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Review: Beyond Church and Parachurch

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Cover image of "Beyond Church and Parachurch" by Angie Ward

Beyond Church and Parachurch, Angie Ward, foreword by Jerry E. White. InterVarsity Press | Missio Alliance (ISBN: 9781514009574) 2025.

Summary: A proposal that moves beyond siloed, competitive relationships to a collaborative model of missional extension.

I’ve always been a member of a church, since I was accepted into membership of my childhood Presbyterian church on profession of faith at age 12. My wife and I have been members of our current congregation for 35 years. Until retirement a bit over a year ago, I also worked with a parachurch collegiate ministry for 48 years. Both have been deeply integral to my calling to follow Christ. At times, I enjoyed a delightful sense of collaboration and partnership among Christians. At other times, I’ve witnessed and personally experienced tensions and competition and personal rejection. Truthfully, these hurts were far more painful than anything experienced from the non-believing world. The best of times and the worst of times, to be sure.

Angie Ward writes because she has witnessed both the same tensions and griefs and glimpsed the same visional of missional collaboration together, harnessing the gifts of all God’s people, regardless their location of ministry. This book maps the history of church and parachurch and the meaning and mission of the church. Ward discusses nature of these different structures, why collaboration breaks down, and a new model of missional extension.

She begins by outlining our current state and how church and parachurch are woven into many of our lives. From weekly worship to radio and podcasts, church home groups to Bible Study Fellowship and more, many of us live a both-and existence. She traces the beginnings back to the monastic movements within Catholicism as vehicles of renewal and mission. Protestantism brought movements of revival, mission societies, focused ministries in various sectors, camps and conference centers and ministries leveraging technological advances from radio and television to the internet and the smartphone.

But before we get to the relationship she asks the question of what we mean by “church.” She elaborates the shades of meaning associated with the word. By some uses, even those within identified parachurch groups qualify. Then she explores what the church does and the ecclesiastical “minimums” of the church, she proposes this understanding:

“The church (biblical ekklesia) is the divinely established, called out, and sent collection of all the people of God around the world, animated and united by the work of Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, who gather regularly in locally embodied community to re-center their lives around God and who seek to live out kingdom values in their relationships with one another and with the world” (p. 89).

Then, going back to the path-breaking work of Jerry E. White (who wrote the foreword of this book) forty years ago, she outlines different theological understandings of parachurch vis a vis the church. She argues that where the focus has been on structures, she think a focus on apostolic function far more helpful. She argues that parachurch groups function apostolically in extending the mission and reach of the church into new places. Thus, she proposes replacing the parachurch terminology with missional extension.

Before elaborating the missional extension model, she notes the problems that have occurred historically. She calls for five movements: 1) from confusion to clarity, 2) from scarcity to generosity, 3) from institutional to movemental 4) from empire to kingdom, and 5) from control to freedom. This results in ministries moving from highly siloed isolation and competition to highly networked and collaborative missional extensions. She offers a number of examples of how this is happening.

She concludes the book with practical steps under the headings: repent, reclaim, reframe and reshape. I will note that the author has put legs on her writing in participating in a series of Church-Parachurch Leadership Summits. In addition she is a professor of leadership and ministry at Denver Seminary. All this gives the book both theological and practical ‘heft.” Most of all, Ward casts a hopeful vision of what we may all be together.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Land of My Sojourn

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Land of My Sojourn, Mike Cosper. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2024.

Summary: The narrative of a former church leader who stepped away from a toxic leadership culture, the disillusionment that followed, and how reflections from a sojourn in Israel helped him process and find restoration.

Many who read this review will recognize the name of Mike Cosper as the host of the widely listened-to podcast series The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill, part of the podcasting work Cosper does for Christianity Today. In reading his new book, Landscape of My Sojourn, I couldn’t help wonder if what made Cosper so effective as host of the podcast series was that he had lived inside a church situation with some striking similarities to Mars Hill Church under the leadership of Mark Driscoll. In his new book, Cosper narrates his experience as one of the founding pastors of Sojourn, a “ragamuffin” church in Louisville, Kentucky, eventually connected to the Acts 29 movement Driscoll spearheaded.

He recounts heady early days as a leader of worship, and the development of a toxic leadership culture as the church developed into a multi-site congregation. He describes the feeling of always being “one good conversation away from getting things right and making things healthy.” Except it never happened. And then one day in 2015, in the midst of a “re-org,” he looked at the new proposed organization chart, only to find he was not on it.

