This is the second book of Michael Hardin’s that I’ve reviewed on this blog. Earlier this year I reviewed his What the Facebook? Posts from the Edge of Christendom.
A bit of background on the author first. Michael Hardin is an American theologian based in Pennsylvania, USA. His background includes time as a seminarian, a pastor and an academic (he is currently working towards a PhD). He has authored and/or edited a number of books, and is executive director of Preaching Peace, a registered charity that exists to spread the good news of the non-violent gospel of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps the best way to explain what The Jesus Driven Life is about is to quote the first paragraph from its preface:
This book has been written with two diverse types of readers in mind: readers of Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life or William Young’s The Shack. I share certain affinities with both writers and their audiences. These points of juxtaposition might seem to cancel one another out but such is not the case, there is value in both conservative and progressive Christian theology in America today. I do not seek to find a via media between the two but to offer a third way, a new paradigm that incorporates the best (from my perspective) insights of both traditions. Warren’s audience might think I am no longer orthodox; Young’s audience might find me too orthodox. I have simply tried in this book to reframe orthodoxy in its most generous fashion (to paraphrase Brian McLaren). It seems to me that conversations in both Mainline and Emergent communities require this. Christianity is changing and there is nothing we can do to stop it. It is changing because it is finally being recognized that some theological paradigms handed down to us for centuries or millennia don’t really work and are being given up.
In case the book’s purpose is still not clear to you, let me sum it up this way: whether you’re from a classic evangelical or a more progressive background, if the theological framework you’ve inherited is creaking at the seams and you’re desperate for a more comprehensive, cohesive and coherent way to make sense of the Bible (how’s that for three C’s?!), The Jesus Driven Life might be just what you need.
If I wanted to label it succinctly, I might describe The Jesus Driven Life as a systematic biblical theology for the twenty-first century. Let me break that down for you.
First, The Jesus Driven Life is systematic in that it addresses all the main areas not only of theology but also of its application. It contains eight generous chapters, each broken into four subsections. The chapter headings are The Christian Life, How Jesus Read His Bible, The Mission and Message of Jesus, Constantinian Christianity, Understanding Human Culture, Interpreting the Old Testament, Paul, and The Gospel of John. It is rounded out by two appendices (on Hebrews and the Revelation of John), each of which is a rich source of insight in its own right, and an afterword by the late Walter Wink. Anyone who, like me, likes to be able to see where a book is going will appreciate the very clear structure.
A further aspect of the book’s systematic nature is the wealth of references provided. As well as an index of scripture references and a recommended reading list, The Jesus Driven Life includes over 300 endnotes, ranging from brief citations to lengthy explanations. The value of this is twofold: on the one hand, it provides a ready-made extended reading list for those wanting to dig into a wide range of sources more deeply; and on the other hand, the fact that the book is so richly referenced underscores its scholarly credibility. This is not a book filled with fanciful arguments that can be easily dismissed; just about everything you’ll read in its pages is set in its historical and theological context, with references at the ready.
Second, The Jesus Driven Life is biblical. What I mean by that is simply that it is a book that seeks to grapple seriously with our sacred text. It does not, like some other progressive works, casually set aside or ignore the more difficult or tendentious parts of scripture. Rather, it wrestles with them, acknowledges the challenges they pose, and draws on scholarship and tradition as well as bringing startlingly fresh new insight to bring an exciting perspective that is both faithful to the biblical text and absolutely relevant to our twenty-first century world.
Michael Hardin’s main area of expertise is violence and religion. That may sound like an arcane area of study to you, but when you read The Jesus Driven Life, your eyes will be opened to just how deep-rooted and pervasive violence is in the formation and preservation of human culture and religion, even in this supposedly enlightened age. And you’ll discover how, far from being a simple ticket to heaven, the Gospel of Jesus Christ powerfully exposes, subverts and ultimately triumphs over all human violence to form a new and better culture – also known as the kingdom of God – founded on the announcement of the resurrected Christ: shalom, peace.
It would be remiss of me not to point out that The Jesus Driven Life isn’t for the theologically faint of heart. If you aren’t willing to have your assumptions challenged, and quite possibly to have your neat and tidy ideas about Jesus, God and the Bible blasted into the stratosphere, this may not be the book for you. But if you’re tired of the same-old-same-old religion that seems to achieve little more than keeping the sheep in their place and using the Bible to maintain the status quo, it could be just what you need.
I believe that what many of us need in this day and age is not a few tweaks to our theology here and there; what we need is some strategically placed dynamite to shake out and dislodge our flawed theologies, tainted as they are with violence and institutionalism. It takes a game-changing work to help us not only see the faults in our existing paradigm but also to offer us the building blocks of a whole new paradigm. The Jesus Driven Life is just such a work.
In conclusion, The Jesus Driven Life is not a book you’re likely to read once and then put away on the shelf to gather dust. You’ll probably need to read it a second time just to allow some of its groundbreaking ideas to begin to settle in; and you’ll very likely want to refer to it frequently, whether to help shed light on a troublesome scripture text or simply to refresh your grasp of Jesus, Paul, the Old Testament or any number of other biblical topics.
In short, this book may delight you, annoy you, confuse you, enlighten you, disturb you, surprise you, or some combination of the above. One thing it’s guaranteed not to do is leave you unmoved.
The Jesus Driven Life is available from Amazon US and Amazon UK as well as direct from Preaching Peace.
