Dismissing Jesus: How We Evade the Way of the Cross

by Douglas M. Jones III, Peter J. Leithart (Foreword)

What is the way of the cross? Why does it create resistance? How do we answer objections to it? The revival of interest in Christ’s kingdom and radical discipleship has produced a wave of discussions, but sometimes those discussions are scattered. This book aims to pull together in one place the core claims of the way of the cross. It aims to examine the deeply cherished assumptions that hinder us from hearing Jesus’s call.

When we do that, we’ll see that the gospel of Christ is not primarily about getting into heaven or about living a comfortable, individually pious, middle-class life. It is about being free from the ancient, pervasive, and delightful oppression of Mammon in order to create a very different community, the church, an alternative city-kingdom here and now on earth by means of living and celebrating the way of the cross—the reign of joyful weakness, renunciation, self-denial, sharing, foolishness, community, and love overcoming evil.

“This provocative book asks hard questions of contemporary expressions of Christianity, especially [its] deep embeddedness in contemporary societal and cultural values, practices, and structures. Engaging a wide range of biblical texts, this book wrestles with and sketches some alternative ecclesial practices that are variously challenging, disruptive, scary, inviting, and freeing.”
—Warren Carter, Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School

“Dismiss this book! Reading it will make a holy mess of your life. But if you want to enter into the pain of the world and see the Jesus revolution ignite, [then] pick up this fuel. Jones explains Jesus’ gospel of renunciation, enemy-love, weakness, deliverance, and sharing in practical terms. His book gives us the tools to form a revolutionary community of people who practice the way of Jesus.”
—Tim Otto, Teaching and Preaching Pastor, The Church of the Sojourners

“Dismissing Jesus identifies and invites us to remove the blinders that seduce us from the way of our crucified and risen Lord. Ultimately, Jones calls the church to be more fully herself. . . . His book is unsettling; frequently, it is unsettling in just the way Jesus is. Doug’s barbs sink deep, and, persuaded or not, every reader will profit from a slow, receptive engagement with this book.”
—Peter J. Leithart, from the foreword

Douglas Jones is an ordained minister in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) and a former senior fellow of humanities of New St. Andrews College, Moscow, Idaho. He helps oversee CREC Myanmar.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction, Discipleship

302 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 5, 2013

About the author

Douglas Jones holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of California, Irvine, and a Master of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Southern California.

Former senior editor of Credenda/Agenda and editor of Canon Press, he has taught philosophy at New Saint Andrews College and the University of Idaho, both in Moscow, Idaho, and Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho.

Among Jones's many writing credits are three children's books, Huguenot Garden, Scottish Seas, and Dutch Color, and contributions to Back to Basics: Rediscovering the Richness of the Reformed Faith, Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, Bound Only Once: The Failure of Open Theism. He co-authored Angels in the Architecture with Douglas Wilson.

Jones's scholarship and short creative writing credits include "Reading Trees," a review of Thomas Campanella's Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm, in Books and Culture: A Christian Review, September/October 2003 and "Coverings," a poem in the Spring/Summer 2004 issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review. Jones contributed numerous pieces to Credenda/Agenda, including the volume 14, issue 4 cover article, "Just Wood," which was anthologized in Best Christian Writing 2004. He has also written several short plays, including "University Cafe," which was selected as a finalist for the 2005 Theatre Publicus Prize for Dramatic Literature.

Reviews

[Adam Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the sort of book that can ruin you. Every few years you come across a book that either tears apart who you were or assembles the fragments of who you are becoming into a cohesive whole. These are the books that ruin you. Dismissing Jesus, as it happens, works both functions. Many books claim to be "radical" or "challenging," but simply rehash old categories and tired perspectives. This book is radical, challenging, and downright unsettling in places, and nothing could be better medicine.

