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 | Title: Exiles
Author: Michael Frost
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers Inc.
Format: Print book
Reviewer: Lynn Fowler |
When I was a very young Christian, a wise older brother in the Lord told me, "Whatever you hear or read, you must learn to chew the meat and spit out the bones." For me, this book had some good meat, but an unfortunately large amount of bones.
The author begins with the premise that Christendom is dead, that it will never rise, that it can never rise, and that it should never rise. The church, he says, is no longer the power force in society, and he strongly suggests that we should actually rejoice in its demise. Christians are now exiles, living in an alien culture, and must adapt and find new ways to live out the Gospel within that culture.
Based on that premise, he talks about the ways in which we should interact with the culture, the promises we should make to the culture (authenticity, altruism, mission, hospitality and industry) and the criticisms we must level against the culture (injustice, neglect of the earth, and oppression.)
Throughout the whole thing, there is a total lack of understanding or acceptance of the spiritual nature of the Christian life. Even his most valid points get lost in an amazingly humanistic view of the Christian faith.
In pages 182-183, he offers a wonderfully insightful view of the Father/child relationship between God and believers. Pointing out that, in Jesus time, sons followed their fathers into the same line of work simply because they grew up around their fathers' work places, first watching, then "helping", then genuinely working alongside, he says that we should be Father God's apprentice-children, following Him in the same manner. He talks of God's work of creating, naming, truth-telling and healing - in all of which we are apprentice-children - but then in every case manages to bring the working-out of it down to a purely naturalistic level.
Again, the book is good in seeing the need of the church to be missional rather than inwardly focused. But the author is very strange in his vision of how that can happen. He cites a young man, Shaun, who instead of going to church decided to go water skiing, so gathered some friends and headed for the river. Pricked by his conscience about not going to church, he read a few verses of Scripture and they prayed a few short prayers before hitting the skis. His "water ski church" has grown phenomenally. Can we wonder? How difficult can it be to build a "church" if discipleship involves taking up your skis instead of taking up your cross? Where is the commitment if people can't spend a couple of hours a week to focus on God instead of on pleasure?
He also judges the Christian experience of others by his own lack of experience. On page 96 he says, "We become used to hearing our leaders speak of how 'God turned up' in a certain situation, and although we're never entirely sure what that means, we play along, happy to know that God turns up dramatically in other people's lives but acutely aware that it rarely happens in ours. We hear our leaders say, 'Then God said to me...," and we listen, amazed that certain people have direct access to the very voice of God but aware that we ourselves haven't heard God's stentorian tones." Excuse me, Mr Frost, you may not have heard God's voice, but I most certainly have, and not just "through the Bible, through the coalition of circumstance, through the advice of godly friends" as you suggest!
In the final chapter (The Song: Jesus Ain't My Boyfriend) is a diatribe against the "love songs" of modern worship, in spite of the fact that both Old and New Testaments refer to God's people repeatedly as His bride. Frost dismisses this, saying that the Bridegroom/ bride imagery, particularly in the Old Testament, most often refers to the unfaithfulness of Israel. Yet surely, if God presents such imagery in the negative, it is because He wants His people to know that relationship in the positive?
For me, the most disturbing aspect of the book is the underdog mindset which permeates its pages: the mindset that says that the Church has had its day and we must struggle to somehow keep our heads above water in an alien environment. Yes, the world has changed and to some extent the Church must change also. However, the Christ I serve is a conqueror. His early followers lived in an environment every bit as hostile as ours - in fact, more so - but they did not bow to its gods or conform to its standards. They were not exiles but infiltrators: a "fifth column" that invaded the world system with the Gospel until they "turned the world upside down."
The passionless, powerless, impersonal version of Christianity presented in this book is definitely not for me!
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