That wasn’t quite rock bottom. After leaving the leadership of Sojourn, whose lead pastor eventually stepped down due to charges of leadership abuse, Cosper launched a media-focused non-profit to help Christians in the marketplace. After writing what he thought was a commonsense Christian reflection following the release of the Access Hollywood tapes of Donald Trump, he learned that first his lead investor, then others were pulling their money. Following closely on the departure from Sojourn’s leadership, he found himself in a place where none of the familiar touchstones of his faith made sense anymore.

Shortly after all this, Cosper had the opportunity for a “sojourn” in Israel. Visits to different places, and reflection on people like Peter and Elijah who had encounters with God, allowed Cosper to process both what had happened in his life and encounter God afresh for himself, beginning a process of restoration in his life. Each chapter of the book focuses on a particular place and encounter, interwoven with Cosper’s experience at Sojourn Church.

He begins with Mount Tabor, the Mount of Transfiguration and Peter’s desire to just stay there, remembering the halcyon days of Sojourn’s beginnings. He reflects on the heroic encounter of Elijah on Mount Carmel, and the desperate hopes of evangelicals, hoping our heroes are on the side of right and will bring a transformed culture, only to see one after another fail. He visits Mount Hermon, near where Peter confesses Jesus as Messiah and entertains illusions of the Messiah’s conquests and being in the vanguard. He considers Sojourn’s own pretensions to conquest, how they crumbled, and yet how God was quietly at work, as was Jesus, in changing lives.

The Mount of Olives reminds him of Palm Sunday, what seemed a triumphal procession, and how the crowds turned on Jesus. He reflects on the warfare metaphors Mark Driscoll used and how influential these were, and yet how wrong to the kind of king Jesus is. He describes the giant olive trees of Gethsemane, the twisted roots capturing the agony of Jesus, alone while the disciples slept. He considers the dysfunctions of sojourn’s leadership and the times, like the disciples, he was sleeping, and the agony to find himself alone. At Golgotha, he revisits the ways, like Peter that he had lived in denial, and the dissolution of his career and many of his friendships, and the departure of the senior pastor and the last time they spoke. At Sinai, he recalls the whisper of God to Elijah and that, like Elijah, he is not alone. Finally, by Galilee, at Capernaum, he recalls the post-resurrection encounter of Jesus with Peter, the questions that ask of Peter, are you still with me, even after the death of heroic dreams and denials? He’s wary, after all he’s gone through of glib suffering-to-glory narratives, even as he wants to believe.

The end of the book finds him back in Louisville, worshipping at what was once a satellite Sojourn campus, now its own church. He still believes, but with wounds. He describes himself still on the journey, sobered, not taking anything for granted, “still here, making this journey. Through the land of my sojourn.”

I found this book a powerful narrative, both as an inside look at a toxic leadership culture, and an account of coming through painful disillusionment. It’s honest about the losses and betrayals, the denials, and restoration that enables one to go on, not without wounds, but by faith. Because of the vulnerable character of the book, I think it can offer help to others who have faced disillusionment with the church and are tempted to throw in the towel. Cosper’s “I’m still here” makes no false promises but simply walks in the steps of Elijah and Peter, who decide to carry on in faith when dreams and illusions (including self-delusions) have died.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: What Jesus Intended

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What Jesus Intended, Todd D. Hunter. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2023.

Summary: Written for those who have been disillusioned by the church and bad religion, offering hope that the rediscovery of Jesus and his aims can sustain and restore us.

The number of people who no longer identify with a church, even if they still identify as “Christian” is staggering. The last decade has been particularly disastrous with numerous sex and power abuse scandals and the embrace of partisan politics of the left and the right. It has become popular to use the post-modern language of deconstruction with regard to one’s faith. In some cases, those deconstructing have left Christianity altogether, often times for a personally designed eclectic and ethical spirituality. For others, this has led to a “reconstruction” centered on the teaching of Jesus, a renewal of a gospel centered faith focused around loving God and neighbor.

Similar to me, the author came to faith during the Jesus movement and all of the heady hopes of the 1970’s and 1980’s and finds himself looking back with the nagging question I’ve also struggled with: “Nothing in my generation has worked?” And the question for both of us is, “why have you remained a Christian?” Why don’t we deconstruct or just throw in the towel? In Hunter’s case, he saw plenty of what he calls “bad religion” as a leader in several church movements. He proposes that what brought him through the experience of bad religion was the good Jesus to whom he kept returning, and this made the Bible freshly compelling. He contends that this can bring his readers through to a reconstructed, vibrant faith as well.

