Scot McKnight

I grew up proud of the fact that my church didn’t follow a set liturgy—we followed the Spirit instead. I cringe at the arrogance while writing that now, but it used to be my reality. As I grew up I met a professor who explained that every church has their traditions. Some churches take special care to craft a liturgy that’s both theologically accurate and beautiful. Others (like my own) opened with five hymns, passed the offering plates around, and settled in for a long winter’s nap show more a fine sermon.

What that professor did for my view of church liturgy, McKnight did for my understanding of how we read the Bible. This is an important book that will shake, rattle, and (hopefully) spur people to rethink how they understand and apply Scripture. Here’s McKnight’s main message: We all pick and choose which parts of scripture we apply today. Let’s admit that fact, and move on. The thing that might disturb people is that we pick and choose not only Old Testament passages, but even the words of Jesus himself! (You don’t believe me? Read the book.)

Once you’ve grasped that we all pick and choose which passages to apply, McKnight offers a three step plan for proper picking:

1. Story: Understand that the Bible has an overarching plot that moves forward, and be sure to fit the passage into its proper stage in the narrative.
2. Listening: The Bible is a record—a story—of the God who loves us. We need to remember to listen to God as he speaks through his story.
3. Discerning: Biblical authors like Paul used scripture and reapplied it in new and vibrant ways in their own contexts. We can use these same methods in our application of scripture today.

The second section of the book (technically, the fourth part) is an extended case study on how to follow the pattern of story-listening-discerning. The topic he tested was the role of women in ministry. This section almost felt like its own book (indeed, many have written books on this). McKnight does a masterful job at setting the so-called problem texts of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:12 into the overall plot of scripture and thereby revealing what they actually mean.

I would have liked to see more than one major test-case in the book. With fiery topics like homosexual marriage and holy war on CNN daily, choosing the role of women in the church seemed like a safe choice in an otherwise daring work. That said, the test-case was well done, and it equips would-be interpreters to look at other issues on their own.

Let me close this review with four things that I really appreciated about this book:

1. Style: McKnight writes in a friendly voice that makes the book a joy to read. I suspect it will be one of those rare books that have the ability to command the attention of those who don’t read too often.
2. Realism: McKnight forces you to admit what many evangelicals are in collective denial about: the fact that we apply scripture selectively.
3. Passion: I said above that the role of women was an easy topic. It is also clearly a topic close to McKnight’s heart. He writes like he means it.
4. Bravery: This book is dangerous. After the Reformation, people had the ability to read scripture in their own tongue and interpret it for themselves. Just look at what happened! I think we have surrendered that privilege in part because interpreting scripture is hard work. We have learned to survive by snatching the crumbs that fall from our tradition’s table. Once people acknowledge their picking-and-choosing, and do it intentionally, the door will swing wide for many divergent interpretations. We will not all agree, but it will force us to go back to the story, to listen to the Spirit, and to discern what to do next.

I can hardly wait to share this with a discussion group in the future. I imagine it will free many people. show less

"Reading Romans Backwards" by Scot McKnight serves as a blueprint for a lived theology of Christoformity: being loved by God and loving God. As the title suggests, McKnight proposes that the traditional reading of Romans from beginning to end might not be the most effective way to grasp its message. His thesis is that starting from the conclusion and working back to the beginning allows readers to appreciate the overarching themes and arguments of the letter. Beginning at the end, with the show more practical implications of Paul's theology, readers can better understand the context and purpose of his teachings comprising the earlier passages. Using his deep knowledge of biblical scholarship, McKnight encourages readers to engage with the text in a more critical and nuanced manner. It’s lived theology, pure and simple. "Reading Romans Backwards" offers valuable insights into one of the most significant and complex texts in the New Testament and its relevance for contemporary Christian life. show less

I resisted buying this book for quite a while because it was written by someone who was involved with a megachurch. I don't trust megachurches at all. I finally relented when someone I trust recommended this book.

This book tells how to spot a toxic church culture and how to spot a good church culture as well as how to create a toxic church culture and how to create a good church culture that won't allow toxicity to grow. The concept applies to all organizations, whether or not they are show more churches.

Toxic church culture will do some or all of these when evil things are done by those in power: discredit the critics, demonize the critics, spin the story, gaslight the critics, make the perpetrator the victim, silence the truth, suppress the truth, and/or issue a fake apology. "Toxic, flesh-driven cultures breed a lust for power, success, celebrity, control through fear, an emphasis on authority, and demands for loyalty."

