The Spectrum Blog

Book Review: Swimming Against the Current by Chris Blake

Reviewed by Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson

Put simply, Swimming Against the Current: Living for the God You Love gave me hope for the future of Adventism. I’m a lifelong Adventist and the product of Adventist education, the missionary field, and veggie meat, and I’ve already seen some of my friends leave the church—although not God in most cases—because they found little connection between corporate faith and real life. They aren’t rebellious, angry types, these friends of mine; they’re intellectuals, creative minds, and seekers. What they want is spirituality with more substance than cotton candy. What they want is theology to be brought down from the stratosphere to earth. What they want is less tradition for the sake of tradition and more grace. I can’t blame my friends for seeking elsewhere what they didn’t find in the Adventist church—I want the same things myself.

Blake wrote Swimming Against the Current for people like my friends, and me. In the preface, Blake says that his earlier volume, Searching for a God to Love, was for “people who believe in God but who don’t believe what they hear about God” and that Swimming Against the Current is for those who have found a God to love and who are now searching for more. If you’re a longtime Adventist or a Christian believer struggling to connect the God you know and the religion you practice, this book is for you, too.

Swimming Against the Current is divided into three sections: “Do Justly,” “Love Mercy,” and “Walk Humbly with Our God.” Blake says that the first section is the most countercultural, but it’s by far my favorite. I think Blake is at his best here as he tackles topics as various as Adventists and activism, spiritual bullying, prejudice, the state of Adventist writing, integrity, and valuing the church’s youth, in chapters with titles like “Why I Don’t Pray for Jesus to Come ‘Soon.’” It’s thought-provoking theology for those who want more than to await divine rescue from a world that supposedly isn’t our home.

Blake is serious about his topic, but the tone of the book is never preachy or heavy. The reader encounters, instead, openness, warmth, and humor in Blake’s assorted anecdotes about skydiving, romance, prison, and even sitting behind the G.C. platform with buddy Clifford Goldstein (whom he describes as “giving a first impression of a ruffled politician with ADHD”), and in quintessential Chris Blake style, he provides refreshing insights on the makings of a thriving spirituality.

Blake doesn’t set out to thrill everyone on every single page. Reactions to this book will be as individual as its readers and as various as its chapter lengths, tones, and topics. Some chapters may elicit a shrug; others, fierce dissent. But I posit that at least one of the chapters will leave you awestruck by the God you love.

Read this book. Read it if you’re Blake’s intended audience—people like my friends and me who are looking for an authentic spirituality. Read it if you’re a family—“even a family of one,” as Blake puts it—just for the chapter titled “Family Values.” And finally, read it especially if you’re one of the leaders, pastors, and theologians who collectively steer the direction of the Adventist church. The theology in this book is daring but grounded, principled but pragmatic, and at its core, compassionate. Along with Stuart Tyner’s Searching for the God of Grace, it hints at the direction in which Adventism must move in order to be alive and relevant: against the current.

Swimming Against the Current is available from Pacific Press Publishing and at Amazon.com.

Book Review - the event

By Steve Parker
Crossposted on his blog, Thinking Christian.

The Event - Mick LaSalle                    

"Imagine if everything the Religious Right believes about the End Times is true, except the Rapture doesn't take them and the antichrist turns out to be their favorite politician . . . That's the story of The Event, which will be serialized ... over the next few months."

So reads the prologue to Mick LaSalle's online serial, a new episode of which will be posted on his web site each week. Some Christians believe that Jesus will will return and they will instantly disappear and be taken to heaven - some will be taken, many will be left behind. A detailed scenario has been worked out by many believers in the Rapture popularised by books like the Left Behind series and movies.

If the first episode of The Event is anything to go by, it's going to be a great read. The Rapture occurs but the right wing Christians have been left behind and all those who they thought wouldn't be have been raptured away! The nation (of America) is in total confusion as they try to work out what is going on.

LaSalle's premise even has biblical precedent. The idea that God will save those who "shouldn't be" and leaves behind those who thought they'd be in the "in" group has biblical precedent. Jesus told a parable about this:

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

"Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

"Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’

"And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

"Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Mt 25:31-46, NRSV)

To read the first episode of The Event click here!

Controversies, great and small

By Bonnie Dwyer

Among the books on my night stand calling out to be read is Nancey Murphy’s Bodies and Souls or Spirited Bodies, so I was pleased to find commentary on it while web surfing.

Lynne Rudder Baker reviewed the book for Notre Dame’s Philosophy Reviews.

Baker does a nice summary of each of the chapters and then concludes that Bodies and Souls is “written in a comfortable conversational style and introduces many of the controversies that confront Christians today.”

So I am determined to begin reading Murphy tonight for myself.

There seem to be so many controversies, of late. Zeroing in and gaining some understanding would be a good thing. Not to mention the Forum Conference is coming up in October. Nancey will be the speaker. This is a chance to get acquainted ahead of time.