The purpose of the book is to bring together the many elements of what are known as the "way of the cross" in one place and justify them theologically. Its second purpose is to expose the ways we protect ourselves from the challenge of the way of the cross. How do we put up barriers, or interpret texts, so that their force evaporates and we can continue on in our white, suburban, middle class lives in the grip of Mammon. Unlike many books by Christians which content themselves with targeting obvious pagans and sins, Jones has targets that hit much closer to home. Like how pervasively good, decent, middle-class American Christians are enslaved to Mammon. How we are selfish and prefer power and dominance to the selflessness and humility of the way of Jesus.

I have been hovering around the peripheral of the ideas presented in this book for a year or two, but my hesitation with accepting them unreservedly has been the breezy exegetical methods many of them have used. Having been raised to take the Old Testament, intertextuality, and the Jewish context of the Scriptures into account, many of the writers for the "way of the cross" care only about Jesus, without establishing that Jesus is doing the same thing that God was doing from the beginning. So the real strength of the book for me was Jones' keen eye for detail and close reading of the text. The sheer amount of Scripture, presented in proper context, is almost overwhelming. Students of typology and intertextuality will find themselves at home in the narrative Jones sketches out, often surprised at what he clarifies, sharpens, or uncovers.

Thankfully, Jones does not leave us with a high, radical ideal and the ways we get around the call to that ideal. The final three chapters begin sketching out a way of gradually moving in this direction, with many practical suggestions about what local churches can do to begin exercising faithfulness to the way of the cross.

Highly recommended.

[Leah Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book overwhelms with typos. I know this has nothing to do with content or anything important really, but if you're like me, it's really distracting. Moving on.

"For most of us, being a Christian has meant holding Christian ideas in our heads. Christianity is just a view, a worldview by which we judge everything else. Sure, these ideas also serve as rules and shape some of our behavior, but for the most part we live the typical middle-class life, with all its worries, activities, and rituals--all the things Jesus warned us against." p. 9

The Way of Weakness: "God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty" I Cor. 1:27 "The way of weakness isn't just being kind to the poor. It isn't charity. It is identification. It is being united with the poor, as Jesus was." p. 29 I don't know what it looks like with a family including very small children, but I'm willing to hear more.

The Way of Renunciation: Richard Rohr's 3 Ps: power, prestige, possessions. Jesus spends almost all his time talking about these three things. Not sexual sins, which is what we like to be concerned about.

The Way of Deliverance: We like our "worldview" because it permits us to think all the right thoughts without having to deal with anything other than our own personal sins. God desires mercy and not sacrifice. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. An absurd statement about Harriet Tubman (um, do you actually know anything about her? Give me Wilberforce, thank you very much.)

The Way of Sharing: When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. (Luke 14:12-13) Discussion of Half. Give half of what you have. I see that the idea of giving away half is vaguely there, sure, but I'm not sure it's supported *quite* as strongly as I had hoped it would be. I'm still listening but not necessarily tracking like I had been previously.

The Way of Enemy-Love: Here we go. :) There's a lot of good stuff here. But there's a noticeable lack of defining terms, which again makes it hard for me to be fully convinced. Define love for me. If love means treating someone lawfully from the heart, then 'love your enemies' will mean something different than if love means be sweet. But if love means sacrifice for, then this might all be good. "'Overcome evil with good' should be our first instinct, first interpersonally, first interculturally, and first internationally." p. 80 The II Kings 6 passage was very interesting, one I hadn't paid much attention to before. I was not totally convinced by his arguments in this chapter though. There's a lot to think about, no doubt. The most potent part was a paragraph on page 95:
"We moved from an external code designed to prepare us for virtues of New Covenant adulthood. Maturity is largely the shift from external rules to a genuine morality ingrained in the heart. Even in the New Covenant, children pass through a childhood of external rules and codes until they begin to internalize God's ways and make them their own. In that time of immaturity, too, play-violence of war games and sports serves an important function in growing up. We all pass through the Old Covenant to get to the New. But at every point of childhood, parents long for the Spirit to write himself on the hearts of our children. We aim to move beyond the external chastisements of spankings and threats in order to see them win maturity. We want them to grow out of the immaturity of war."

