Another day, another manifesto. Last year a group of pomo-friendly folks published An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Earlier this summer a group of influential Christian leaders published An Evangelical Manifesto. Now Rob Bell joins the trend with his latest book: Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile (Zondervan, 2008).

Let’s start with first impressions-whoever is responsible for the cover design deserves an award. I challenge anyone to look at the cover and not be intrigued. When an advanced copy arrived on my desk, I couldn’t stop staring at it. Two days later I finally deciphered what the boxes on the cover meant. (I won’t ruin it for those who like to solve puzzles.) Literally dozens of books cross my desk every week from publishers. Few covers make me stop and say, “Hmmm…” (Yes, that’s a veiled reference to C&C Music Factory.)

Unfortunately, what I’ve experienced inside the cover isn’t as captivating. For those familiar with Bell’s previous books, Velvet Elvis and Sex God, Jesus Wants to Save Christians follows a similar blogish format. The pages have lots of white space and paragraphs are often just one sentence, or even

one

word.

Bell plays fast and loose with punctuation and other conventions of good writing. This nonconformity may give the book a degree of coolness, but it bugs me as both an editor and book buyer. I’m not excited about paying $19.99 for a 200 page book (a decision made by the publisher not the writers) with only 50 pages of cumulative content no matter how great the cover may be.

On the flip side, the stream of consciousness style of the writing is the printed equivalent of listening to a Rob Bell sermon, and even his theological critics admit Bell is a gifted communicator. His quirky, seemingly schizophrenic stage presence is arresting and ultimately winsome when you realize he almost always lands his points on target. The same is true for Jesus Wants to Save Christians. Some will find Bell’s writing style irritating at first, but then discover that it communicates surprisingly well.

So, what does the book communicate? Bell and coauthor Don Golden trace the history of Israel from Egypt, to Sinai, to Jerusalem, and ultimately to exile in Babylon. This motif of exile and exodus, which they call the “New Exodus perspective,” is the lens through which they look at Jesus and the mission of the church.

Through the Old Testament they reveal “the God who liberates from oppression.” He is the God who stands against the injustice of empires that subjugate people with fear and power. It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see where they are headed. The later half of the book identifies the United States as the latest empire of oppression in line with Egypt, Babylon, and Rome, and begins to beat the social justice drum more loudly.

Bell and Golden do a good job covering the history of Israel in broad bush strokes, but those with more theological training will probably take issue with their generalizations. For example, they link the strife between Cain (a farmer) and Abel (a shepherd) with the “seismic shift…occurring as human society transitioned from a pastoral, nomadic orientation to an agricultural one.” Intriguing, but a case of exegetical overreaching in my opinion. For a more substantial and theologically robust exploration of what the Bible has to say about social justice, I still think Ron Sider’s classic Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger can’t be beat. But Bell and Golden definitely put the cookies on a lower shelf. I found myself thinking the book would be a very good introduction to the topic for a student or someone with no prior knowledge of the topic.

The most surprising thing about Jesus Wants to Save Christians for me is that Rob Bell and Dan Golden include virtually no illustrations, no stories, no real world examples of people or communities living out the vision of Christian faith they advocate. The later chapters are loaded with eye-opening statistics like:

“More than half of the world lives on less than two dollars a day, while the average American teenager spends nearly $150 a week.”

And

“Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half the world does on all goods.”

But there were no stories. For a gifted storyteller like Bell, that seems like a missed opportunity. As a result, Jesus Wants to Save Christians feels more like a lecture than a sermon–it informs but it never manages to truly inspire.

That isn’t to say I found the book unhelpful. There are a number of memorable and well communicated ideas. Take, for example, the notion that the American church is in a state of exile. Bell and Golden use the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus as a metaphor for the church today. “It’s possible to be with Jesus every day and yet miss who he truly is and where we really are.”

The Bible, say Bell and Golden, is “a book written from the underside of power. It’s an oppression narrative. The majority of the Bible was written by minority people living under the rule and reign of massive, mighty empires…. This can make the Bible a very difficult book to understand if you are reading it as a citizen of the most powerful empire the world has ever seen.”

Bell and Golden also pick apart many sacred cows in the contemporary American church-from the dangers of being trendy, hip, and cool, to the temptation to market the church to specific demographic populations. “The authority that the church has in culture does not come from how right, cool, or loud it is, or how convinced it is of its doctrinal superiority.” Amen to that.

But this same deconstructionist tendency is what may cause some readers (not me) to freak out when the authors apply it to Scripture and history. For example, they advance a preterist reading of Revelation stripped of any eschatological meaning (while taking a jab at the Left Behind books in the process). And perhaps the most controversial element of the book is their discussion of the Iraq War. Bell and Golden’s perspective can be summed up in one word: Oil.

Thumpin’ theocrats be warned-Jesus Wants to Save Christians is highly critical of America. Bell and Golden repeatedly state that God has blessed America, and we should be “very, very grateful” to live in America, but they argue we’ve confused blessing with entitlement. Our demand for a self-indulgent lifestyle is causing the oppression of poor people throughout the world. They soften their punches by saying “guilt is not helpful…knowledge is helpful,” but few will be able to put down Jesus Wants to Save Christians without a sense of self-loathing-perhaps for supporting the oppressive American empire, but more likely for shelling out $20 for book that only took two hours to read.

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