Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World, by Lee C. Camp (Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2003)
Because I believe Mere Discipleship to be an important book for Christians who are seeking more from their faith than "fire insurance," I want to deal with some of its problems first. There was enough that I found really annoying that I want to get some of it out of the way, so anyone who feels as I do will be encouraged to read past that and receive the good therein.
A minor point, but still important to those who love good books: I don't like the style. The overuse of "unnecessary quotation marks" is like fingernails on a blackboard to me. (Irrelevant question: how long before people no longer know what that expression means?) So too does the repeated use of the phrase, "Constantinian cataract" or "Christendom cataract" to describe the impairment of vision he says has afflicted the Church since the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine gave Christianity both legality and status. It's a clever image, but grows thin, and doubly annoying in phrases like, "this is yet another question that flows from the Christendom cataract," flipping the meaning, briefly, from eye problems to waterfalls. And why does the book continually use the term "nation-state," instead of the more commonly-used "nation"? It seems deliberately inflammatory. These minor problems shouldn't deter a reader any more than a prophet's shabby clothes should justify ignoring his message; I want to encourage people to see past it, and acknowledging the problem can sometimes help.
More serious is Lee C. Camp's very obvious pacifist and anabaptist beliefs. I'm sure that to him these follow logically from his basic approach to the Christian life, but many (including me) could benefit from his ideas who have come (at least so far) to different conclusions. It would be a shame to reject the whole package as an all-or-nothing deal.
Finally, Camp seems to set up a straw man to knock down. Having grown up in the Deep South, he can be forgiven for railing against the blind patriotism he saw in that place, at that time. But his experience is so far different from my own as to make that part of the book outdated and nearly irrelevant.
Enough with the negative. I wish I could express the positive as easily. But that which is good—whether I agree with it or not—is deeper than I can express, at least not without a more careful re-reading of the book. (Much of my first reading was done on the long plane flight home from Japan and under the influence of jet lag.) Besides, I don't think it's fair of a reviewer to try to express in a few words what it takes the author a whole book to say. Instead I will end with a few quotes, and invite anyone who reads Mere Discipleship to raise particular points for discussion, for there are many.
I write not so much to instruct as to understand, to make more sense myself out of Christ's call to follow him. I write to share my deep suspicion that our Western culture continues to pervert the word of Christ. I write with a sense of burden, suspecting that even the religious rhetoric that appears to take Jesus so seriously has domesticated him, cleaned him up, made him respectable so as not to embarrass us good church-going folk with our agendas of upward social mobility and social "responsibility," and in so doing has limited the answers believed to be possible or sensible or respectable to that commonly asked question, "What would Jesus do?"
[With the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus,] a decisive turn has occurred in human history—the kingdom of God is now in our midst—but its final and ultimate triumph lies yet in the future. The work of God, in forgiving sins, healing disease and affliction, overcoming alienation and estrangement, defeating injustice and oppression—this long-anticipated work of God has now broken into human history and will be completed at the [second coming] of the Lord.
The gospel invites us to participate in the kingdom of God, that long-awaited rule of God, in which the rebellion, with its corollaries of lust and violence and greed and self-seeking, is undone.
Throughout the biblical narrative God calls his people to embody an alternative vision of community life: the people of God live a community ethic that stands at odds with the unbelieving peoples that surround them. Through being a "peculiar people," the people of God can bear witness to the will off God, as well as bring about transformative change for the cities in which they dwell. Only by being what God has called his people to be can his people really bring about good for the cities in which they dwell.
The primary characters in the flow of history are the weak, apparently insignificant characters chosen by God to walk in obedience to God's covenant promises.
"Church" is not about showing the world how to be "religious," but showing the world how it is supposed to be a world that reflects the intentions of its creator. …The church embodies the new social order, the new-world-on-the-way; the church exists as an outpost of the coming kingdom.
A "cultural Christianity," in which many people ascribe to the "Christian faith," but few walk in discipleship, showing the world what God created the world to be—this is apostasy.
The gospel is not merely a "belief system," giving mental assent to "sound doctrine" so that one might "go to heaven." The gospel calls us to participate in the kingdom of heaven, to embody the will of God on earth, empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so.
How often have I preached that we should forgive those who do not merit forgiveness—the murderer, the warmonger, or the terrorist who has decimated or oppressed some third party unknown to me—and yet am offended and resentful when someone doesn't like me or my preaching?! Third-party "forgiveness" is cheap.
It will not do…simply not to kill our enemies. To adopt a stance of refusing to kill our enemies, of course, would be a radical conversion for the Christian church in the Western world. But even such a radical transformation would not be sufficient. It will most certainly not do to hate the war-makers and their military-industrial complex. It will not do to scoff at nationalism and patriotism. Instead, following Christ means we embrace both centurion and zealot alike, calling each to the life-giving way of the kingdom, in which we celebrate the grace and abundance of a God given freely and extravagantly to us all.