The Way of Foolishness: Beware the strawmen here. I'm protestant, reformed, presbyterian, etc. I don't think Romans is a "tract about how to get into heaven" nor do I know anyone who thinks that. This chapter spent a lot of time refuting arguments I've never heard anyone make before.

The Way of Community: "This gospel was not focused on getting into heaven. It was not even focused on forgiveness of sins or atonement, though they would later play into it. It focused on people, on a worldwide community tied into the way of Abraham, the obedience of faith. God himself would side with this community. He would be their God, and they would be his people." p. 119 "The community in Revelation fights like Jesus, by swallowing up death in victory. It absorbs the evil of the world by eating it at a great supper." p. 121 He writes like it's God vs. Mammon, always has been and still is. But no, Christ dealt a decisive blow already. Death has been swallowed. Our government isn't an embodiment of Mammon by necessity. It's the Empire God has placed us under and we get to try our best to be faithful like Daniel was.

Special Blinders to the Way of the Cross:
Superficial Providence: This chapter seemed to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Jones lays out the idea that God is in control of all things and then implies that anyone who believes this necessarily falls into the temptation of interpreting events as showing God’s pleasure or displeasure, or trying to “infer God’s will” in his own personal life. He uses this point to push the idea that a pleasant middle class life is not a sign of God’s pleasure with us, that in fact such a life is denying the ‘way of the cross’.

Unconquerable Sin: p. 139 begins another strawman. “We assume, even after Jesus’s sacrifice, Christians are still pretty much bound by sin…Let it reign and shape an entire politics of resignation to self-interest because neither Christ nor the Spirit can overcome our personal sin.” As Jones would say, seriously? I don’t believe this and no Christian I know believes this. In spite of his dumb way of getting there, I do want to agree with his main point about communal sin. “Why does individual sin get to veto corporate sin?...Perhaps we need to deal with communal sin first, or at least at the same time.” p. 141 This sounds well and good to me, but what exactly is communal sin? We are told that we think it might be homosexuality or abortion but he goes on to say no, those are still technically individual sins. And then we never find out what a real communal sin is or looks like or how to deal with one. We’re also led into another discussion of Romans in which he tries to claim that most reformed folks have a contradiction between Romans 2 and 3, but I don’t see it and I don’t know how my view of Romans would conflict with his main point about communal sins. I do see how my view of the depravity of man is more severe than his and his discussion of Cornelius, the “virtuous and normal sinner.” Jones seems to think that if we view man without Christ as totally depraved, then we must necessarily get stuck thinking that we are and always will be without hope to mature spiritually. I most certainly disagree and I think I can do so while still affirming that we are stuck contemplating too much individual sin and not enough kingdom expansion. This following paragraph was great: “Our modern focus on personal sin distracts us from seeking first the kingdom of God. We’re so busy fussing with our interior morality, thinking the right thoughts, that we feel freed from doing what Jesus called us to do…If we think Jesus was more fixated on our private morality, then we can legitimately neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy. And it’s so easy to spend decades focused on private morality and never truly grow spiritually. It’s strange how an exaggerated view of sin hinders spiritual growth in millions of Christians.” p. 146 YES! So you mean to say that the previous 8 pages of radical arguments were all just to get your readers to *this* simple conclusion??

