As the previous review pointed out, the strength of `The Tangible Kingdom' is the stories. Halter and Smay include some great anecdotes from their own lives as church planters that illustrate their faith and ministry in the context of modern culture. Their care and love for people is evident. Their real-life examples of being missions-minded, invitational, and outward-reaching are personally challenging to me.
With that said, the book also has a few weak points. They get much of their church history backwards. For instance, they claim "People in the Dark Ages tended to be focused on God. They built their churches in the middle of their towns and lived to survive the day and keep God at the center of their worldview." That might be a good description of the Puritans. However, prior to the Enlightenment, Reformation, and Great Awakening, while `religion' and `superstition' were prevalent, God being the center of community just wasn't the case.
Additionally, they go on to champion the Eastern-mindset as having a radically holistic approach to life - and claim `Christianity is completely, entirely, an Eastern faith.' That's a bold statement. If anything, Christianity, born at the crossroads between East and West has had a significant impact on the West, while having a marginal impact on the East. As a result, the ideals, worldview, and mindset that are reflected in the West, more closely align with the core tenants of Christianity. Those would include the world being separate from God, the world being knowable, the sanctity of human life, life having meaning, and life going somewhere as opposed to life being endlessly circular.
However, the part of the book that most concerned me was their understanding of the gospel. The authors claim the gospel isn't the answer of Jesus to the sin-problem of men and women. Rather, it's "[God's] love and acceptance and vision for every human being... God's love for his created humanity." That description of the gospel too easily marginalizes the passion, crucifixion, and substitutionary death of Jesus. In fact, if the gospel is merely about God's love and acceptance of every human being, then why would Jesus have to die? They go on to claim that the gospel isn't just about God's love, it's about love in general - people adopting children, having block parties, and planting trees... "it's all Kingdom, and it's all good news." While Christians are called to love others, that's not the gospel - that's an outworking of the gospel. The good news in the New Testament isn't a message about us, it's a message about Jesus. The authors go on to claim, we should look for ways to "Witness to this gospel by bringing tangible slices of heaven down to life on Earth, and continue to do this until those we're reaching out to acknowledge that our ways are `good news'." Again, the gospel is not a message about me. It's a message about Jesus, who is more than sufficient for a person has the same problem a non-Christian does. It's called sin, and Jesus provides an incredible answer to it - His life. His good news is about Him, not about me trying to be Him.
In short, I wanted the book to be more about its sub-title, "The Posture and Practices of the Ancient Church Now." I was hoping for an understanding of how the Jesus of then is the same today and how His cross can be known now. Instead, the book focused more on general relationships, inter-personal situations, and caring for people in community. Those are good, but how are they uniquely Christian? How do they differ from the community experienced by people from other faith-traditions? In short, the community in the Tangible Kingdom seemed to be both the beginning and the end.
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