The book is organized around questions that have been raised in focus groups Hunter hosted with those struggling with the disappointments and hurts they’ve experienced with the church:

  • Can I find faith again?
  • I am failing to connect to faith and church.
  • I’ve lost the religious plot line.
  • I feel pain, cynicism, and despair–where is Jesus?
  • What about all the bad things done in God’s name?
  • Can I trust the church to be an instrument of restoration?
  • How can I find vibrant faith?
  • Why is consistent spiritual growth so difficult?
  • Is there an authentic community of faith?
  • Do my religious reservations and churchly hesitations disqualify me?

Hunter’s encouragement as we consider these hard questions isn’t simply the facile Sunday School truism, “Jesus is the answer to all our questions and we should trust him.” What Hunter does is dig deeply into the identity, the story, the eternal life that empowers the church in caring mission, that finds its source in Jesus. He explores what it means to follow this Jesus, to repent of our own implicatedness in bad religion, and to recognize the oft-hidden goodness of Christ-followers quietly pursuing his kingdom aims.

The book does what it urges in offering exercises and prayers that direct us back to Jesus. While Hunter allows all our questions and objections about the bad religion we’ve seen and experienced to be aired, he also makes it unmistakeably clear that Jesus’s aim was to proclaim and inaugurate God’s kingdom and this involves an invitation to which we must give a response. He is both the destination of our journeys and the path, the way on which we may walk, if we will.

The one question I find myself left with is, if Jesus is so great, good, beautiful, and compelling, why are his people so rarely like him? Why does it seem like so many miss the point and exchange hs goodness for bad religion? How can so many read their Bibles regularly and miss Jesus? So many young people I know struggle with this. As Russell Moore has observed, it is not that many young people can’t or won’t believe in Jesus; it’s that the church doesn’t believe in Jesus, doesn’t believe its own gospel. Perhaps all we can do is come to Jesus saying, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church

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The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church, Richard E. Averbeck. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: A study of for what God intended the law in its original context, how it was fulfilled in Christ, and its continuing relevance for the church today.

Let’s face it. For many in the church, the Old Testament is more or less unknown territory, especially the parts of the Old Testament concerned with the law.

Richard Averbeck has spent much of his life studying the Old Testament as well as other ancient Near East writings and he is persuaded of the continuing relevance of the law to the church, understood through the ministry of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. He contends that this was the scripture Paul asserted to Timothy as being “God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” But how is this so for the church today?

Averbeck asserts three theses that he develops throughout the book:

  1. The law is good. It instructed Israel how to live holy lives under God’s covenant love and it may also instruct us in holiness, particularly how to live under the law of Christ, loving God and neighbor.
  2. The law is weak. It does not have the power to transform the heart; only the Holy Spirit can transform our sinful nature and write the law on our hearts.
  3. The law is one unified whole. Averbeck sees no biblical basis for dividing the law into categories of moral, civil, and ceremonial, and while every law is not simply brought over into the life of the church, there are ways under Christ in which the whole law continues to be relevant to the church’s life.

To develop these theses Averbeck begins with an extensive treatment of the context of Old Testament law. First of all, he charts the covenants, of Abraham, of Moses, and David, each under those that precede, and then their fulfillment in the New Covenant. He follows this with looking at the Mosaic law in context, delineating the law collections, discussing the place of the Sinai narrative and the Decalogue, the book of the covenant and the other parallel collections of law, offering a comparative study of debt slavery as a case study, showing transformations even between collections. He shows how holiness, ceremonial, and civil law together shape Israel as a kingdom of priests oriented around the presence of God in their midst. He discusses in detail the significance of the various offerings and sacrifices and how they sustained the holiness and purity of the people.

He turns to how Jesus fulfills the law in life and teaching, as demonstrated in the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount. and in his treatment of questions of purity and sabbath. At the same time, he focuses attention on the law of love for God and neighbor in which the whole law is fulfilled. Then he considers the New Testament church and how this was handled, particularly in the incorporation of Gentiles in which Jewish believers continued to observe the law while Gentiles followed the council of Jerusalem, the moral instruction, and the transforming life of worship pointed to in the Old Testament law, made possible by the Spirit of truth. Averbeck then returns in two chapters to show how the law is good, how it is weak but empowered by the Holy Spirit, and remains a unified whole.