Automatic Heaven: “The modern Christian assumption that getting a guaranteed spot in heaven is the central concern of Christ’s gospel has become a central in dismissing Jesus’s main call to the way of the cross. In fact, when modern Christians read Paul talking about being ‘determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified’ (I Cor. 2:2), they don’t think about the ways of weakness, sharing, and enemy-love, they assume Paul is determined to think about nothing else except the need merely to belief Christ shed his blood so we can automatically get into heaven. Like one pastor said, Jesus just needed to ‘get up on that cross,’ nothing else. Automatic heaven is all that counts.” (See what I mean about the typos?) In this chapter, he goes into a long discussion of something that seems pretty simple and basic to me, and I would hope it would be so for other reformed folks as well. If it’s not, then that’s tragic, and if it is, then this is yet another misunderstanding of his book’s audience. I’ve been instructed since I was little, and it still makes perfect sense in light of Scripture, that first, God saves you, and the result of that is BOTH faith *and* the desire/doing of good works, and the result of that is justification. Jones argues against people who think of “mere belief as our key into heaven”. But who thinks that, really? Again, he doesn’t know his audience or he is strawmanning. On p. 152 we find our first and possibly only reference to gratitude. Something I want to discuss later, so just hold that phone.

God the Accuser: This chapter ought to have come at the very beginning of this book. The discussion of penal substitution vs. restorative substitution was very interesting and I am definitely going to read more about it as soon as I’ve finished my Bonhoeffer stuff (who is mentioned in this book often, btw). Basically, “instead of being an accuser, the Lord is an advocate and defender…and when Christ comes, his mission is to overthrow and disarm the Accuser” p. 161. What this means, and why I think it ought to have come way before now, is that when we view Christ’s death on the cross as God’s wrath appeasing sacrifice, we spend all our time focused on our individual sins, making sure that we aren’t making ourselves offensive to God. But God isn’t the accuser; on the contrary, Jesus spends all his time with sinners worse than me. He came healing our physical infirmities, in the process conquering death, dealing the final blow in His own death on the cross. Rather than dealing first with individual and personal sins, Christ deals with our physical needs. Perhaps we ought to be spreading the gospel in this way too. Jones also asks a great question on p. 167: “Was the Temple system for us or for God?” If it was for God, then the penal substitution stuff could make sense. But what if it was just for us? What if those sacrifices weren’t because God needed them in order to live with us, but because *we* needed them in order to live with Him? “For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it…The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit…” Ps. 51 Blood sacrifices “seemed more concerned with controlling the pollution of death than sin.” p. 169 “God is the primary actor, not humans; sacrifice atones, not because it ‘satisfies’ God, but because God acts through it to make atonement.” Restorative justice. This chapter was fantastic and I can’t wait to read more about it all. I wish it came earlier in this book, at *least* before the Unconquerable Sin chapter.

The Left-Right Political Distinction: If Republicans are the right (which they aren’t really even anymore) and look for freedom, and the Democrats are the left and look for equality, we ought to be a little of both. “Trinitarian life involves both the best equality and the best freedom.” p. 177 The one and the many. And other stuff.

Impersonal Conservatism: This chapter is about how conservatives have always been defined by their opposition to liberalism. You can’t be anything if all you are is a reaction to something else. It is driven by fear. “While Christians need a divorce from Anglo-American conservatism, we certainly ought not replace it with liberalism, progressivism, Leftism, centrism, libertarianism, or anything else that’s not the church. The church is all we need to make Trinity on earth.” p. 189

Absolute Property: “Reflecting the Trinity, a biblical understanding of property includes both communal and individual aspects. It doesn’t teach that all is held in common or that all is held individually. It precludes aspects of both.” p. 195 Leviticus 25. He talks about how the Puritan attempts at communal living didn’t work and he says it’s because they “had no bodily sense of self-denial”. p. 198 While there’s something to that, certainly, I think this discussion of this colony’s failure would have been yet another awesome place to hit up some gratitude discussions. But nope.

Nice Mammon: “Capitalism is not the free market. The history of capitalism, and the West, and the U.S., is the history of great government intervention on behalf of the wealthy.” p. 209

American Mars: “Christians can question many things, but once American Christians start questioning the essential benevolence of the military mission in the history of United States of America, blood boils. It’s quite astounding to watch, and this response suggests we’re dealing with some very raw idolatry at an elemental level.” p. 213 Some hard stuff for Americans to swallow in this chapter, but I’m learning more and more that this stuff is probably true.

