Jonathan guides us through the journey he has taken, which begins with the confession that he, as a child, was oblivious to the racism of his North Carolina hometown. It is only as an adult that he discovers that the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in his home county was estimated by some to be as bad as that of Mississippi or Alabama. Through his youthful political aspirations, Jonathan meets the eloquent Rev. Barber, a black preacher from another rural town in North Carolina. Their friendship sparks a relationship between their two churches, and starts the long process of opening Jonathan’s eyes to the depths of the racial divide. Jonathan continued to ponder and explore racial reconciliation, but ultimately it was the experience of a profound gift of hospitality extended to he, his wife and a few others while on a peacemaking mission to Iraq in which the Wilson-Hartgroves discerned a call to learn from “those who were supposed to be our enemies” (73-74). Jonathan and Leah followed this call to the predominantly black Walltown neighborhood of Durham, settling first just outside the neighborhood and later moving into the heart of the neighborhood.

The narrative that unfolds over the pages of Free to be Bound, suggests a direction toward the goal of racial reconciliation that is strikingly familiar. The Apostle Paul in writing to the Philippian church, encourages his readers to follow in the way of Jesus:

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (2:5-8 NASB)

In a similar way, one can read the Wilson-Hartgroves’ story as one of emptying themselves of the comforts of white privilege and immersing themselves in the black church. Although Jonathan is quick to admit that they have a long way to go on this journey toward seeing the reconciliation of all people, the course that they have taken is particularly poignant because of its resemblance to the way of Jesus and because of its honesty in confronting the depths of our own racial sin (as well of that of those who have gone before us). It seems that other possible trajectories – e.g., inviting blacks into a white church or trying to engineer a multi-racial church – are prone to what Jonathan calls the “tragedy of our public life in America” : i.e., “that we have tried to move beyond a history of racial injustice without accounting for how race made us who we are” (180).

Although Jonathan’s narrative provides a solid backbone for the book, Free to be Bound should not be dismissed as merely memoir. Jonathan fleshes out his own story by reflecting on writings from black history, black theology and black literature. His honesty about the difficulties of crossing the racial divide is refreshing, and his examinations of his own experiences in light of the Scriptures raise perhaps more questions that they answer. For instance, near the end of the book, Jonathan ponders the implications of churches’ adoption of the American, melting-pot variety of multiculturalism, in which diversity can be maintained by uniting under the prevailing narratives of patriotism and capitalism. When churches embrace this sort of multiculturalism, Jonathan wonders, are they selling out to “the powers that would unite us in middle-class rationality against the global poor” (182)?

Overall, Free to be Bound is a very readable and very challenging story of racial reconciliation in the church. From his experiences, as recorded here, Jonathan knows the pains and struggles of pursuing God’s call to be ambassadors of racial reconciliation, and yet he hopes unwaveringly in God’s promise of reconciliation. He concludes the book:

We do not have a blue print for what a new world of peaceful and just relationships with one another will look like. We do not know for sure how we will survive in a world yet conditioned by the logic of race. But we know that the only place where we will have the power to figure these things out is in the resurrected body of Jesus. And He is going ahead of us into Galilee. So, we follow the lead of the women – Mary, Mary and Salome – and chase after God’s new world, assured that our identity as disciples offers us a better hope than the cultural identities that we are leaving behind (192).

May we truly hear the words of Jonathan’s story, and may God transform our hearts!

Free to Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. Paperback. NavPress. 2008.

Author Bio:: Chris Smith is a part of the Englewood Christian Church community in Indianapolis and an editor for Doulos Christou Press. He is the author of WATER, FAITH AND WOOD: STORIES OF THE EARLY CHURCH’S WITNESS FOR TODAY has compiled the INTRODUCTORY BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE NEW MONASTICISM.

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I have been reading a variety of works and perspectives on Biblical authenticity and reliability, and some of my questions in this arena had been answered with pointers to this book. After reading just the back cover and the introduction, I knew why.

