Book Review: Who is my Enemy?

This book review has been a long time coming - this book appeared on my radar about a year ago, and I finally got hold of a copy at the Vineyard National Leaders Conference earlier this year. This is a brilliant book by Rich Nathan, a well known and thoughtfully loving pastor at a big Vineyard Church in the States - and a guy who has a lot to say very thoughtfully on a range of big issues. This book is the second by him I've read and reviewed - the first being "Empowered Evangelicals", which he wrote in partnership with Ken Wilson.

This book, then, under the tag-line "welcoming people the church rejects", seeks to explore just how that can be done. Nathan takes five different groups of people the Church often 'gets wrong', and seeks to understand and explain what they think/believe, and what that means, and how the Church can relate better to them. The five groups that Nathan identifies are "postmodernists, New Agers, homosexuals, feminists and liberals". It is refreshing to see a pastor so boldly - and carefully - engage with these contentious issues.

The book is divided into essentially five parts - each opened with the question, "Is the _____ My Enemy?". The longest sections - interestingly - are on Postmodernism and Feminism, with the section on Homosexuals coming a close second. I loved Rich Nathan's tone throughout the entire book - which is amply summed up in his phrase "kindness with discernment".  At the outset, this talented author engages with claims such as that Christianity is "Irrelevant or Irrational", "Misidentifying the World", and the crucial question of "Discerning what Form Our Real Enemy is Taking". As Rich observes rgeularly, "it is relatively easy to identify sin in others and fail to practice the welcome of the kingdom". This is absolutely often true - but the tension of living in a kingdom reality is very tricky - but one that I think Rich engages with really well.

Rich Nathan's engagement with Postmodernism is superb - identifying the core issue of a "hodgepodge of beliefs", and going on to really grapple with what that means for Christian outreach. In a world where Christian values are so often ignored and mocked - Nathan does a superb job of explaining how we can bring absolute truth claims into the postmodern mental marketplace. The engagement with Feminism asks a question - Was Jesus a Feminist? - (one that I asked a guest poster before) - and Rich's answer is interesting. With Homosexuality, Rich engages sensitively and pastorally with a highly inflammatory issue. The section on the New Age is interesting - something I've not read much about before, whilst the section about liberalism is good too. I don't want to give too much away in this paragraph about what Rich says - you should read the book!

Ultimately, this is a book with a huge amount of good to add to the conversation about Church, and specifically the welcoming of ANYONE who God is calling into his kingdom. It addresses some tricky questions, for sure, and while some of his conclusions may rile some people, the overall trajectory, tone, analysis and content of this book is absolutely superb. 

UPDATE 29/11/13 - A great new website launched today, looking at complex issue of Homosexuality through the perspective of individuals, theological thought, and book reviews. Endorsed by some great folks and well designed, check out Living Out!