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Lord, Save Us From Your Followers: Why Is The Gospel Of Love Dividing America? (2008)

by Dan Merchant(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0849919932 (ISBN13: 9780849919930)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Thomas Nelson Publishers

review 1: A study of how and why too many of the people who claim to be Christian don't act very Christ-like, written by one of their own! This guy has a refreshing new perspective and he shares it with an easy-to-enjoy voice. If you ever find yourself on either side of discussions about religion, this book gives some great strategies for how to foster communication that won't quickly devolve into arguments. I think I'm a better person after reading this book.
review 2: Another in the line of books that I picked up as an ointment to the irritation that I get from seeing all the truly lunatic books for Christians. The science textbooks for 'Christian Schools' are truly an obscenity.The book asks a question that the author, Dan Merchant, finds some hints to answering, ... morebut leaves others lying on the ground. A strong recurring theme in the book is the lack of communication we have, which, in some sense, is the premise of the book.For some of the interviews, Dan puts on what he refers to as the Bumper-sticker Man suit; a white painters suit with a collection of bumper-stickers that straddle many issues of modern philosophical meme warfare. He uses it as a starting point to get someone interested in talking with him. Who, after all, would not want to know why someone is wearing both a Jesus fish and a Darwin fish?These conversations are given brief time in the book, but engender support for the idea that many of us remain ignorant about our fellow man.He then goes into a section where he starts in with statistics. On one hand he brings up how important the numbers are, but then later casually dismisses their importance. This makes his non-congruent numbers really abrasive. Percents of percents are compared to numerical values without context to those percents without some scratch paper being handy. The book continues with a trip to Africa and interviews with people on all sides of the issues. In here, this is where I find the most problems with the book. There are "Why"'s galore here, but many are left unasked.Liberal example, Al Franken, in interview mentions that if you take all the parts where Jesus advocates for the poor out of the Bible, then you'll have enough room to smuggle Rush Limbaugh's drugs. Merchant even mentions in aside that this is a bit of an unnecessary cheap shot, but doesn't ask Franken why he felt compelled to make it.Conservative example, he interviews former Senator Rick Santorum. During the interview, Santorum spouts a few nonsense phrases that took some interpretation on my part to decipher what he meant. Merchant just took it in stride with a nod and a smile, and pondered how people could think such bad things (i.e. - That Santorum could be a bigoted, hate-monger.) about the senator without asking him about his statements on such issues. (i.e. - "Isn't that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?" [Against gay marriage.:])The final chapters of the book deal with people that have crossed the line from words to deeds. One of his friends had set up a 'Confession Booth' at the Reed College Renn Fayre in which his friend would confess the sins of the church to any that would come in to hear. This inspires him to do the same at Portland's Gay Pride Festival. Dan later meets with the Bridgetown Ministry that, every Friday night, meet under the Burnside Bridge to administer kindness to the homeless through washing their feet and other acts of companionship.He then interviews someone from a Portland radio station about going to Africa to help with AIDS victims and poverty. He marvels that someone coming from a very secular background is also willing to help in such works. Also, that she was able to respect the faith of those she was working with in Africa.The take home message from the book really boils down to "deeds, not words." Most of the charity groups preach, only when the recipients are ready to be preached to. I need to find a hardcore fundamentalists and see if they're able to get this message, or if they cling too hard to their dogma to hear another message. less

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