Jesus for President

I read Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw back in July. It is a solid book divided into two parts. The first part is a primer in narrative theology, telling the story of Scripture, mainly the Old Testament. Even though there is a lot of blood and guts and violence in the OT, there is also a constant theme of God delivering God's people from slavery, fighting on their behalf, and calling them to be a different type of people. Jesus for President focused on the ways in which we are to be different - sharing our resources with those that have none, looking out for the widow and the alien, and also, culminating in the life of Jesus, refusing to kill other people. The second part of the book challenges followers of Jesus today to use their imaginations to creatively and lovingly engage the powers and empires of our day that are producing oppression and death.

I also went to the Jesus for President book tour when it came to Raleigh. I actually was a little disappointed in the book tour because of my expectations. The book tour was basically a dramatic presentation of the book. Since I read the book, I did not really hear anything new, and I expected that the book tour would be a conversation about practical applications of the material. Dispersed between the dramatic readings from the book, a band named the Psalters performed. They were a very interesting band to say the least.

I read this weekly hippie newspaper called the Independent Weekly and they gave a very positive write-up of the book tour. You can read that article here. The same night as the book tour, the Obama campaign opened its Raleigh headquarters on the same exact block as the church that hosted the Jesus for President tour. The article mentions the fact that the Jesus rally outnumbered the Obama rally by 3 to 1. I guess that is a sign of hope in a world gone mad.