American life today is increasingly cluttered. We live in a fast-paced society that claims the answer to our insatiable appetites is in the unfettered pursuit of more stuff. Unfortunately, the church has often become complicit in this lie, offering us tips to better our lives rather than grace that transforms our vision of reality.

No wonder that many are now issuing a call for simplicity – a spirituality that shuns the materialistic impulses of our culture and finds true satisfaction in the way of Jesus.

Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World (IVP, 2008) is written by Chris Heuertz, international director of Word Made Flesh, an organization that reaches out to the most vulnerable of the world’s poor. In Simple Spirituality, Chris shares the insights he has gained while working with the poor and encourages the church to capture his vision of ministering to the less fortunate.

Shane Claiborne writes in the foreword:

“This is a book about a spirituality that leads us all to life – about how the poor need the rich and the rich need the poor, and how all of us are in need of God.” (11)

In his call for a simple spirituality, Chris centers his book on five principles:

• Humility
• Community
• Simplicity
• Submission
• Brokenness

Throughout his narrative, he speaks about how he has found Christ in the faces of the poor:

“As we look upon the faces of our friends who are poor, as we see the children, friends begging on the streets, and those in need, we are being confronted by Christ. He is placing before us an opportunity to love and serve him through the needs of the impoverished. He is offering an invitation to his community.” (70)

There is much in this book that I relate too. I know what it is like to see people digging through your trash. Having ministered among the poorest of the Romanian Gypsies, I can identify with Chris’ desire to wake the American church out of its slumber of complacency. Some of my most joyous times in Christian ministry have been with the poorest of the poor.

And yet, I differ from Chris in that I do not claim to have found Christ in the “poor” in some generic sense. I have seen the face of Christ in the Christian poor people that I have encountered – impoverished Christians who give out of their poverty to help other poor people.

For Chris, poverty=Christlikeness. I agree that we in the West can and should learn from the poor, but we should make a distinction here. As Christians, we see Jesus in our brothers and sisters – not merely in any poor person.

I appreciated the emphasis that Simple Spirituality places on the nature of unmerited grace. The poverty that Chris has witnessed has deepened his appreciation for grace - both receiving and showing it. But Chris never bases grace in the cross. Grace as unmerited favor is held in high esteem, and yet personal salvation and evangelism goes unmentioned.

The best chapter in Simple Spirituality is the one that calls us to simplicity. Christians would do well to read and implement Chris’ insights in this chapter. As more and more people bow down to the idols of success, entertainment, and money, a return to simplicity in an effort to follow the way of Jesus is timely. I relate to Chris’ difficulty in wrestling with the disparity of excess versus extreme poverty or the question of how to treat beggars.

Chris’ chapter on power is the weakest. He does well to show the radical nature of power being focused through service, yet he fails to take biblical authority into account. At one point, he skips over a few biblical texts on submission and merely asserts a strong egalitarianism.

While the illustrations are memorable and much of Chris’ advice helpful, Simple Spirituality is severely hampered by poor theology that leaves little room for the nature of true salvation. However, Chris is right to seek to wake us up to the realities of the world we live in. He writes:

“We want to let God in, but usually on our terms. We want to make room for Christ to reign on the thrones of our hearts, but only a clean Christ, who doesn’t make a mess of our lives.”

Absolutely. That’s why Simple Spirituality, despite its many flaws, still serves as a good reminder that the way of Jesus is narrow, messy, and difficult – but its rewards are incalculable.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2008 Kingdom People blog