He also includes on Jewish Messianic believers and the Torah, offering one of the best defenses I’ve seen for such groups remaining observant Jews while staying gospel focused, citing the practice of the early church.

I appreciated the careful explanation of the contents of the law collections and the importance of these as well as showing how the law continued to be relevant in Christ. The discussion of the law’s weakness and the ministry of the Holy Spirit is much needed. He also shows the arc between offerings and sacrifices, and our calling as a “kingdom of priests” who are “living sacrifices.” Perhaps more needs to be said about the civil aspects of the law and the parallel being, not the secular state, but the church and how it governs itself. What may be gleaned from the law on how the church is ordered and governed under Christ? And to what degree ought the law shape our pursuit of just, though not theocratic, societies?

That said, this is one of the best studies I have seen of Old Testament law and its continuing relevance. His argument that all of the law continues to be relevant, albeit in altered form because of Christ, is a different approach worth considering that avoids explaining how we have dispensed with some aspects and not others. And his love for the Old Testament may encourage readers to explore what in fact were the scriptures for the early New Testament church.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Reason to Return

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Reason to Return, Ericka Andersen. Colorado Springs: NavPress. Forthcoming (January 17) 2023.

Summary: A book directed to believing women who have left the church looking at the reasons why they have left and reasons why they should consider returning, both for what they may gain and what they may give.

Ericka Andersen states in the introduction to this book that over the last decade that 26 million women left the church. In this work, Andersen explores the reasons behind that departure, especially given the benefits of church participation, particularly lower rates of depression. She then offers reasons for believing women to consider returning and that this is a call worth pursuing

She discusses the various reasons women have left: the desire for more, not enough time, not needing the church to relate to God, ways one has been hurt, the mess of one’s life, and politics among them. I was particularly interested with how she would deal with times when the church has hurt or abused, which would be one of the most difficult of instances under which to consider returning. She tells a story of a woman who struggled with how she was treated over her divorce but is on a slow journey back. She quotes Rachel Denhollander who says “I don’t trust the Church, I trust Jesus….Jesus is worth fighting for, so His Bride is worth fighting for.” Andersen discusses how Jesus knows one’s hurt, having also been hurt by the religious–murdered no less. She recognizes both the struggle, and that struggling against the abuses is worth it. She suggests we are detoxing, and the key is to find churches doing it well.

She then turns to reasons to reconsider. While we can have a personal relationship with Christ, the church offers the supportive structures to sustain our spirituality. When we have questions, even if we’ve been dismissed by some churches there are others who will walk with us as we search. Churches call us out of our comfort zones and good ones stick with us when it gets messy. They address our loneliness crisis and contribute to our mental well-being. The church becomes a place where we belong–and that cares for our kids.

The third part of the book focuses on why the call to return is worth pursuing–and really, why the Bride is worth fighting for. The church is mean to be a place of authenticity, not for the righteous but for sinners. She argues for searching for the right space and place, including examples of alternative communities like biker churches and microchurches. She contends that church people overall are more generous–that those who give to the church are more generous toward secular causes as well and benefit the wider society. The rituals and liturgies give us images and language for our faith. We should also not be dismayed if the church seems in decline in some parts of the West because of its vibrant global growth

She concludes with what I think is her foundational argument: “The church of your past isn’t the church of your future.” She summarizes her case with five reasons:

  1. It is incomplete without you.
  2. Your personal growth matters beyond you.
  3. Your encouragement is important.
  4. The local church needs your help to “make disciples.”
  5. You are the only one with your perspective.

We do not simply need the church but it needs us. We find our healing and wholeness as we use what we’ve been given to seek that in others.

One thing I appreciate in Andersen is balance. Balance between facing what is wrong with the church and what may just be wrong with us. Balance between facing the world’s criticism of the church and not acceding to the world’s lack of hope for the church. Balance between recognizing how a church community may play an important role in our growth and how we have an important role in fighting for the purity and wholeness of Christ’s bride.

One thing that might have been helpful in her appeal to look for good churches would be to talk about the signs of toxic churches and the signs of healthy ones. For those who have only known the toxic, they may not be able to recognize the healthy, or believe that such exists. Some of this is implicit in what she writes–it might have been helpful to make it more explicit rather than just encourage people that good churches are out there.

