Becoming The Answer To Our Prayers: Prayer For Ordinary Radicals, by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove

This book, one of at least five books, apparently, in a series of meditations and reflections for ordinary radicals, whoever that may be [1], has both a lot to offer and a lot worthy of serious criticism. This is a book that seeks to criticize the contemporary liberal and conservative political divide from the point of view of radical white guilt, which makes sense since the authors are Southerners, and have a great deal of white guilt relating to racism that they reflect on obliquely here. Since there is a lot more material to say on the side of caution or criticism, it is worthwhile to point out at the outset that there is quite a bit that this book gets right that deserves mention, because it is hard to apply. These insights include the fact that practical love and community are not synonymous with ideas and doctrines, and that forgiveness and mercy and longsuffering patience are not the most glamorous, but often the most radical, aspect of love in our lives. Likewise, the authors deserve a great deal of credit for attempting to wrestle the implications of the biblical reversal of fortunes and positions and attention and care paid to the vulnerable and the outsider, who can often be ignored because of the messiness of their lives.

In terms of its contents, the book is short and straightforward in its aims, which augers well at least for my reading of the rest of the series. The book consists of three parts, dealing with the Lord’s model prayer, John 17, and Ephesians 1:15-23, respectively. These chapters discuss matters such as: an invitation to beloved community, begging for God’s economy (which is portrayed in typical radical leftist form), temptations, love and unity, praying as a peculiar people, growing deeper in spiritual wisdom, and receiving our inheritance. The material includes sidebars with dubious references to Catholic saints and pseudographical acts of various apostles. Additionally, the material included demonstrates that the authors have a strong attraction to the monasticism of the desert “fathers,” showing an interest in ascetic gnosticism of the kind that disparages the material world, which goes along with their anti-wealth message. It is clear that this book focuses on the horizontal obligations of love towards others in a way that is frequently admirable, and also clear that the authors fail to properly orient themselves towards God with the sort of holiness that He demands.

Where this book fails is a common element of failure when it comes to reflecting on the politics of God. The title itself bears witness to the failure of the authors in their belief that radicals are to become the answer to their own prayers, as a result of living a life of ascetic renunciation and hostility to the material world and a radical identification with the downtrodden without any sort of morally elevated view about God’s laws and God’s ways as a positive signpost to society. This is a book about meeting the needs of people in practical and tangible ways, and about struggling with guilt over past oppression and injustice and present inequality. For a radical like the authors, the belief that Jesus Christ will return to set up His kingdom on earth appears to be too imperialistic in approach, and so the authors instead advocate a left-wing postmillennial optimism that mirrors that of Theonomists like Gary North, but in a political mirror image that focuses exclusively on the promises of restoration, debt forgiveness, and the reversal of fortunes between Lazarus and the rich man without any of the penalogy or orderly structure of law and covenant. That said, it is better to wrestle with the application of God’s ways in a practical sense with the way the world is than not to wrestle at all, and so praise must be given to the authors for daring to reflect on what God’s kingdom would look like to a world broken by sin and satanic oppression, even if the authors clearly do not have the right Gospel in mind.

[1] It is clear that it would not be this sort of perspective:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/book-review-rules-for-conservative-radicals/