Finding Presence in the Midst of Pain
A Review of
Blessed Are the Others: Jesus’ Way in a Violent World
Andrew DeCort
Paperback: Bittersweet Collective, 2024
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Reviewed by Marianne Abel-Lipschutz
Andrew DeCort’s Blessed Are the Others sketches the crucial work of reconciling with God about suffering through the Beatitudes. Jesus proclaimed this “divine justice manifesto” to inspire right relationships of mutual flourishing. DeCort draws widely on his international career as a public theologian, pastor, professor, and scholar in this practical and engaging book.
He weaves stories from texts, memoirs, and the writings of James Baldwin, Etty Hillesum, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others whose witness about devastation illustrate Beatitudinal wisdom. “Jesus says there’s no need to suppress the painful reality of being poor humans,” he writes. You can read Blessed Are the Others and weep. Just don’t stop there.
You’ll find answers to the pivotal question we all have about the miraculous transformation of grief into goodness. “How does Jesus invite us to flourish in the face of our universal experiences of suffering, conflict, and loss?” Blessed Are the Others explores the Beatitudinal Way as “an endlessly generative, culturally divergent path of humane happiness.” This profound book is easy to hold but hard to believe. DeCort’s disruptive vision of the Beatitudes can make us squirm.
He repeats a glorious and unsettling message: the Beatitudes apply to all of us. “These are not random well-wishes as we often seem to assume. Jesus is describing an interconnected path and intentional process of becoming human,” DeCort writes of the austere design of these eight movements or blessings. “Each blessing is accompanied by a promise that speaks to a core fear that we face in choosing to walk this way. The whole path reflects Jesus’s deep sensitivity to the embodied human soul.”
The Beatitudes challenge us to cultivate interdependence by “doing our work,” healing the poverty and destitution that scorch our personalities. This is not a simple “Come to Jesus” message. We must bring love to the outsiders within us, DeCort maintains, the parts of ourselves we fear, the internal hatreds and rejections that complicate our inner lives. If not, we will project those wounds, “othering” those around us, “punishing” them for our suffering. DeCort’s writing on transcending this grief is memorable.
DeCort elaborates on his life-altering encounters with loss, terror, and abandonment during more than a decade in Ethiopia with his wife, their self-exile, and time in North America. After years of resistance, he finally allowed himself “to enter into that haunted house of my own pain.” In counseling, simply composing a therapeutic list of losses shattered his defenses. “As I tried to write that letter to God, electricity surged through my body and up my arms. I felt like I was going to blackout and fall backwards in my chair,” he recalls. “I wept hysterically, hyperventilating with overwhelming distress. It was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I was about to die.”
Nevertheless, he encourages us to brave the world beyond our fears so we can “enter into the ultimate unionizer of humanity: our grief.” DeCort cautions us: this spiritual work will separate us from the crowd:
“This theology leads to a revisionary way of becoming human. It’s poverty-processing, tear-soaked, nonviolent, hungry-and-thirsty, compassionate, God-seeing peace and justice. Humane happiness isn’t winning. It’s learning how to relate to one another as if we’re all actually beloved and the Beatitudinal Way is actually blessed. Jesus’s community found these divergent revisions to be blasphemous betrayals. They called it “subverting the nation” and worthy of death (Luke 23:2).”
I loved how DeCort’s study layers the Beatitudes like tree rings that embody the heart of God within us, promising that as we integrate total belonging, we will stand and bear witness while honoring joy in the midst of the crimes of our times. “Creative resistance to violence is one of Jesus’s most groundbreaking teachings,” DeCort asserts.
“Jesus proved in the most intimate, ultimate way possible with his own body that humans can do their very worst. And still, God isn’t violent and doesn’t save with violence. God’s salvation is the presence of love, even in pain, free of vengeance.”
I highly recommend DeCort’s beautiful book for the ways he coaches us to pursue the difficult work of surrendering to the promises of God. Fifteen pages of resources and questions for reflection at the back offer prompts to explore the Beatitudinal Way in group discussions, in daily life, and in reading scripture more effectively. Through these exercises, I learned to apply the principles Jesus died for and stay grounded in reality.
“If you’re poor – in body, spirit, or otherwise – God is unconditionally committed to you,” DeCort assures us with pastoral compassion, emphasizing that our cosmic destiny is fullness of life. “If you feel like you’re falling apart or there’s nothing left to live for but pain, you will end up fully at home with God. If you’re hopeless, you’re held by heaven. You’re going to be eternally okay.”
Marianne Abel-Lipschutz
Marianne Abel-Lipschutz and her husband farm in Iowa and advocate for families in Guatemala. Her creative nonfiction narratives about faith and the humanities appeared recently in Panorama, Boulevard, Comment, and Front Porch Republic. Read her flash devotionals every three days at https://marianneabellipschutz.substack.com/
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