A goodness culture will actively create a safe environment by nurturing empathy (resisting narcissism), nurturing grace (resisting fear culture), putting people first (resisting institution creep where the institution is more important than the people in the institution), telling the truth (resisting false narratives & observing Yom Kippur -- group repentance & confession of sins), nurturing justice (resisting loyalty culture), nurturing service (resisting celebrity culture), nurturing Christlikeness (resisting leader/CEO culture where a pastor acts like a businessman.)

I very recently read Charity Detox by Robert Lupton. He encourages churches/non-profits to think like a corporation in judging the effectiveness of their charitable efforts. I'm trying to figure out how to merge these two ideas since Tov is against a business model. I think that measuring the results of a church shouldn't focus on raw numbers. Definitely not on the number of parishioners, the quantity of financial support, and the money spent on programs. I think that it should be human-oriented. You need a list of parishioners or people that the charity had contact with over the course of time. You sit and ponder if each person is in a better position overall now than at previous points in time. If you need to have numbers, you rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 with 5 being no change. If someone is in a worse place in life or unchanged, the organization might have failed that person. If your average and median are less than 5 (if a 1 is bad), your organization is probably failing. But the evaluation needs to be person-centric. I think that these 2 books can be compatible with each other.

I believe that this book can be applied to churches, non-profits, and businesses. Businesses can be personality cults just as much as churches can. (I'm thinking of Apple which is failing post-Steve-Jobs and Microsoft which protects Bill Gates from the fallout of his affairs with employees.) Businesses need to nurture empathy, nurture grace instead of fear, tell the truth, put people first, nurture justice, nurture service, and resist authoritarianism/rule-following. So very many companies need to put people first and profits much lower in priority.

In my personal experience with multiple toxic churches and parachurch organizations, the red flags of toxic culture have been flying loud and proud. For 20 years, I was in a denomination that has made toxic culture its modus operandi, and everything in this book rings so very true. Every sign of a toxic culture was there and none of the signs of a good culture were there.

This book is definitely worth 5 stars. I highly recommend it to everyone, especially anyone who is a member of a church, and even more especially to anyone in a leadership position in a church. If you aren't a Christian, you will probably be annoyed with all of the many references to the Bible, God, Jesus, and examples from churches, but creating a culture of goodness applies to every group of people that wants to prevent their organization from being abusive. show less

In this book, McKnight tackles the difficult issues of contextual reading and spiritual discernment in a way meant to make these difficult concepts understandable for the average reader without specialized training in or familiarity with the discipline of biblical hermeneutics. He succeeds admirably, I think, in making the book accessible to a wide range of readers, though those of a more scholarly bent might find some of his explanations and/or examples a bit simplistic.

I agree with show more McKnight that it is important to properly qualify our claims of "literal" application and obedience to Scripture; we are often more selective in this than we would care to admit. However, even some of McKnight's readings, especially of the rules related to modest clothing and hairstyles on women in II Timothy 2 reflect the very subjectivity that he is critiquing. (He reads these texts with no acknowledgement of how they have been read and understood within the Holiness and Mennonite strands of the Christian tradition.)

Most concerning of all to me though, was this statement on pg. 143 related to the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15: "Was the Jerusalem council messy? Yes, it was. Did they discern what to do for that time? Yes, they did. Was it permanent, for all time, for everyone, always, everywhere? No." I wonder if that means McKnight feels there will ever be a contemporary context in which Christians SHOULD become Jewish proselytes in order to be a part of the Church... I would hope not, but that statement seems to leave that as a logical possibility at least.

I think that illustrates both the importance and the challenge of addressing the "contextual" nature of Scriptural interpretation. There is a constant tension between discerning what is "universal" and what is "particular." And I couldn't agree with McKnight more that it is this interpretive tension that necessitates an active role of the Spirit in our reading of Scripture.

Finally, McKnight spends several chapters addressing the perennial issue of the role of women in church ministry as his kind of "test case" or "working example" of the kind of contextually-sensitive/discernment-oriented hermeneutic he is promoting. Though he doesn't break much new interpretive ground in his work on the so-called "silence passages" (1 Cor. 14:34; 2 Tim. 2:9-15), he does nicely pull together a coherent and compelling response to the traditional prohibition of women holding roles of spiritual and/or teaching authority within the church. (Having already been convinced of a strongly egalitarian view, McKnight only confirmed what I already thought.) Just this section alone might be worth the price of the book.

McKnight's book is really most valuable in that it is such an easy read. He keeps the tone conversational rather than didactic, and peppers the book with enough personal observations and stories to maintain the reader's attention. I think the book has value as a way to introduce some of the thornier questions of hermeneutics to beginners. There is much more than can (and must!) be said than what McKnight says here, but at the very least, he provides a book that helpfully frames some of the most important questions we as followers of Christ will ever have to answer. show less