Book Review: Common Grounds

I fell behind in blogging about Becoming a Kingdom Community because I did some "extra" reading last week.  I want to offer this review today and will have more to follow.  Tomorrow I'll return to the blog series.

In my book, It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian, I asked readers to picture themselves at a coffee shop having a conversation about the church, spirituality and our changing culture.  I asked readers to consider the mega church “strategists” of our day,  those dabbling in different “spiritualities” and frustrated seekers all taking a seat at the table.  And I suggested that the faithful teachers of the past (especially John Calvin) be allowed to convene and lead us through this discussion. 

For me, this metaphor was simply an introduction, a means of framing a theological conversation that would be in every since pretty standard: I wrote a book on how the church needs to be more like God for the believers to become more like Christ. And I left the metaphor of coffee house conversation behind. 

But in their recent book, Common Grounds, Ben Young and Glenn Lucke (see blog here) give us much more than a metaphor, they pull up the chair and let us enter an actual (fictionalized) coffee house conversation between three young professional friends and a wise and winsome Christian professor.  One representing a kind of Big Church Evangelicalism, another a Charismatic philosophy student is more interested in spiritual experiences than doctrine or beliefs, and the prime foil, an ex-catholic lawyer who likes to party with her friends and thinks that Christianity is simplistic, close-minded, out-moded, narrow “Neanderthal” religion that has no place in her world.

Drawing on a classic dialogue form (that has been used without peer by Peter Kreeft), and capitalizing on the success of the recent "Neo series" by Brian McClaren, Young and Lucke offer a primer on what we used to call “pre-evangelism” through exploring: Spiritual longings, creation, and well, epistemology (though they use the more fashionable ideas of narratives and stories).  And like Darth Vader spinning off into the black night after the original Star Wars film, they have set us up for the sequel (where hopefully Jesus will come to save the universe!) 

As a story goes, Young and Lucke are not McClaren and that alone will probably keep it from ever making an impact directly on skeptics and seekers who might thumb through it at the local bookstore. (Which also does go to show how hard it is to write really good fiction.)

They struggle with an uneven plot and character development and fall into some laughable pitfalls to get the conversation and the dramatic elements to make their points (A lawyer who doesn’t know what “pluralism” is? A romantic “entanglement” between two long-attracted adults that is no more than ONE kiss?) .  While the "Neo Series" benefits from the author’s obvious skill as a writer (McClaren does have an M.A. in English), Young and Lucke are at their best in giving us some clear caricatures that will help the conversation along when we get to the meat of the dialogue.

But, and this alone makes the book worth recommending, they help frame a conversation that is very helpful in addressing the kinds of objections that are being raised today in a post-modern milieu.  Without attacking the church (which McClaren too easily falls into!) or reframing Christian theology in ways that get us arguing with one other, Young and Lucke offer Christians a way of talking about Christianity to seekers that confronts most of our outdated and irrelevant “evidence”  approaches to apologetics.  The authors help the Christian who is looking to engage skeptical friends with some fresh starting places by giving then a model in the engaging, caring and principled professor.  If nothing else, his model of what “speaking the truth in love” could look like in an urban coffee shop with skeptics all around is worth reading the book twice.

But if the fiction is less than stellar, the theological conversation itself is a gift. I doubt if a “skeptic” or “seeker” will read this book or find it helpful, but if more Christians read it and start reframing the way we talk about Christianity these days, maybe more and more skeptics and seekers would be able to see the real “common ground” that all of us—because we are human—share.

Comments

[Steve Norris]

So then, this means a guy like me should buy this book, or no?