Book Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus

[William]

Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus by ROBIN R. MEYERS (Part 1)​

This is my first book "review". Let me warn you that this is not the type of objective, critical type of review one sees in journals. So you'll no doubt (I hope) see my biases and misconceptions. I'd be happy if you come to think, as a consequence of reading this "review", that the book is worth reading. So here we go. ​

About the author​

For over twenty years, ROBIN R. MEYERS has been pastor of Mayflower Congregational, an “unapologetically Christian, unapologetically liberal” church in one of the most conservative states in the country. He is a professor in the philosophy department at Oklahoma City University, a syndicated columnist, and an award-winning commentator for National Public Radio. Meyers has appeared on NBC’s Dateline, ABC’s World News Tonight, and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and writes regularly for The Christian Century. The author of four books, Meyers and his wife, Shawn, have three children. Visit the author online at www.mayflowerucc.org.

He hints at the goal of his book in the preface when he writes:​

May we fear no man and no creed, save our own timidity, and may we encourage and support one another in pursuit of religion that is biblically responsible, intellectually honest, emotionally satisfying, and socially significant. ​

'Instead of asking, “How can I call myself a Christian now?”' he says, 'a better question might be, “Why haven’t I done more to promote biblical literacy and invite others to consider an alternative way of being the church in our time?”' ​

What I've learnt​

So the book is about an alternative way of being the church in our time. This is one of the books that have been helpful to me in my faith journey as an exJW. I've found that when you leave the Watchtower and still retain your faith in Christianity, you can face a lot of pressure from other well-meaning Christians who want to convert you to "orthodoxy." Meyers cites a good example of this scenario: "Either you believe that Jesus is God or you don’t—therefore either you’re a Christian or you’re not." "Meanwhile" he says, "the most urgent question of all goes unasked: What kind of God did Jesus reveal?"
​

Naturally, people ask, “So what do you believe?” They seem puzzled by the answer. I say that we are not “believers” at all, not in the sense of giving intellectual assent to postbiblical propositions. Rather, we are doing our best to avoid the worship of Christ and trying to get back to something much more fulfilling and transformative: following Jesus.

That's the kind of faith I want to have.

Countless so-called seekers are in exile from the church of their childhood, a mass of refugees from organized religion; these walking wounded cannot return until the church commits itself to both intellectual honesty and an alternative vision for living in a lost world. They may not be literalists [like me], but they are not atheists either, and many long to become part of a beloved community. They need help to construct a Christian faith worth having in a community worth belonging to.

Why this exile, this escape, from organized religion?

Organized religion is now so dysfunctional that amateur atheists are writing bestsellers. It’s easy—we [I believe he means the clergy, especially] wrote the script for them. It is no wonder so many mainline churches are dying. They have so long existed in maintenance mode that they have lost their prophet nerve. They have put so much energy into survival that they have forsaken their responsibility to be places of free and fearless inquiry and radical hospitality as well as spiritual sustenance. Alas, the work of rigorous biblical scholarship now takes place in almost complete isolation from the church and in some cases with a palpable animosity toward the clergy, considered by many in the academy to be clods. [emphasis mine]

He asks a series of questions that I think are worth pondering:

What is the proper object of our worship, and what would it take to make Christianity compelling, even irresistible, again? How can our faith become biblically responsible, intellectually honest, emotionally satisfying, and socially significant?

How do we proceed?

The first step, however, must be a step backward. We have been traveling down the creedal road of Christendom since the fourth century, when a first-century spiritual insurgency was seduced into marrying its original oppressor. Before there were bishops lounging at the table of power, there were ordinary fishermen who forsook ordinary lives to follow an itinerant sage down a path that was not obvious, sensible, or safe. He might as well have said, “Come die with me.”

In the beginning, the call of God was not propositional. It was experiential. It was as palpable as wine and wineskins, lost coins and frightened servants, corrupting leaven and a tearful father. Now we argue over the Trinity, the true identity of the beast in the book of Revelation, and the exact number of people who will make it into heaven. Students who once learned by following the teacher became true believers who confuse certainty with faith.

We have a sacred story that has been stolen from us, and in our time the thief is what passes for orthodoxy itself (right belief instead of right worship). Arguing over the Metaphysics of Christ [Christology] only divides us. But agreeing to follow the essential teachings of Jesus could unite us. We could become imitators, not believers.

We know that before that fourth-century fork in the road, there was but one road. The disciples called it “The Way,” and it was the only road that did not lead to Rome. It took travelers into the heart of God, singing all the way. It welcomed all who would come, especially the poor and the lost, and the only trinity that mattered was to remember where we came from, where we are going, and to Whom we belong.

What about anti-intellectualism in the church? In other words, how should we see biblical scholarship?

Anti-intellectualism is grounded in fear, not in faith. Instead of seeing the benefits of a vital conversation between the academy and the average person in the pew about how a third-millennium man or woman might still follow a first-century Jewish sage, many Christians view scholarship as a threat to church doctrine. They believe that professors who make clever arguments against the virgin birth, for example, are careless vandals poking holes in the dike of faith. To shore up that dike, they believe they need to show “true faith” by accepting uncritically the tenets of their particular tradition without question. Such defiance is captured in a popular bumper sticker: “THE BIBLE SAYS IT, GOD WROTE IT, AND THAT SETTLES IT!”
The value of serious Bible study is not to deconstruct the authority of the Bible, one myth at a time, but to use the mind as well as the heart and soul to recover the most accurate possible portrait of what the Bible actually says, not what we assume that it says.
Biblical scholars are not myth busters; they work to uncover the truth, whether on behalf of those who still call themselves Christians or those who have given up on organized religion. They have no agenda other than to recover the most accurate and authentic meaning from the text by studying it as literature. They do not presume that facts are the same thing as faith, but they certainly think that faith built on demonstrable fictions advances neither faith nor intellectual honesty.

"Being a disciple today often means little more than believing stuff in order to get stuff. Faith’s impulse is not to provide a substitute for anything less than can be known. Rather, faith wants to trust in more than can be known." [emphasis mine]

If the door is locked, we will break in through the windows. If anyone forbids us to approach the table, we will overturn it and serve Communion on the floor. If any priest tells us we cannot sing this new song, we will sing it louder, invite others to sing it with us, and raise our voices in unison across all the boundaries of human contrivance—until this joyful chorus is heard in every corner of the world, and the church itself is raised from the dead.
After two centuries of intense and devoted biblical scholarship, we can and we should confess to what we now know—and do so fearlessly.

Sorry if this review is unnecessarily long. Despite its length, it's only the prologue I've been able to talk about. I hope to continue with the rest soon. Anyway, let me know what you think, please.

 

[Lori Jane]

Sorry if this review is unnecessarily long. Despite its length, it's only the prologue I've been able to talk about. I hope to continue with the rest soon. Anyway, let me know what you think, please.

Wow just wow! I love this William. more, More, MORE!

 

[Lori Jane]

"Either you believe that Jesus is God or you don’t—therefore either you’re a Christian or you’re not." "Meanwhile" he says, "the most urgent question of all goes unasked: What kind of God did Jesus reveal?"

I really resonate with this. I have added this book to my "to read" pile - thanks @William. Please continue to give us your book reviews - I really appreciate your keen insight!