Reconstructing the Gospel

I want to like this book. (I wish the rating system allowed half-stars, I would have given it 3.5) Even though I don't highly rate it, I do recommend it.

I agree with so much of the premise and admire the journey and story of the author. The book itself is best described by the word “scattered.” I struggled to follow the train of thought and was surprised often by the insertion of the main point three pages after the chapter start or 1-2 pages after a heading. The definition of terms was often murky. In the midst of all of the scattered-ness were incisive and well articulated paragraphs.

I feel obligated to finish the books I start. Kelly just shakes her head. If a book doesn't strike a cord with her, she just puts it down and moves on. It feels like a betrayal to me. To be honest, the combination of interspersed gems in the text and my own dysfunctional loyalty is what made me finish the book- and I am glad I did. Ultimately, the message makes the additional work worth the read.

The heart of the book may be his chapter entitled “Having Church.” For me, the book could have used the structure taken from the Spiritual he quotes called “I Will Trust in the Lord”:

Read the full review here: https://thetempleblog.com/book-review-reconstructing-the-gospel/

Short review: “There is no way to preach the gospel without proclaiming that the unjust systems of this world must give way to the reign of a new King.”

Reconstructing the Gospel is an attempt to work through the problem of sin and culture infecting the presentation and living out of the gospel. A gospel that justifies slavery, racism and oppression of the poor and marginalized is not the same gospel that Jesus was presenting. I remember reading John MacArthur's commentary on Luke. MacArthur specifically ‘corrected' the reading of Jesus' sermon on the Plains where Jesus says, ‘blessed are the poor' to note that Jesus was talking about spiritual poverty and removed the economic implications of Luke's focus. MacArthur never noted (nor have most presentations of Luke that I have read) note that there is a good likelihood that Luke was, or had been, a slave based on his name, background and occupation. Luke's presentation of his gospel as one where Jesus was actually interesting in physically poor and oppressed is often spiritualized by American Christian readings.

It is this type of misreading of scripture and Christianity that Wilson-Hartgrove is trying to point out and correct.

Reconstructing the Gospel is a mix of personal memoir of discovery, history and some proscriptions on how we work on reconstructing the gospel for ourselves (plural). The reconstruction suggestions are not simple. As illustrated by his own story, the primary method of reconstructing the gospel is spending LOTS OF TIME learning from people that are poor or oppressed. There isn't really a short cut to discovering blindspots. Reading a couple of books won't really fix it.

I have a probably too self indulgent review full review on my blog. It is hard not to connect Wilson-Hargrove's book with either the ton of books that have tried to define the gospel or the reading I have been doing on history or the books on race and culture.

But because we can't really read a book apart from the other related books, I spend about 1400 words making connections on the full review on my blog http://bookwi.se/reconstructing-the-gospel/