I’ve been reading…

The Barbarian Way

By Erwin McManus

After lunch today I read McManus’ little book that has been sitting in my “to read” stack too long. It is a fun and easy read and an easy book to borrow from somebody else.

McManus calls the reader us to a primal radical discipleship that is rich with strong words: raw; primal; revolution; fight; dangerous; risk; warrior; untamed; revolt; tiger. He is unsatisfied with domesticated religion and wants us to join the revolution and overthrow the status quo. Bad words in his book are: civilized; religion; domestic; proper religion, and Christian (preferring instead “followers of Jesus Christ”). The book leaves the scent of the battlefield in the mental nostrils of the reader and offers manly Bible heroes like Jephtah and John the Baptist. In a way the book is wild-at-heart meets the local church.

I was motivated to read the book mostly because we just completed a Summit week (formerly “Spiritual Emphasis Week” and before that “Fall Revival”) with Pastor Kevin Myers of Atlanta’s Crossroads Community Church who was undoubtedly a “barbarian preacher” all this week. And my own pastor, Steve DeNeff (while he would violently disagree that he’s any way associated with the emerging church)… I think inside him he’s a barbarian that just hasn’t got naked yet. (You’ll have to read the book to get that one). Since I just finished the book five minutes ago it is too early to truly evaluate it, but I’ll offer the following preliminary and immediate thoughts anyway:

1. This approach is really appealing to males. It doesn’t exclude women but it is especially attractive to many males. I’ve been a follower of the “men’s movement” for a long time—even before Robert Bly published Iron John. Before the Christian Men’s movement put out its first book I was teaching a Master’s course to ministers on men and the church. The Barbarian way is the men’s movement applied to the church. That makes me like it, like I became a fan of Kevin Myers this week. I’m tired of feminized religion and “cotton john” evangelicalism. I’m almost automatically for anything that moves us away from a romantic relationship with Jesus. Many men do not want to sing “Fill me up”, “satisfy my deepest inner longings” or “I am always on your mind” in a soft and tender tone. Yuck! Many man have no need of a boyfriend-Jesus to snuggle with who “understands my every need” and who “walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own.” Many men resist the picture that comes to their mind while singing of Jesus, “let me to thy bosom fly.” I am like these men—I want a mighty and worthy Lord to serve more than a sweet Jesus to snuggle with. So this alone made me like the book for any later short fallings.

2. The book incites one to revolt! I have always liked revolutions so I’m biased to anyone who calls for revolt too. I like overthrowing things which did not make me a good headquarters person frankly. I don’t like boring Christianity or boring worship any more than McManus. Indeed I’ve pondered if revolutions are the way God keeps His church on track—especially the constant revolution of a Maoist type. The effect of the book on me was to excite my passion for upsetting the fruit basket. It is akin to the pamphleteering of Thomas Paine. It was “inciteful” in that sense–it incited me to want to go out and smash up something. If it had that effect on a 60 year old guy I suppose it might even more so have that effect on younger readers. I think this afternoon I’ll recruit a collection of barbarians from my the dorms, we’ll paint our faces blue then go down to Indianapolis to my denomination’s headquarters and storm the offices to install some twentysomething as the solo General Superintendent. On our way back then we could stop at each local church and vandalize anything “proper” and anything that represents “organized religion.” (Alas, I wrote this review instead.)

3. Jesus the revolutionary is the pre-resurrection Jesus. Ken Schenck has pointed this out in several his recent blogs so well. Jesus the anti-religionist who fought against organized religion is one part of the picture but not all of the picture. It is the way many prefer to see Jesus today—identifying with sinners more than churchfolk, wine-drinking non-judgmental buff and muscle-bound and crusin’ for a fight with conservative church folk who care more about lifestyle rules than the revolution of overthrowing religion. While this may be an accurate picture to an extent it is not a complete picture. It is true but not all the truth.

So I’m OK with the barbarian way so long as this emergent crowd avoids the error of making their own style of Christianity the “true strain” as they condemn every other style as wrong, sub-Christian, unbiblical, stale, and irrelevant. This book gets veeeeeery close to leaving that impression. The barbarian way is one way of following Christ… like the Baptist way, Reformed way, the Anglican way or Nazarene way. But it is not THE way.

So what do YOU think?

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Keith Drury www.TuesdayColumn.com