Jesus for President, adendum

I need to say a couple things that I'm not on board with from Jesus for President...

#1--I don't believe business and corporate enterprise is the enemy.  I don't support the corporate activism that Claiborne and others pursue.  Same goes for the military activism.  I don't see any precedent in Scripture for wrecking corporate and military equipment in the name of Jesus.  To do so seems like another way to get preoccupied with "the empire" rather than being preoccupied with the kingdom.

#2--Claiborne and Haw recommend some writers/authors that are pretty far outside the scope of historic Christian orthodoxy.  One example:  John Dominic Crossan founded the Jesus Seminar which has sought to strip much of the supernatural and incarnational truth from Jesus and the Gospels.  In Crossan's work, Jesus is reduced to little more than a political revolutionary and counter-culture figure.  If you have a very low view of Scripture than your picture of Jesus is distorted which means the outworking of your faith will be distorted too.  Not saying Claiborne and Haw agree in every point with Crossan but their recommendations of his books (as well as other authors) without qualification is not wise.

#3--On some gut level, I'm a little turned off by the self-righteous attitude of Claiborne and Haw.  There's this subtle undertone throughout the book that "us and our buddies are right--we've figured it out--and everyone else is way off."  We can agree that there are many things about Western Christianity that are off.  But I've traveled as well and I have seen firsthand that being poor and Christian does not make you faithful and right.  You can be just as obsessed with money and off course with Jesus as an impoverished Christian as you can a wealthy one.  The developing world is not faithful simply by virtue of being not American.  And an American church is not apostate just because it is located in the U.S.

Poverty, by itself, is not spiritual.  Wealth, all by itself, is not wicked.  We need to go beyond these overly-simplistic categories of judging if we're going to get to the heart of Jesus.

I'll say again, Jesus for President is a great and challenging read but it also doesn't have everything "right".  And that's okay.  I don't either.  Not even close.  But I'm not going to let some things that I view as glaring weaknesses slip by without mentioning them.  I don't think Claiborne and Haw would either if the shoe were on the other foot.

Comments

[Mo]

Thank you for saying this. I read his book 'Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical' and was loving it, until he started slipping into the President Bush hatred, nasty attitude and a few theological things that I cannot recall offhand.

I wish I still had it so I could point things out exactly, as I hate making vague accusations. I rarely (if ever) throw books away, but this made me so angry that I did throw it out.