Book Review: "Jesus Brand Spirituality"

[JimB]

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Jesus Brand Spirituality
Ken Wilson
(Thomas Nelson, 240pgs, $20h)

Jesus wants his religion back. Or so says Ken Wilson, fellow pilgrim and pastor, in his new book “Jesus Brand Spirituality,” which he offers with candor and insight for those who feel they may be on the outside of modern Christianity looking in. Wilson claims that somewhere along the way church clerics hijacked Christianity and made it into something Christ never meant for it to be. Against all ecclesiastical wisdom, Christ created his religion for the world, not for religious people to insulate themselves from the world or remake it into an unfathomable maze of rites and mysticism loaded with Jesus-jargon and God-talk that only the initiated can understand, a mutation that has made religious ceremony, not Jesus, the main attraction. Along this detour the “church” has lost it’s way in a jungle of its own planting, no longer able to see the forest for the trees. Religious rites, that were created as ways to bring us closer to Christ, have driven us further into the forest. In our efforts to find him we lost him. Now, Jesus wants his religion back.

The flyleaf of the book sums it up better than I ever could. I quote: Long before cultural conflict, moralism, and religious meanness became associated with the movement that bears his name, Jesus forged a new and inviting spiritual path. It was active and contemplative. It was rooted in the sacred scriptures of his tradition but open to anyone willing to take one step closer. Spirituality is about our connectedness with all things—God, one another, and the world we live in. According to Ken Wilson, ‘Jesus brand spirituality’ means understanding and living out those connections in the way of Jesus.

Maybe you are intrigued by Jesus of Nazareth but at a loss over what to do about it. The current religious landscape seems too treacherous a place to wander into; too occupied by doctrinaire, argumentative, my-way-or-the-highway approaches. The options seem limited to either blindly accepting the entire package of orthodoxy presented by its most vocal proponents or bowing to the skepticism of Christianity’s equally dogmatic critics. What’s a poor, inquisitive soul like you to do?

Or perhaps you find yourself well along the path, but the forms of Christianity around you isn’t appealing, especially to those who do not yet believe but want to. It’s not that you’re having a crisis of faith so much as it seems faith itself is in crisis. You long for a deeply spiritual way of life that keeps asking questions, that is actively repairing the world, that is always searching for the real Jesus buried somewhere among the weeds of religion—a faith that bristles less, listens more, and fuels the fires of love.

No matter what you believe about Jesus or how you feel about the movement that bears his name, Ken Wilson will provoke you to take one step closer to knowing. ‘Jesus Brand Spiritualit’y is an orientation to the landscape. You decide what comes next.

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Author

Ken Wilsonis Senior Pastor of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ken is active in national Evangelical environmental initiatives and efforts to open a new dialog between people of faith and secular science. His church is noted for serving the poor, engaging those beyond the reach of contemporary Christianity, and exploring contemplative prayer disciplines, serving as online host to The Divine Hours.

 

[Deba]

This book I would probbly buy