This is a book written toward women but addresses many concerns, other than how men have abused women either emotionally or physically, shared by men and women alike. The loss of so many women from our congregations ought concern both men and women, especially among those leading congregations. It is worth using this book as a mirror to observe what we see of ourselves and what may be done to see our churches become places to which women will feel both drawn to and safe in. Will they find in us reason to return?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: My Body is Not a Prayer Request

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My Body is Not a Prayer Request, Amy Kenny. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2022.

Summary: A description of the physical, emotional, spiritual, and verbal barriers disabled people face generally, and especially in their encounter with churches and what can be done to make them welcoming and inclusive places to the disabled.

The title and opening chapter sets out one of the ways “ableism” expresses itself among Christians. We seem desperately fixated on cures and treatments to “fix” the disabled rather than beginning with accepting disabled persons as they are. Instead of taking time to learn how God has encountered the disabled person and how they may be a gift to God’s people, they are treated as a problem to be solved, a condition to be healed. And try to imagine for a moment that this is you (if it is not already you). Wouldn’t that make you more than a bit uncomfortable.

Amy Kenny, who is disabled, begins with this as one expression of a form of discrimination many of us may not be aware of, ableism. Even though upwards of one quarter of our population is disabled in some form, our society is constructed around the able. We question the accommodations the disabled ask for to accomplish the same tasks as others in educational and other settings. We wonder if the person is disabled or “faking it” for some perceived benefit. Our architecture assumes the abled, even though accommodations for the disabled often benefit others (ramps benefit parents with strollers as well as those using wheel chairs or other wheeled devices). Churches are the most egregious offenders, being exempted from ADA requirements. We post signs saying “everyone welcome” while erecting these barriers that exclude or make to feel unwelcome a significant population.

Kenny addresses the dubious theological assumptions that are unhelpful from discussions of the fall to discussions of the bodies we will have in heaven. All convey that God doesn’t love these bodies and neither should we. She also speaks of how ableism creeps into our vocabulary. When we use words like “blind,” “deaf,” and “lame” as metaphors (which I know I have done countless times!), we never mean something good in their use. Imagine what it must feel like to hear a steady stream of such words if one is disabled in one of these ways. Kenny calls these “disability mosquitoes.” One mosquito bite isn’t so bad. A host of bites is uncomfortable or could even be deadly.

Jacob as an example of the disabled is one we do not often think of, but his wrestling overnight, having his hip put out of joint, made him a different, humbler and more generous person in his encounter the next day with Esau. Disability can be spiritually transformative, teaching dependence upon God and bringing new perspectives on both ourselves and God. Kenny observes how Christ crucified is himself disabled. We worship a disabled God.

She invites us to listen to the disabled and to incorporate “Crip space” (her term) into the design of our spaces. When we do so “It makes the muffins with the blueberries in the batter instead of tossing them on top after the muffins are baked.” And, like properly baked blueberry muffins, such spaces communicate love, that the disabled are not an afterthought. She also reminds us that everything from bicycles to touch screens on our phones began as assistive technology. When we receive the gifts the disabled offer us, life can be better for all of us.

Kenny is both unsparing in helping us grasp how our unintentional “ableisms” hurt and yet the exuberance of her life, including her rhapsodies about her scooter, Diana and her cane, Eileen. These reveal a person with a strong sense of self, a disabled self who knows she is accepted by God as she is in all her messiness, and who would just like the rest of us to do likewise. All this shines through in the “Top tens” that conclude each chapter.

Like other forms of discrimination, we often may be unaware of our discrimination against the disabled. You won’t be able to say that after reading this book. The question is whether you will resist or open up your heart to what is written here. Will you and I love these who God loves? Will we take risks that will mean we get it wrong at times, continuing to allow our disabled friends to teach us? That is the invitation you will find in this book.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Heavy Burdens

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Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church, Bridget Eileen Rivera. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2021.

Summary: Rather than an argument about what the Bible says about LGBTQ persons, a discussion of the ways LGBTQ Christians, regardless of their beliefs, have suffered under heavy, and the author would argue, needless burdens.

This is not one more book arguing about what the Bible says about LGBTQ issues. Bridget Eileen Rivera, a celibate, lesbian Christian committed to the church’s traditional teaching about sexuality and marriage (often labeled Side B in this discussion) offers a much needed account of how the church often wounds young men and women struggling both with their faith and sexuality, often driving them away from faith, and sometimes to the point of suicide. One of the sobering truths this book talks about is that, unlike any other demographic group, religious involvement of LGBTQ persons actually increases their likelihood to commit suicide. Equally troubling, these burdens have nothing to do with what we believe the Bible says about sexuality.

