it. Stetzer challenges us back to the difficult truths Jesus called us to: integrity, honesty, humility. Simple identity, in which we count ourselves sufficient as we are, because Christ did, and His ministry didn't even have a name or a 501(c)3.
We're reminded that the truth has its own power to change minds upon contact, and it never needed the stage-setting expertise of the modern church to get its message across. The message of Christ morphs and meets minds as needed in raw form. It's that powerful. And thanks, but no thanks, to humanizing and decorating the Truth, rather, please just go outside and deliver it. Upon the streets. Not within the walls.
This book is a pure and simple journey back to truth. It is guided by no agenda other than the restoration of the Kingdom on earth, as Christ intended. It reminds us that we'll build that among the weeds, and that it's not our job to tear up the weeds but just to build among them. We are reminded we live in the "already, but not yet" phase of the Kingdom, where it has been inaugurated and can function, but has not been consummated and completed, so the amount of function is really up to us and we should not be discouraged when the full reign of Christ is not completely submitted to all around us. We're reminded that one life has value, and one life saved is worth a lifetime of our labor. How much do we want it? In our journey with this book, we find our Kingdom selves, engage the mission of the King by the rules of compassion and honor, and we eliminate our own idols. In the uncommon goodness that would ensue from this, Christ is lifted up, and the world has another opportunity to take note, respond to His entreaty to walk by His side, and drink from the refreshing well of His simple love for man.
If you are bored with religion, and you want to know this reality: read this book.