Broad Way Illusions: “Jesus is not against wealth and property, just unsacrificial ways of holding it. He’s against those who gather wealth for their own families and not the whole body. He’s against individual and family selfishness, the heart of modern middle class living.” p. 228

Constructing the Way of the Cross
Being the Kingdom-Church: “If we’re called to renounce Mammon, then we have to create or encourage business and occupations where Christians can seek first the kingdom, not profit, the bottom line, and self-interested pricing.” p. 240 This eliminates any sort of vocation that could be more specific than kingdom work. But this next part I think is important and is why implementing some of the things in this book is going to be a loooong slow process: “But CHURCHES have to be at the center of such a shift. It is not a calling for individuals alone…Christ doesn’t need any more hermits. We’re called to make Trinity here, and that means he has called communities of disciples to live his kingdom.” p. 241

The last two chapters are about self-denial and ungripping our souls from Mammon. It’s all well and good, but he spends so much time talking about self-denial and NO time talking about gratitude, which is tragic. To only concentrate on self-denial (and even guilt, as that is the feeling Jones is trying so hard to inspire here) is to do just what he has argued against, to keep the focus on yourself. If you turn your attention to God, to gratitude for the things and especially the opportunities He has given you, then ungripping your soul from Mammon will be simple. To be thankful is to be free from Mammon. To feel guilty for any amount of wealth and to try to give it away to rid yourself of guilt is by no means an ungripping of Mammon. “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.” I Cor. 13:3 Gratitude grows love, which overflows as generosity. If we are not truly thankful, then we will not understand how to be truly generous.

So please do read this book. But bring your Bible with you and don't let guilt override any sense of gratitude.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. But I owe Doug far too much, personally and theologically, to start a public debate with him about the details of any of his arguments -- so I won't. So I will only say there could have been some good punches here, but every one of them was pulled.

[Matthew Colvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every Reformed person should read this book. I'm afraid most will see it as the thoughts of a man who has left the Reformed reservation, rather than as someone still very much in the tradition, as Jones thinks himself.

I am grateful for the clarity Jones shows about the self-sacrificial nature of genuine Christianity. That is a huge challenge for me. Jones was not the author who awakened me to the way of the cross, but it is very refreshing to see another Reformed author arriving at similar conclusions.

True to its title, the book is at its best in its refutations of traditional Reformed and Evangelical dodges by which we evade Jesus' commands. Jones speaks from experience on this point: the dodges he exposes and refutes are usually the ones he himself used at one time. He has arrived at a position from which he can see past these dodges.

Unfortunately, the book is at its worst when Jones attempts to re-interpret Scripture for his readers. Some of his rereadings are excellent, as when he deploys Richard Hays-style analysis of NT metaleptic quotations of the OT. Yet with other passages, Jones isn't careful enough, moves too quickly, and doesn't proceed in a gradual way (e.g. Jones tries to get his reader to accept the main tenets of the New Perspective on Paul in a few pages. I already accept them, but if I didn't, I would not have been persuaded by Jones' swift treatment). As a reader of James B. Jordan, I have a fair degree of patience for tendentious readings, but not for tendentious readings with insufficient argumentation. Several times, Jones heaps up three or four pages of Bible passages without exegesis, in order to prove that a theme really is important in Scripture. In fairness to Jones, if he were to argue thoroughly for all his interpretations, the book would be 1000 pages long.

My favorite chapter was the one arguing that God justifies no one by invisible faith, but always and only by faith that has been manifested in action. My way of putting this point is that faith consists of loyal thoughts, words, and actions, and has no existence apart from them.

The opening note about persuasion is the rub. I already bought most of Jones' conclusions. He acknowledges that most readers will not be persuaded, and he seems resigned to that, content to let the words of Jesus do their work, and leave his readers to live with their own consciences.

