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One of Halter’s greatest abilities is to demonstrate how the church is called to serve and love all. He has great stories of meeting people where they are at through relationship and introducing them to Jesus, while walking alongside them on their spiritual journey. He has uncanny and funny stories, riddled throughout the book, demonstrating his ways of connecting, which includes sweating in a yoga class to flipping off his burly biker neighbor. And in simple, crass and real gestures he wins relationships by which he can walk alongside and also be shaped by. One of his most sacrilegious points comes from the fact that Halter recognizes that all are on a spiritual journey.
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The world we live in is a spiritual world. In generations past the term “spiritual” was reserved for Christians, or perhaps fervent Eastern followers. Everyone else was considered secular. Today most would claim some spiritual connection to God (as they view him, her or it). Those who claim there is no God or who have no personal faith are in the minority. (64)
It is from this position that Halter wipes away the pharisaical scales from the eyes of the church. If everybody is on a spiritual path, wanting to connect spiritually, it demonstrates how God’s Kingdom is at work, even if just through inklings. We need not win converts, but rather we can relate who Jesus is to others through their spiritual journey. It is not conquest, but a network of relationships. Relationships are messy and chaotic, and this is precisely the point where pharisaical Christianity removes God and mission by cleaning everything up into neat doctrine.
Protestantism has a history of rejecting “works-based” spirituality for fear that it leads to gaining salvation by one’s own merit. No doubt faith is received as grace, but as James mentions, faith without works is a dead faith. Halter writes, “Here’s a surprising thought to chew on: you only know what you do.” (75) We know God in action, by doing. We receive the grace of God through faith, but we must enact our faith – quicken it, give it life, make it tangible. Halter’s first book, co-written with Matt Smay is titled Tangible Kingdom for this very reason.
Ironically, the very faith-based, non-works-based understanding of Protestant Pharisees manifests itself as action-based and legalistic. It is designed not to usher people into the Kingdom, but keep people out. Jesus denounced this dichotomy. He was unorthodox, disobeying some laws to act in relationship – he healed on the Sabbath. Halter demonstrates that Jesus’s nature was relational, walking with people (even the Pharisees) and challenging them to engage the Kingdom of God.
What most people tend to find a turnoff to the message of many Christians is their posture. Halter shuts down this defensive and hostile posture when he writes, “…God doesn’t want us to stick up for him, confound the unchurched with our right doctrine or belittle them with attempts to be morally superior. Jesus is teaching us to stop trying to convert people and begin wooing them to his kingdom way of life through the meekness of our way.” (106) He draws from the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the meek.” “Meekness,” writes Halter, “by its very definition communicates to people an authentic belief that we aren’t any better than they are – really! – and that we only know what we know and have changed because God pursued us, saved us, helped us, and loved us.” (106) Out of this meek posture, the faithful find their strength, not out of a posture of domineering strength.
Halter’s book is an instructional guide for apprentices. As Jesus’s apprentices, and thus disciples, conversion is not the end-game, responding to God’s continual calling is. Halter writes, “Where as religion calls you once…apprenticeship is continual.” (218) Sacrilege is not an introductory text for discipleship used only in a Discipleship/Apprenticeship 101 curriculum. Rather, like Tangible Kingdom, the book ought to be revisited frequently. It is a fast read, and Halter is enjoyable, but all the more he speaks wisdom that needs to be heeded regularly. As apprentices gain confidence in following God, they will need Halter’s anecdotes to keep them grounded in relationship.
Jesus was not about right living over relationships, he was about right living for the sake of relationships. Jesus was not about good doctrine and hard-line methods, but about restoration. Piety is a farce for restoration and a barrier for relationships. Piety and religiosity takes away the actual need for Jesus, whereas an apprentice needs Jesus to engage relationally because it is so messy. Halter notes that Christian doctrine is important for growing relationships with Christ, not to keep them from him. Those who have been disciples for some time can easily forget this and become religious, but Halter reminds disciples that theirs is a King who was sacrilegious.
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Kevin Book-Satterlee is a missionary with Latin America Mission based in Mexico City.
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
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