This is a powerful book. It highlights the need for Americans to be more merciful towards others and to also realize that at times we are the ones in need of grace and mercy. The only weakness I found in this book is that it is to some degree a collection of somewhat disconnected thoughts. Overall it's an excellent book to start getting one thinking about the need for social justice. ( )

From the author: 'There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building.
Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty.
This is a book about those two numbers.'

Rob Bell writes in a breezy, yet emphatic, style with structural brevity and amazing punch. "Jesus Wants to Save Christians" is Bell’s third book, and though he collaborates with Don Golden, his concise, well-researched reasoning combined with his sometimes hilarious, sometimes profound endnotes make this work unmistakably Bell. Golden contributes his expertise on the church’s engagement in impacting global poverty. He currently serves as an executive leader for World Relief, a Christian non-profit organization that pours millions of dollars into addressing some of the world’s biggest crises caused by poverty.

Bell’s perspective is shaped by his insistence that the Bible be read, studied, and lived as a fluid, complete work. Not in bits and pieces. His narrative in this book, therefore, starts in Genesis and covers much of the Old and New Testaments all the way through Revelation. With a keen eye for the history of God’s people, Bell draws some frighteningly stark parallels between the “empires” of ancient Egypt and Rome and current-day world power, the United States of America. Like the ancient Israelites, he argues that Americans are caught in exile: “Exile is when you fail to convert your blessing into blessings for others.

Exile is when you find yourself a stranger to the purposes of God”. (1)

Armed with a plethora of shocking statistics (2) and an articulate description of the history of God’s people, Bell shows his readers the difference between a life focused on His Kingdom—one of service and sacrifice—versus the world’s view of power and security. Clearly humans’ lust for wealth and power hasn't changed much since the days of Solomon. With a piercingly insightful look into the human heart, Bell skillfully challenges us, as followers of Jesus, to think beyond our limited earthly views and to joyfully enter into our neighbors’ suffering as the Body of Jesus Himself: “Disconnection from the suffering of the world, isolation from the cry of the oppressed, indifference to the poverty around us will always lead to despair.

We were made for such much more.” (3)

This manifesto begs us to reconsider our priorities as American citizens, identifying the perils of “the vicious cycle of the priority of preservation”: the futile accumulation of military bases, stockpiling of weapons and the compulsion to protect one’s “rights”. Mr. Bell invites us into a life of freedom from the bondage of self-preservation and self-sufficiency. A life that mirrors Jesus’ pouring out of oneself in selfless acts of Kingdom love.

Ever teetering on the edge of controversy (4), this author does write some things that make me shift uncomfortably in my reading chair. At times, Bell over-emphasizes the importance of humanity at the expense of reverence for the Lord. For example, in his descriptions of God’s gift of the Ten Commandments, he writes “The Sabbath command should be understood as being against the inhumane labor conditions and unreasonable production demands of Pharaoh’s Egypt. The text says that ‘Pharaoh’s slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed.’ How beautiful, then is a God who commands these Israelites to rest each week?” (5)

Like the other nine, this is a timeless commandment, not predicated on the specific sufferings of its recipients or a particular story in history. As my pastor, Abe Hepler, likes to say, “The Bible is not a story about us. It’s a story about who God is.”

While I found this book compelling and extremely thought-provoking, I yearned for Bell to offer more solutions, more practical ideas to break the spell of materialism. And in the end, I really felt like I had gotten a big lecture on how rotten I am as a middle-class American.

(1) Pg. 45
(2) "More than half the world lives on less than two dollars a day, while the average American teenager spends nearly $150.00 a week." Pg. 122
(3) Pg. 163
(4) See, for example, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, "Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions" (Good News Publishers, 2008), pp. 97 - 98. Driscoll shreds Bell's assertion that Mary's virginity before Jesus' birth isn't a necessary tenant for our faith.
(5) Pg. 191 ( )