The first of these is the double standard around celibacy. On the one hand, much of the church glorifies sex within marriage and has little to say about celibacy–except for gay persons–even though the Bible commends both celibacy and marriage.

The second is that no matter what an LGBTQ person does (or doesn’t) do, they are often treated as pathological sinners. Actually, in doing so, the church follows Freud and not scripture, which only speaks about acts rather than orientation. Freud helped construct the idea of “homosexual identity.” Many in the church brand members who simply admit attractions or struggles with gender identification as “perverted,” sometimes banning them from working with children (even though they usually pose no danger to children) or expelling them from families or congregations. We define them as sinners beyond grace.

Third, the church has often branded all LGBTQ people as folk devils and moral enemies when our real enemies are not flesh and blood and we are called always to embody the grace and truth of the gospel. Even more troubling is that many of those so branded and consigned to hell are still teenagers and may not have even acted upon their inclinations. Remember trying to figure out your sexuality in middle and high school? And sometimes we made poor decisions. What if on top of this we were branded enemies of the church and consigned to hell?

Fourth, Rivera shares the complexities in the texts applied to LGBTQ persons that are often described as clear, even while passages referring to adultery, divorce, and the church’s case for or against contraception are often described as complicated. She points to figures like John Piper, who speak of allowing others grace, even though he would disagree with them on matters like divorce. But no grace for LGBTQ persons.

Rather than go into the other burdens in detail, I will note that Rivera discusses issues of how masculinity and femininity are defined, sometimes expressed toward gay men as bullying to get them to “man up,” and the gender essentialism that galvanizes opposition to transexuality, which she argues is rooted in Aristotelianism rather than scripture. Finally, she pleads for as much grace for LGBTQ Christians as is extended to cisgendered straight Christians in all their sexual sins.

I do wonder if there is a tendency toward making the Side A/Side B discussion merely adiaphora–a matter of personal conviction over which Christians disagree and extend grace toward each other. But this does not take away from her powerful witness to the destructive burdens laid upon LGBTQ persons that are not a necessary corollary of the church’s historic beliefs around sexuality and contrary to the gospel.

Rivera and I would agree on our understanding of scripture’s teaching about sexuality, though I suspect her arrival at her convictions was probably harder won than mine. Furthermore, she gives language to my dis-ease about what has seemed an obsession of the church’s focus on the sins of LGBTQ persons, a minority, while blithely ignoring or covering up sexual abuse, pre- and extra-marital sex among Christians, pornography addiction and domestic violence in marriages. She also raises important questions about the extra-biblical material we have imported into Christianity concerning orientation and gender roles. She reminds us that there is much more to the identity and personhood and sexuality of all of us than sex. She touches on something I’ve wondered–what would happen if we began to ask how LGBTQ people may be gifts rather than problems for the church? She leaves me hoping for the day LGBTQ people will not feel they need to leave the church to preserve and find their lives.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Disability and the Church

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Disability and the Church, Lamar Hardwick, foreword by Bill Gaventa. Downers Grove: IVP Praxis, 2021.

Summary: An eloquent and theologically grounded plea affirming the value of persons with disabilities and the steps churches can take to welcome and fully include them.

It was heart-breaking. Friends with a son who has a developmental disability were asked by an usher to leave a service due to the fact that their son’s vocalizations were distracting to others. Their son was fully aware he was the reason they were asked to leave. A well-stated letter to the church’s vestry (and social media posting) led to further meetings and a welcome to return.

Many of our churches post signs that say “all are welcome” and make efforts to welcome those of various ages, economic status, ethnicity, and gender and sexual orientation to our congregations. Yet both physical barriers and barriers of perception, understanding and values make it difficult for persons with disabilities to find welcome and be accepted as valued parts of our church communities. The U.S. Center for Disease Control states that 61 million adults (or one in four) in the U.S., a number that rises to two in five over the age of 65.

Lamar Hardwick is a Black pastor with a passion for reaching this huge population. A significant part of this is fed by his growing understanding of his own autistic spectrum diagnosis at age 36. He describes both the wonderful ways his congregation made accommodations informed by his diagnosis as well as some of the responses that sought to persuade him not to talk about his diagnosis. Thankfully, he and his congregation have learned to live with his disability in ways that allow his gifts to flourish. This book both narrates some of that journey and discusses a theology of persons with disabilities that affirm their unique gifts and abilities and capacity to contribute in our communities.

