OFF THE SHELF RED LETTERS By Tom Davis David C. Cook Reviewed by Jeff Goins Red Letters: Living a FaithThat Bleeds begins not with startling statistics or an alarming call to action, but with a simple story about a teenager named Kirill who lived on the streets of Moscow. We’ve all been there before, trying to assuage our feelings of guilt by avoiding eye contact or crossing the street, all the while justifying ourselves. Tom Davis did what many of us would have done. He shook off the beggar and kept walking. I can relate to that; it’s the “wise” thing to do. But then Davis did something different—he went back. Davis’ book is about justice, hope, change, and living by the principle that Jesus is to be found in the “least of these” described in Matthew 25. When Davis went back, his faith started to bleed. In the first few chapters, he discusses the problem of global poverty alongside the gospel’s essence—that it is something to be lived and not just discussed. As “little Christs” (a term borrowed from C.S. Lewis), we have a responsibility to do something about suffering and injustice in the world. Davis goes on to discuss the AIDS crisis, the dying continent of Africa (particularly Swaziland, which has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world and whose people will become extinct in 50 years if nothing changes), and his bleeding heart for the forgotten and forsaken. While the statistics might feel overwhelming, Davis asserts that effecting change is not as difficult or costly as we usually suspect; it just requires a will-
Michael Lindsay’s excellent book, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. A sociologist at Rice University, Lindsay draws a telling picture of the social networks of leaders and organizations that, over the last 30 years, have nurtured and sustained evangelical “moral leadership” for the purpose of directing social change in the US. He does this by reporting on well over 300 interviews with evangelical leaders from politics, academia, the film and TV industries, and corporate America. The book reads better than a Who’s Who in America because it is saturated with anecdotes and rich confessions of Protestant and Catholic evangelical leaders for whom faith makes a deliberate difference in their work. Lindsay argues that these overlapping networks have gradually edged evanJeff Goins is an editor at the online maga- gelicals into the power circles of the zine Wrecked for the Ordinary (wrecked American elite. He concludes, however, that the kind of power the evangelical fortheordinary.com). elite exercises is convening power rather than decision-making power. Lindsay found “little evidence,” for instance, that FAITH IN THE HALLS evangelical power has led to changes in OF POWER law. Still, these political, cultural, and business leaders are able to “set agendas,” By D. Michael Lindsay “coordinate activity,”“marshal resources,” Oxford University Press “share information,” and otherwise “create social space for interaction among Reviewed by Bret Kincaid peers where they can discuss ideas that I recall a CIA brief- can then be carried out by the organiing soon after 9/11 at zations they run.” Calling these loosely overlapping netthe end of which one of the two CIA ana- works a “movement,” Lindsay sees it lysts began making an divided between what he calls “populist” off-the-record pitch, and “cosmopolitan” leaders/organizations. enthusiastically ped- Populist leaders are less affluent, more dling a government inclined to label people good or evil, vocation to the large more willing to use high-profile mass audience of evangelical college students mobilization, and more firmly connectbecause “one of us” was now at the helm ed to evangelical subcultures than are in the White House.“This is our chance cosmopolitan leaders. Conversely, the to make a real difference,” he said, refer- latter are more educated and well travring to “us” evangelical Christians. I was eled, less involved in their local church taken aback at the time, but I wouldn’t (with the exception of those who attend have been so surprised had I read D. a megachurch), and more concerned ingness to move towards the pain rather than away from it.The latter chapters call us to action, but unlike many books of this tenor, they don’t abandon us there. Davis provides some potential routes to pursue, inviting us to join his 5for50 Campaign (5for50.com), go on a mission trip, and raise money and awareness. My only disappointment was that there were not more stories. My favorite chapter, “Snapshots of Hope,” tells of African babies rescued from abandonment, Russian orphans turned into leaders, and tales of those who cared for them being radically transformed. Red Letters isn’t about social action. It’s about Jesus—about finding him in the least likely of people/places and about our commitment to meet him there. ■
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