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A review by aebooksandwords
What Jesus Intended: Finding True Faith in the Rubble of Bad Religion by Todd D. Hunter
3.0
In “What Jesus Intended: Finding True Faith in the Rubble of Bad Religion,” author Todd Hunter shares in the experience of believers who are disenchanted and disillusioned with the church in the face of disappointment, deconstruction, church hurt, and even scandalous events. Yet he wants believers ready to give up on the church to know it is meant to be something Jesus intends it to be that we all live out together vs what man has often made it.
In the book, he shares about getting out of the “rubble of bad religion” and into a faith community that seeks “the true aims of the gospel.”
I appreciated how the book shares others’ stories as it communicates how we too can keep our heads above the water even as the waves rise around us, a metaphor the author uses well to describe such challenges.
At times I couldn’t tell which audience the book was meant for, but I did find many gems throughout, such as:
“Life hurts. Tragically, spiritual malpractice rubs the sore, increasing the pain. Bad religion is not just wrong thinking isolated in an individual. Its effect is more like the multicar pileups that occur in foggy, mountainous driving conditions. The fog of bad religion causes heartache and suffering to reverberate in every direction. The throbbing in one’s soul is life altering.”
This book hopes to enable us to “gain a fresh hearing from Jesus” despite church malpractice that so abounds, helping the reader “rescue the reputation of Jesus from the rubble of bad religion,” while “revealing His aims” for human life as He intended it.
The author expresses rightly that “Saying to victims of church abuse ‘not all Christians are bad’ is re-wounding. It dismisses their specific experience in a deluge of well-meaning but defensive statistics.”
One thing that stood out oddly to me was the defining of “repent” in Chapter 5 only as “rethinking all of life.” While this fits well within the definition of the word, it lacks clarity by not including a mention of turning from sin to God’s ways.
Chapter 5’s explanation of various parables was insightful and inspiring, especially the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds in light of evil and the problem of pain.
Some things I also appreciated:
“We either use Jesus for our purposes or we find purpose as we follow Jesus into the story of God.”
“We want God to judge and stop the evil that appears in the news, but we are protective of our own thoughts, words, and deeds, and don’t with the same urgency ask God to intervene in our hearts.”
“No one, not even the one most understandably cynical about church, is excluded from the love and embrace of the God revealed in Jesus. Neither are occasional sinners, the barely religious, or those fleeing the church. The church can rest in God’s longing, searching embrace of the Good Shepherd—and a core aspect of that rest is ceasing judgmentalism and adopting welcoming love.”
Thank you to IVP for sending this book for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
In the book, he shares about getting out of the “rubble of bad religion” and into a faith community that seeks “the true aims of the gospel.”
I appreciated how the book shares others’ stories as it communicates how we too can keep our heads above the water even as the waves rise around us, a metaphor the author uses well to describe such challenges.
At times I couldn’t tell which audience the book was meant for, but I did find many gems throughout, such as:
“Life hurts. Tragically, spiritual malpractice rubs the sore, increasing the pain. Bad religion is not just wrong thinking isolated in an individual. Its effect is more like the multicar pileups that occur in foggy, mountainous driving conditions. The fog of bad religion causes heartache and suffering to reverberate in every direction. The throbbing in one’s soul is life altering.”
This book hopes to enable us to “gain a fresh hearing from Jesus” despite church malpractice that so abounds, helping the reader “rescue the reputation of Jesus from the rubble of bad religion,” while “revealing His aims” for human life as He intended it.
The author expresses rightly that “Saying to victims of church abuse ‘not all Christians are bad’ is re-wounding. It dismisses their specific experience in a deluge of well-meaning but defensive statistics.”
One thing that stood out oddly to me was the defining of “repent” in Chapter 5 only as “rethinking all of life.” While this fits well within the definition of the word, it lacks clarity by not including a mention of turning from sin to God’s ways.
Chapter 5’s explanation of various parables was insightful and inspiring, especially the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds in light of evil and the problem of pain.
Some things I also appreciated:
“We either use Jesus for our purposes or we find purpose as we follow Jesus into the story of God.”
“We want God to judge and stop the evil that appears in the news, but we are protective of our own thoughts, words, and deeds, and don’t with the same urgency ask God to intervene in our hearts.”
“No one, not even the one most understandably cynical about church, is excluded from the love and embrace of the God revealed in Jesus. Neither are occasional sinners, the barely religious, or those fleeing the church. The church can rest in God’s longing, searching embrace of the Good Shepherd—and a core aspect of that rest is ceasing judgmentalism and adopting welcoming love.”
Thank you to IVP for sending this book for an honest review. All opinions are my own.