• Hi, I’m Brad Abare

  I'm a make-it-happen guy working with big idea people. I design teams and orchestrate strategy so that great ideas I believe in get done.
  
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Have you ever read a book and had that overwhelming sense that what you’re reading is not just another book? A book that has that ‘my-life-is-about-to-be-changed’ quality that doesn’t seem to go away, page after page after page?

It’s not often that I have this experience, but this latest manifesto from Rob Bell and Don Golden has done exactly that. Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile was so stirring, I finished it in two days and I’ve been reading it a second time to Jamaica this week. Wow.

Unfortunately, there is no way I can capture or convey my thoughts and feelings in a blog post or book review. This just doesn’t do it justice. But I’ll try.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians is a re-telling of the Bible in a way most of us here in America have never read or experienced. It’s the story of humanity and how we’ve been moving “east of Eden” ever since we were kicked out of the Garden. Not only have we been moving east, we’ve been settling there, establishing ourselves and getting further away from the way things are meant to be. “From the very beginning humans [have been] moving in the wrong direction.”

In the book of Exodus, we learn about the superpower nation known as Egypt. A massive kingdom of military might built on the backs of slaves. Egypt is actually an anti-kingdom because it’s contrary to God’s Kingdom. “Egypt shows us how easily human nature bends toward using power to preserve privilege at the expense of the weak.”

This “high priority on preservation” would be a familiar characteristic throughout kingdoms that would come and go. Egypt. Jerusalem. Rome. America. Uh oh, this is getting a little personal.

As with any story of man-made oppressive kingdoms, their days are numbered. What happens next is exile. And after exile, the oppressed become the oppressors and the vicious cycle is repeated over and over.

This vicious cycle happens because in exile, “you forget your story.” Because while you’re on top, the “system works for those with the power and influence to change the system.” But when the system isn’t changed, God seems to always step in “because God always hears the cry of the oppressed.”

The problem is that when you’re the oppressor, it’s difficult to see yourself this way.

Most of the Bible is a history told by people living in the lands occupied by conquering superpowers. It’s a book written from the underside of power. It’s an oppression narrative. The majority of the Bible was written by a minority people living under the rule and reign of massive, mighty empires, from the Egyptian Empire to the Babylonian Empire to the Persian Empire to the Assyrian Empire to the Roman Empire.

This can make the Bible a very difficult book to understand if you are reading it as a citizen of the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. Without careful study and reflection, and humility, it may even be possible to miss central themes of the Scriptures.

Okay guys, this is getting really personal. So what happens when the oppressors are not seeing the error of their ways? “What is God to do when the time, money, and energy of his people are spent on ceremonies and institutions that neglect the needy?”

It appears that God has been calling oppressors out on this issue for centuries. “God calls their church services ‘evil assemblies.’” The prophet Amos insists “that God hates their worship: ‘Away with the noise of your songs!’” (Sounds like the Jon Foreman song.)

“Take away the comforts of the kingdom, deprive a person of the structures and institutions of empire, and they just might find the spine to envision a new tomorrow. Push a person to the limits of suffering, and they just might become a revolutionary.”

I encourage you to read this book. It’s a manifesto for both the church in exile (not us) and for the church in Egypt.

This book messed me up.

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