Typically I decide to review a book after I read it.
However, the ooze Viral Bloggers gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. They offered to give me free books if I agreed to review them.
Free Books, people. You know I couldn’t pass that up.
So forgive me if I come off too harsh on this book. Under other circumstances, I would have just kept silent. See, I’m in a pickle because I have a lot of respect for the author Brennan Manning and was deeply moved by his Ragamuffin Gospel.
So rather than jumping right into the content of the book, as I usually would do, I find myself talking about myself, Charlie Kaufman-style. It’s embarrassing.
Part of me thinks Brennan Manning wouldn’t mind. His book is very personal and aims at getting in your head.
And he did. I read the book the first time in about an hour. And the question that was raging in my mind was, “What kind of person do I have to be in order to receive whatever gifts this book has for me?”
Let me explain with a metaphor…
One type of song you sing in church might go like this:
So I’ll stand in awe of you
I will stand in awe of you
Yes, I’ll stand in awe of you
And another might go like this:
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,
That man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by thine own rejected,
O, most afflicted.
Both songs have the same purpose - to draw you near to God. The problem with the first one is my problem. You see, I’m a sinner. I can sing that first song and find myself thinking about what’s for lunch or over-admiring an attractive woman singing a couple rows from me.
The second song might not be as catchy or emotional, but for a sinner like myself it is gracious because it actually captures my imagination and doesn’t let it go too far. It takes time to develop a single thought from various angles and it causes me to ponder its meaning. That’s what a person with my particular maladies needs.
So, to be blunt, Brennan’s new book is more like the first song. It’s like he’s saying to me:
God loves you.
NO, SERIOUSLY…he really loves you!
OMG, you have got to get that God is crazy in love with you in a really big way.
This has the curious effect of making me want to meet Brennan in person, to meet the guy who is clearly in a manic phase of God’s love. But, as a book, I just needed more to hang on to.
Early in the book it says, “I believe that Christianity happens when men an women experience the reckless, raging confidence that comes from knowing the God of Jesus Christ.”
There are times when I feel that reckless, raging confidence, but I don’t think that’s the essence of Christianity. In fact, I believe that Christianity may be happening just as strongly when you feel like the whole thing is bogus. Or when knowing God has broken your heart. Mother Theresa for example.
In other words, Manning is clearly set on making us feel the love and grace of God.
The irony of this method, to us sinners, is that it can erode our sense of grace. It tempts us to manufacture emotion that we simply don’t have in order to feel accepted by God.
This is just another side of Brennan’s candid admission that much of his ministry was working among the extremely poor or among prisoners in order to be accepted by God. You find yourself doing the right things for the wrong reasons and distanced from God because of it.
Brennan Manning feels it, and deeply…but if this book is aimed at my heart, it misses its mark.
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