I’ll cover the contents shortly, but these two concepts were huge for me, so humour me. First and foremost, on the back cover it reads:

I am gratified that my friends and colleagues Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd have taken my work as seriously as they have in this comprehensively researched book. I urge any reader of my books to read this one alongside them!–Robert M. Price, Center for Inquiry Institute and fellow of the Jesus Seminar

Price is a humanist, argues against Biblical literalism and against the concept of Jesus as a historical figure. This is the polar opposite perspective of that which Eddy & Boyd admit to holding. Boyd has debated Price several times regarding the historicity of Christ. Therefore to see the mutual respect and appreciation captured by this quote certainly had me intrigued. It was far away from the all-too-common character assassination and denigrations that are hurled by opposing sides of such a dogmatic concept.

Secondly, in the introduction Eddy & Boyd lay their cards on the table. Yes, they are born again Christians, believing Jesus to be the Christ on Earth, in history, as put forth by the gospels. But establishing this is not the purpose of the book. Rather, taking a historian approach, their purpose is merely to put forward the concept that, given their methodology, it is more probable to conclude that the events transcribed in the Synoptic Gospels happened largely as they were written, than not.

What is that methodology? They call it an ‘open’ historio-critical method, distinguishing it from what is commonly know as the historio-critical method, and making explicit the idea that ANY worldview coming to look at history must be aware of it’s biases, and this includes the naturalist/humanist worldview that dominates and is often assumed in practioners of the historio-critical method as it stands. In short, let us not rush to conclude that miracles occur or that the supernatural is real, but let us not discount it outright either.

They then begin making their case, and I appreciated the means with which they did so. First, the concept was introduced (parallel myths, pagan influences in Judaism, whatever) and the typical arguments for those advocating a more distrustful view of the Gospels were stated and, when necessary, unpacked. The voluminous footnotes make any digging deeper into any of the concepts presented very simple and accessible, although the copious amount scattered throughout this volume may be daunting to the casual reader (there is a different edition of the book that is far less academic for those so inclined).

Each argument is then addressed, and sometimes countered. Many of the Gospel-specific issues are addressed in detail, such as the allegations that Paul does not refer to a historical Christ-figure, or that the Jesus legend came out of parallel mystery religions.

A recurring theme of the book and one of it’s strongest points is the introduction of many of the newest studies in orality and oral cultures, be they African, Scandinavian, Serbian, Malay, or first-century Jewish. The strict literary analysis of the bulk of New Testament study is undergoing a seismic shift as many of the core assumptions governing the field are caving underneath the weight of the realities being discovered by anthropologists, philologists, historians, and the like. Concepts such as oral history vs. oral tradition, the relationships between tradents and their communities, and the flexibility of oral narratives (and written works, such as the Gospels, intended to supplement and aid oral narratives) are contrasted with their modernist, literary counterparts. The analogy of ‘camels at the trough’ was a favorite of mine in dealing with ‘chronology problems’. The analogy goes thus; unlike traditional, modern histories and biographies which generally treat their subjects chronologically, the oral historian has a wealth of stories to choose from, any number of which occupy his or her mind at a given time. Sometimes the order in which they are remembered are not necessarily ‘in order’ but they are linked in such a way as to make sense of the person or the event.

The book closes with a closer look at the 9 criteria generally used when evaluating the historicity of ancient documents. They are:

1. Did the author write with the intent of recording historical reality?
2. Was the author in the appropriate time and place to reliably report history?
3. To what extent does the author’s bias taint the work and affect it’s reliability?
4. Does the document including self-damaging details?
5. Does the document include casual or incidental details surrounding it’s topics?
6. Is the document generally consistent in style, structure, etc?
7. Does the document record inherently improbable events?
8. Does external literary evidence corroborate what is found in the work?
9. Does external archaeological evidence corroborate what is found in the work?

While this section generally maintains the standard of quality, criteria 7 & 9 are unfortunately dealt with far too quickly and with (to my mind) meager evidences. Nevertheless, the weight of the rest of the work is up to achieving their task; the scales in my mind have most certainly tilted from a concept of a historically improbable Jesus to a historically probable one.

What happens from there is no longer in the realms of history.