He grounds this appeal in the reconciling work of Christ, our unity and individuality in Christ, and his peace in our communities. He believes that the church is made for inclusion, including inclusion of those with disabilities. He then begins to address specifics of inclusion by contending that we have not designed our churches for inclusion of persons with disabilities. We need to think about what it means to set a table that is welcoming in terms of staff, background checks, training, equipment, curriculum, family support, special events, and outreach and marketing.

As we work with the disabled Hardwick draws on his own experience to discuss better questions: not, “why did this happen?” but “how may God be seen?” He deals with efforts to “heal” those with disabilities which may reflect our own discomfort with suffering when we might better walk alongside a person as God forms them through their disability. Hardwick explores the barriers of body image in our culture and how we respond to those who fall outside “ableist” norms. He raises the intriguing question of whether the risen Lord, bearing the wounds of the cross, would also bear their disabilities in the use of his hands, and his abilities to walk. We have to consider whether our actions help or hurt and we cannot do this apart from those with disabilities being part of the conversation.

Then drawing a parallel with the parable of the soils and the three soils that do not bear fruit, he addresses three kinds of barriers that hinder our churches from bearing fruit in including those with disabilities. There is the barrier of lack of understanding that may be met with education. Second is the barrier of life’s problems that prevent those with special needs from making deep and meaningful connections addressed through patient and persistent care and appropriate support structures. The third is the barrier of thorns, by which Hardwick means the policies, processes, and programs that hinder the fruitful engagement of those with various disabilities. He believes this is addressed by developing a diverse leadership culture that includes those with disabilities and affirms their leadership.

Above all, he commends the development of an affirmative culture focused on what all those with disabilities are able to do in all areas of church life. What makes this book so compelling is that throughout, Hardwick is not simply advocating for those with disabilities, but with them, speaking out of his own experience, and offering a vision of what could be as the church awakens to this significant “people group” who we often fail to include well.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: A Bigger Table

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A Bigger Table, Expanded Edition with Study Guide, John Pavlovitz (Foreword by Jacqueline L. Lewis). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020.

Summary: Traces the author’s journey into a bigger vision of and practice of Christian community that is far more inclusive in welcoming people and chronicles the stories of a bigger table and the lives it has touched.

This is an expanded version of a book first published in 2017. John Pavlovitz is a popular pastor and blogger who wrote this book as a narrative of his own journey into a ministry, starting with youth, that welcomed many who previously had not felt welcome. These were youth from different backgrounds, races, and especially, those who identified as LGBTQIA. This paralleled an internal journey from a vision of traditional church where there were things to be believed and not questioned, where you kept those questions and doubts to yourself. As Pavlovitz understanding about sexuality shifted, even though his ministry was thriving as kids encountered the love of Christ, he was fired from the congregation where he was serving.

This opened the doors to a new ministry of building bigger tables. His model was Jesus who set a big table at which “sinners” encountered radical hospitality, true diversity, and total authenticity. Establishment types, political radicals, sexual sinners, working class people, women as well as men were all welcome. The only ones who were not comfortable were the religious establishment. Pavlovitz argues for an “agenda-free” community that isn’t out to “convert” or “minister” but simply share life around Christ.

He argues that for Jesus, love matters more than theologies and apologetics and worldviews. He describes the response that opened up when he wrote about how he would love a child of his own who came out, and the stories and conversations with mama bears and mama dragons that followed, the mothers who advocate for their LGBTQIA children. He writes of the revolution that comes when we shed what he sees as false fears:

Fear of believing the wrong thing

Fear of not praying enough

Fear of joining the wrong denominations

Fear of not exegeting Scripture correctly

Fear of not evangelizing our neighbors enough

Fear of Muslims and gays and atheists

Fear of beer and Harry Potter and cuss words and yogo and mandalas and voting Democrat

Fear of a God who is holding hell over our heads–

Fear as our default setting

John Pavlovitz, A Bigger Table, (p. 166)

In the end, what Pavlovitz wants is a church that is the most diverse place on earth.

