I’m in this place where I have just finished a powerful and compelling book, and simultaneously feel like I have too much to say and nothing to say.
Jesus for President is a book that is so stirring, challenging, inspiring, terrifying, and disconcerting that you cannot help but mull it over and over again in your mind, even if you can’t quite put your thoughts into words. I liken it, a little bit at least, to how I felt when I found out about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. I felt a bit devastated, as if I’d been foolish. My world needed to change radically and dramatically.
As a child I needed to give up on some of the magic that had taken root in my life. In this case, I am looking into my life and trying to untangle the American dream and its militant materialism from my relationship with Jesus.
It could be easy to dismiss Claiborn and Haw’s picture of Christianity as extreme, irrelevant, and naive. It’s not like there aren’t other Anabaptists out there calling Christians out of the army, out of government, and out of consumer society. There are others who take the Kingdom of God with equal seriousness.
What makes their approach unique is their direct application to American culture–they would call “empire”–today, and the way in which they make their case. In fact, the book is more than a collection of words. It is a work of art in and of itself. It has a beautiful, yet earthy art design that makes each page a delight. In fact, they illustrate one of their main points: Christians need to be creative.
At the heart of Christianity’s capitulation to American consumerism and militarism is a lack of imagination that fails to envision new, creative approaches to our situations today. I kept thinking these guys need to meet up with Tim Keel.
If anything, Haw and Clainborn take the lordship of Christ seriously. They treat the Kingdom of God as a true reality in our world. Christian community truly could be a powerful parallel culture that tells our world of another way to live. They are certainly not in danger of imitating the world as they seek to radically imitate Christ.
So while I didn’t exactly follow all of their interpretations of scripture, or find myself able to embody all that they charge Christians to do, I do believe you can’t find too much that is wrong with their take on Christianity. Can anyone fault them for loving others too much or serving the poor too much or possessing too little? I heard a respected theologian describe Clainborn as living a life that is above reproach, and I’d have to agree.
In a sense, Claiborn and Haw embody a new kind of Christianity that isn’t just aware of what our culture brings to us and isn’t just conversant with our culture’s categories, but actually looks radically different without retreating into a kind of Fundamentalist stronghold. They have found a way, a simple way if you will, of living in the world, but not being of it.
I find myself wanting to dig deeper into the vision laid out in Jesus for President. Perhaps the best move is to read the book again. In fact, I know I’ll do that. It’s just that kind of a book. I could say more, but I’ll wait until after the second reading.