***** A must read. Not for the faint of heart [very academic] but the book ‘Lord Or Legend’ by the same two deals with the same general issues in about 1/3 the space and in must easier to read language, and may be better suited to some purposes.

Author Bio:: Jordan Peacock lives and works in Minnesota with his beautiful wife and daughter. When not playing with technology or music, heâ??s writing comic books and wrapping up a university education.

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And if you think my intro was a bit scattered, just wait till you get your hands on a copy of the book, where the journey goes from the tempting delicacies of the corporate Chicago landscape to the spiritual violence done at a half-way house in Colorado. Gall has a knack for robbing any sense of control from the reader without taking it so far that the pages stop being turned. His prose shoves the reader forward, even when the first paragraph of the next chapter seems to hardly connect with the last. You’re just along for the ride, manning shotgun with Gall as he encounters a populace he couldn’t possibly make up such as Critter; “the thirty-year old Cajun grade school dropout pedophile” and Hungarian Vince; “whose second-biggest disability is that he doesn’t quite look retarded.” But the last thing you would want on this ride is for the safety locks to be disengaged because somewhere along the voyage, Gall has begun to read your mail. You see a glimmer of yourself in his tale of idolatry and being the “nice guy” for all the wrong reasons and you must read on to find some sense of hope for your own self constructed hiding place.

But back to original metaphor…

It’s Pete Gall’s absolute honesty that brings Augustine into the frame. At times he’s self-deprecating. Like Augustine’s Confessions, much of My Beautiful Idol is the journey of one man who desperately wants to be all God’s, but enjoys the few toes and fingers still reserved for the self. The symptoms are different, but the disease is the same. For Augustine, the pleasures of sex and lust were a little too fun to give up just yet. For Gall, it was faking the part of being the “tremendous man of God.” He’s that “nice guy” who manipulatively, yet secretly, wants everyone to notice how pleasant he really is. Both as a successful brand strategist and as an inauspicious non-profit engineer, Gall was merely looking to be defined by how much love he could suck from those around him. He was wading through life, attaching little trinkets to his shell like the collector crab (a metaphor that encompasses the entire book). God becomes our own personal brand that we slap on to hide from the “squids” in our lives. “And so long as we remain uneaten, it feels like it’s working.”(19) The problem with these hiding places is that “they’re more like prisons than protection.”(43)

In Donald Miller fashion, the offhand and imaginative writing style of My Beautiful Idol is sure to agitate its fair share. In the process of deconstructing a false sense of self before an all loving God, Pete Gall also deconstructs some camouflage that many Christians will cling to such as the local church—“I’d feel better about selling motherhood to a teenager than church to a person looking for God.”(33) and the suburbs— “Zionsville…is proof to me that there was a reason we were kicked out of the garden.”(53) Being currently enrolled at Bethel Seminary, the author’s critique of seminaries as places that are more likely to mold salespeople than witnesses was hard to read. And it will only be a matter of time before Christian watchdogs will be all over Gall for comparing a genuine experience of God with his early days of smoking pot. But the readers need to heed the end of the story before jumping to conclusions. Gall comes to embrace the church as the terribly flawed, but finest alternative God has at His disposal. He treks back to Zionsville to live with his suburban family who demonstrates the real meaning of love at the moment he needed it most. After roasting seminary, it is Gall who states that seminary professors are some of the most submitted people to God that he’s ever encountered. But many will find it just as easy to pick on the parts of Beautiful Idol that upset our worldviews while disregarding the counsel that we “don’t get to decide who Jesus is.” (120)

Pete Gall was seeking a faith… “the sort that can flex and grow and be beautiful without needing me to shine it up and pose it just so.” (11) It is the style of his writing, while leaving numerous questions unanswered, that best captures such a dynamic faith. This reviewer can only hope that he too comes to the place where “success in life is not measured by what we achieve, but by what we admit.” (267)

Michael Cline is a co-editor of the Jesus Manifesto. He considers himself a freelance pastor and and over-employed learner who currently attends Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. When not snuggling with his wife, he’s blogging at www.reclinerramblings.blogspot.com

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