Learning from the Least: Reflections on a Journey in Mission with Palestinian Christians

by Andrew F. Bush, Elaine A. Heath (Foreword)

With the majority of the world's Christians now living in the non-Western world, Christian mission has become a global movement. The mission of Western Christianity now faces the challenge of laying aside the preeminence and privilege it has long enjoyed in global Christian mission, and embracing a new role of servanthood in weakness alongside its sisters and brothers from Asia, South America, and Africa. Such a transformation in historic patterns in mission requires not just new strategies and techniques, but a renewal of its spirituality. How can the spirituality of Western mission be renewed? By learning from those non-Western Christians whose lives on the margins reveal anew the One who emptied himself of the prerogatives of glory on the cross to serve humanity out of utter weakness. Learning from the Least invites you to a journey among Palestinian Christians to meet radical peacemakers who are making courageous decisions to reconcile with those who are customarily reckoned as enemies. Their radical servanthood out of weakness is a prophetic challenge to Western Christians, a call to lay aside the prerogatives of power and wealth, to question triumphal theologies, and to discover again the vulnerability of the way of the cross.

210 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2013

Reviews

[Dennis Henn]

This book should be read in conjunction with reading Lemon Tree. This book will anger many of those reading my reviews. Given the condition of Evangelical Christianity in the US, this book should be read even if it angers you and even if you don't care about the Middle East. This book is about servanthood and humility, two qualities richly demonstrated by Jesus but in short supply among churches measuring God's blessing by wealth, numerical growth, political influence, and celebrity.

Bush lived in occupied territories during the second Intifada. He is theologically trained. He has firsthand experience with his subject material. He shares stories of lives changed by the gospel. He shares concerns of how power corrupts the church and our witness to the world. He cites plenty of Scripture and has some two hundred footnotes should the reader wish to pursue his sources. He is not a premillennial dispensationalist. If you don't know the term, and that it describes a theology that originated in the mid-1800s, then be prepared to be dismayed with how much it influences so much of our policy toward Israel.

My complaint with the book is Bush's hopeful naiveté. I believe he describes how Jesus commands us to live. I also believe that those who choose to live this way end on a cross. The meek may inherit the earth but not in this life.

[Rachel]

Bush brings up a lot of good questions and ideas for the case of Palestinian Christians in the Israel vs Palestine conflict. He calls for loving and learning from those the Bible considers the "least". This book opens up a discussion that I think Western Christians need to have.