I found myself say “yes” at many points where he named some of the pathologies of the church, and the way our distorted theologies resulted in stunted, unloving lives in the world. I also grieve with him that the church is a dangerous place for many young people to open up about an LGBTQIA identification. It is also a dangerous places for others to talk about pornography or romantic fantasy addictions or adulterous affairs that are corroding marriages. It is also dangerous because we often cover rather than confront abuse in various forms. We tolerate bigotry and embrace of statist ideologies of the left and the right.

It was striking to me to read the afterword in the new edition. It seemed to recognize that there are dangers to the open table. Some are the dangers of political ideologies that would exclude persons of color or immigrants among believing people. Pavlovitz calls for pastors to exercise courage to stand up against a fear-based, loveless Christianity and for the diverse people welcomed to the table.

My concern in this book is what I believe is an either/or binary or dichotomy between radical love and good theology. I think it leads increasingly to a pastor having to open and also guard this welcoming table on their own authority, solely on the strength of their own incarnation of Christ’s love. While theologies can be sterile, distorted, and loveless, the authority of the biblical narrative centered in Christ can challenge idolatries of nationalism, racism, various forms of discrimination and injustice and also challenge all of us to Christ-shaped sexuality. Sadly, the narrow focus in some churches on the sexuality of LGBTQIA persons serves as a convenient dodge for allowing Christ to redeem and shape the sexuality of all of us in a supportive community.

The revised edition of the book includes a study guide for churches to use to begin to think about how they can remove barriers to a bigger table. While I do not agree at all points with the theological moves Pavlovitz has made to have a bigger table, the conversation he proposes for churches and his critique of the pathologies he experienced are worth taking on board.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Beautiful Community

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the beautiful community

The Beautiful Community, Irwyn L. Ince, Jr., Foreword by Timothy Keller. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020.

Summary: An argument that churches united amid their diversity are beautiful communities that reflect the beauty of the triune God they worship.

Most of us love beautiful things and are drawn to them. That is often not the picture we have of the church, fraught with conflict and division, including division across racial lines. Irwyn L. Ince Jr. believes that such community is necessary, possible under God, though not easy, to point the world to the beautiful God as reflections of God’s beauty. Ince has walked this talk as a pastor within the Presbyterian Church of America, part of a multi-ethnic pastoral team pastoring a multi-ethnic church in urban Washington, DC. He is the executive director the Grace DC Institute for Cross-Cultural Mission. In 2018, he was unanimously elected to serve as moderator for the PCA General Assembly, the first Black moderator in the denomination’s history.

Ince grounds his argument for the beautiful community is grounded in the relational beauty of the Triune God, and the first part of his work is devoted to this idea. In his introduction, he lists twenty-two attributes of the beautiful God. This is the source of our beauty as creatures in the image of God, the source of our dignity. And since the beauty of God is a beauty in community, no single individual can fully reflect that beauty but only the diverse community of humanity.

Ince writes, “We were made to image God as beautiful community but sin ruptured our communion and polarization has been our story ever since.” Ince argues that we moved from garden to ghetto, including the racial ghettos of the American landscape. He argues that while race is indeed a human construct, it is one that has had real effects on the lives of people. He would contend that those who want to do away with the term are unwilling to deal with the harmful consequences of this sinful construct, and how the history of race in this country shapes our present context. He notes the often-failed efforts to form multi-ethnic congregations and the exodus of people of color from many evangelical congregations following their overwhelming support of the current president. He notes how ethnic identity may feel central for all, including whites whose ethnic and cultural practices subtly dominate in many multi-ethnic churches and only the new garments of an identity established in Christ can transform us.

One of the striking chapters in this work was the critical importance of devotion to doctrine. He argues that the injustices people of color have faced are departures from the fundamental truth of the unity of a diverse church, and gospel integrity calls us to address these injustices. He follows this chapter with a call to costly holiness, a holiness that faces and confesses our failures, and relinquishes majority dominated power structures. After challenging words, he concludes with a joyous vision of a beautiful, beloved community enjoying the pleasures of the Lord, including the pleasure of table fellowship, the sharing of good food.

The power of this book is that Ince addresses a challenging reality with a beautiful God-centered vision. Sociologists he cites have analyzed as a near impossibility that churches can gather across racial differences. Yet his doctrinally formed vision of God, of humanity, of the work of Christ, and of the church come together in his beautiful vision, under God’s grace. His conviction is that it won’t be easy, that it will involve intentional hard work, and reliance upon the grace of God. The question for us is whether our vision of the beautiful God will fuel our vision of a beautiful community that reflects God’s beauty to the world.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.