If you were to put the books of John Piper, N.T. Wright, and Mark Driscoll in a blender, what would you get? Jared C. Wilson’s new book, Your Jesus Is Too Safe: Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel Good Savior
Full disclosure. Jared Wilson is a fellow blogger friend of mine. As a blogger myself, I am cheering him on, glad to see that the blogosphere is becoming a place for aspiring writers to hone their skills and try out new ideas. But don’t think that I am recommending his book simply because he is a friend. Your Jesus Is Too Safe is a great book on Jesus for a number of reasons.
First, Jared brings together the passion of John Piper, the historical sensibilities of N.T. Wright and the irreverent humor of Mark Driscoll (without the crudeness). Early on in the book, it becomes clear that Jared reads widely and is willing to glean insights from the different streams of Christianity, and yet maintain a firm grasp on the gospel and the core doctrines of the faith.
Second, Jared relentlessly exposes the ways in which we try to tame Jesus:
Even the church itself is guilty when it comes to the marketing of Jesus. We’ve put our own gloss on him, our own spin. It’s no wonder the world doesn’t get Jesus, because we’ve spent decades selling a Jesus cast in our own image. Even our religious ancestors feared the stern taskmaster Jesus. This quasi-Puritan Jesus liked to smack you on the knuckles with a ruler when you got out of line. Later, we received Postcard Jesus – the Coppertoned, blond-haired, blank-stare Jesus of the gold-framed portrait, a bland, two-dimensional figure occupying moral tales that help us to be better people. This flat portrait evolved in the Get-Out-of-Hell-Free Jesus, and this Jesus has inspired millions to say a prayer to get his forgiveness – and then go on living lives devoid of his presence. (13)
Jared sees the scholarly world as seeking to tame Jesus in more subtle ways:
In the world of biblical academia, the “Jesus of history” and the “Jesus of faith” are set against each other, as if never the two shall meet. The two shall meet here – in this book. The purpose of Your Jesus Is Too Safe is to remind us, for the glory of God and the hope of the world, of the original message of the historical person Jesus Christ, who was, in fact, God in the flesh. We’re going to remove the gloss. We’re going to venture beyond the hype and beneath the misconceptions to see the real, historical figure of Jesus Christ in his biblical and cultural context – and in this way to know God more fully, to see what God wants us to know about the revelation of himself is his son.
Jared offers a portrait of Jesus that is historically rooted. His Jesus is a flesh-and-blood man you could actually see walking on Galilean shores preaching to people about the kingdom. But Jared doesn’t let the humanness of Jesus detract from Jesus’ divinity. (One chapter is devoted solely to the picture Jesus’ deity.) So what you end up with is a Jesus who fits into a particular historical context and is still gloriously worthy of our worship.
Jared’s writing is Jesus-focused. The book lays out the different attributes and roles of Christ. Jared rejects superficial theology and therapeutic understandings of sin:
We’re always passing the buck and this condition of denying our fallenness is part of our fallenness too. We are broken, messed up people. We are broken messed up no simply because of psychosis or issues or formative experiences in our childhood, although all those things compound and aggravate our real problem and to myriad expressions brokenness. No, we’re broken messed up people primarily because we are sinners. He makes good theological distinctions. (65)
As a side note, the footnotes are wildly entertaining. Some of Jared’s best one-liners come out in the footnotes.
Still, there are a few places where I wish he would have refrained from his usual jocularity. For example, in making a case for God’s holiness, he recounts the story of Uzzah (who was struck dead for trying to keep the ark of the covenant from falling) and says:”…but as soon as he touched it…ZAP…home boy was toast. That’s how serious God is about his holiness.” Now, I admit that’s a funny picture, but it is counterproductive to make a case for God’s holiness in a glib manner. So there are a few places in the book where his humor might seem a little out of place.
Overall, Your Jesus Is Too Safe is a great book. I’m excited to see a fellow blogger getting published, and I’m even more excited to see the caliber of this book. May this be Jared’s first of many.
Check out more posts from Jared’s blog tour.