The editing is poor. There are many typos and omitted words.

Writing this book and embracing its positions appears to have cost Doug Jones a great deal personally. He had to step down as an elder in his church, and as a professor at a college. It involved him in a parting of ways with his dear friend, Doug Wilson, who continues to provoke liberals, use the "serrated edge", and advocate positions that Jones here repudiates. Jones has handled this parting of ways without acrimony and in an apparent spirit of meekness. I find that very impressive and a powerful testimony in favor of his conclusions.

I recommend the book highly, but it's a bit disappointing, since it could have been made more persuasive if it were longer and more thorough.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I may write a more substantive review of this book in the future, but in the meantime I'll say this: There was once a joyful Doug Jones. A messy, imprecise, and fun theologian who liked Medievals, wrote lovely children's fiction, and saw the joke behind everything. He's gone now. This is an angsty, guilt-ridden piece of work, and the good in it was, frankly, overwhelmed by a pervasive, acerbic pessimism about the state of practically everything. It reads like Martin Luther would read if he had slipped back into his guilty Roman Catholic conscience. It makes me sad.

[Donald Linnemeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very readable, practical, and challenging book on the way of the cross and how it relates to modern Christian conservatism and reformed theology. It's not a theological or political treatise, and it avoids too much hopeless idealism or dreary cynicism. Instead, it serves as a series of meditations on how Christ should shift and re-orient our thinking ("our" in the sense of modern, conservative, reformed Christians). Doug Jones raises a lot of great questions here and left me unsettled in a number of areas. It feels like he's pushing the right buttons, at least for me.

In the first part, Doug Jones sets out a positive statement of what the way of the cross is. Seven "ways" summarizing the way of the cross: weakness, renunciation, deliverance, sharing, enemy love, foolishness, community. The focus here is obviously on Christ, but he also does a great job of drawing each principle through the narrative of the whole bible.

In the second part, we get a series of short, essay-ish chapters on a variety of topics where Doug believes conservatism and reformed theology creates blind sports and barriers to the way of the cross. Each chapter is pretty punch, and he avoids getting caught up in rabbit trails, theological or historical niceties that can get pretty distracting. He makes his point quickly and effectively and moves on. Again, unsettling, and hard to hide from.

The final section is a few chapters of constructive suggestions, "Where do we go from here?" sort of stuff. It should become clear here that he's not asking every single person to go immediately sell their house and join a commune. It's an encouraging, hopeful conclusion and doesn't leave you full of either unreasonable idealism or guilt.

Also, make sure you read both hes preface on persuasion and his second appendix, which clears up some of the possible misinterpretations of this book. He isn't rejecting reformed theology. His issues are practical, and they revolve around adjusting priorities and emphases. Very important, but much different than a simple theological disagreement. He's speaking on a different level than that.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do love Doug and this book was influential in my theological direction, but even my earlier tepidly positive review should be retracted. Maybe someday I'll write a plea to Jones to come back, but suffice it to say that this book is not the book I took it for and that if anybody is convinced by this to actually sell all (or even half) that they have and give to the poor, I'll eat my hat. It seems to have merely been placed upon the overflowing shelves of his students. Ah well.

[Tim Otto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have rarely encountered a book that so effectively describes the chasm between the Jesus revolution and contemporary Christianity. If you know something is wrong, this book helps name it, and suggests good ways forward.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Just finished it and realized how entrenched I am as a worshiper of Mammon. I rejected Mars a while ago. I am discussing this with a number of friends and we had several questions and ideas about how to begin. See my discussion topic.

[Douglas Gates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good. Makes you think. A must-read for any Reformed Christian. Will challenge your paradigms aka will rock your world.

[Marty Solomon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book hovers on the "five-star bubble" for me. There is a very short list of frustrations I had with this book and I'll share those right off the top. 1) Jones seems to be far too presumptuous and critical of the people of the Old Testament; as a Jewish reader, I found this occasional characteristic frustrating. 2) The book is very prophetically critical and you have to get to the last section of the book to find the hope of reconstruction. However...

#2 above is exactly what I loved about this book. It is refreshing to read something that is so critical in such a straight forward way without being demeaning. Jones has done a great job of speaking very frankly and putting on display the way that Jesus called us to and how far we come from hitting the mark.

The defining mark of Jones' prophetic words would be "honest". Jones cuts no corners and grants no respite, but also is not condemning in the way he communicates his challenges.

"Challenge" would be another great word to talk about this book. There is no way you read this book as a form of passive intellectual engagement. If one considers even a cursory reading of this book, they will find their idolatry confronted and identified in a frank way that they are unused to.

[Moses · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, despite its flaws, has made me think more about what it means to be a Christian than anything else I've read in recent memory.

See my review on my blog here: http://managainstworld.wordpress.com/...

Excerpt (from my review, not the book): "Everyone should read this book. We think we have it all under control, don’t we? Our worship services are slick and smooth, our mercy ministries run on a nice, linear schedule. But we’re not that different from the World, just better at delayed gratification. Jones wants the world to see us all as dangerous, crazy, latter-day monastics who threaten their prosperity and their exploitation of the weak. He wants us to wage holy, peaceful war. To forsake our subdivisions for real community and brotherhood. To “tithe” 10% for ourselves, and give the rest away. It sounds crazy. It is crazy. But what exactly is sane or worldly-wise about Jesus Christ? Jones reminds us that the wisdom of God is stark raving madness to the world. Maybe we should be a little more mad."

[JonM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great polemical book. Very enjoyable. Very challenging. Very easy to read and follow his arguments. However, it is definitely loaded with some emotionally laden distortions of "traditional" dogma. Some of his arguments just plain stink. I don't think this book is as terribly misleading as some of Jones' critics have suggested, but I can definitely see why they would think that. It is a very controversial book from cover to cover. It might even be the most enjoyable controversial book I've read all year. I give it "two thumbs way up" because it's enjoyable, but only four stars because it has some--not many, just some--really bogus and illogical leaps of argumentation.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a very worthwhile read. Jones wrote the book; Leithart the forward. It seems pretty clear that at some point in the recent past the author got knocked off the horse of his (American) culturally-conditioned Reformed brand of faith and has found that to be a worldview challenging and changing experience (Seems a bit ironic to use "worldview" to describe it but I think that hits the nail on the head.). At any rate, I think many will find the book a provocation and, in my view, that's a good thing. It unveils the reality that adherence to a form of doctrine is insufficient to the opening of one's eyes to the god of this age or the One whose reign he seeks to usurp.

[Jonathan Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. I recommend it for those who are ready to be challenged and are willing to give it their ear. Though I do not agree or endorse all of his specific conclusions, I am thankful for his big picture presentation of the way of the cross as it is sorely needed in the life of the church and my own life. I also found many of his chapters on the blinders to the way of the cross helpful and much needed especially in the Reformed tradition where he and I are both found. I am thankful for men like Doug Jones who the Lord raises up to challenge his people as this book is a very helpful step in our continued conformity to the life of our Lord Jesus.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to rate on the star system. Many sections were excellent and many were quite troubling (clearly one of Jones' goals is to trouble conservative reformed protestants). Unfortunately, instead of feeling called to greater insight or purpose I felt wary of some of the new directions he has gone and I don't want to concede that because of my disagreement I've dismissed Jesus. I've been working on a longer review which I plan to post when it is finished.

[Brittany Petruzzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's one of those books that, after hitting your own self over the head repeatedly--repeatedly--with it, you feel the desire to do so to other, specific people, but know you probably shouldn't. Where it hits, it hits big, hard, and unrelentingly; where it misses, it does so pretty obviously.

Read it.

[AaronH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Asks the right questions. I didn't agree with all the details but points one in the right direction on the whole.