So I picked up a new book today, one I hadn’t intended on picking up, but saw the spine on the shelf and ended up bringing it home with me. It’s entitled Jesus Brand Spirituality: He wants his religion back and is authored by Ken Wilson. The cover intrigued me, and I was about to put it back on the shelf, but then I noticed the foreward was written by Phyllis Tickle, so I gave it more of a chance and flipped through the pages and table of contents. After reading the first lines of the first chapter, I thought it might be worth the read:
“Jesus wants his religion back. And he wants it back from the orthodox, the Bible-believing, and the defenders of faith as much as from anyone else. So it can be for the world again.”
Being a fairly new book to the market, I thought I would go ahead and attempt to review it as I read it…chapter by chapter would be the best, I suppose. From the beginning, I have to admit that I am irrititated by the phrase “Jesus brand spirituality” (and evidently I’m not the only one, as Wilson communicates his reason for using the phrase here). But, so far, the actual content of Wilson’s writing is substantial enough that I can get beyond any qualms I have about the phrase.
Chapter 1: Reclaiming the Pilgrim’s Path
Right off the bat, Wilson poses a very interesting and worthwhile question:
“I’ve been in the God business for more than thirty years. Never have I seen or personally experienced such anger or angst over what it means to be associated with Jesus of Nazareth. If my fascination with Jesus had started today rather than so many years ago, I wonder what I would do with it. How would I begin to pursue faith today?”
First of all, the notion of pilgrimage is very strong for me and one I readily identify with. The fact that this is one of the central idea Wilson uses to describe our faith journeys and experiences is one of the reasons I slapped down the cash for this book.
I was pleasantly surprised with the nuanced way he speaks of our journeys of faith/belief — he asks the reader to image ourselves in relation to Jesus, not on the outside looking in or the inside looking out or at any stage of predetermined progress. He asks us to imagine ourselves at various pontes in relation to an imagined center (Jesus), “like pilgrims coming from the north, south, east, and west and every point in between to a holy city.” I love how his metaphor is one of depth and dimensions. The pilgrimage and journey is a full sphere that we move within. We are all travelling toward the center (the center being Jesus, and Jesus being an influence), but all coming from different places and travelling at different speeds and in different ways. But the closer we get to the center (e.g. are influenced by the core that is Jesus), the more our paths converge. He then asks the questions: what does it look like today to take a step closer to the center?
He goes on to say that the “pilgrim’s path” is earthy (keeping company with people of hte land and being concerned to make this world a better one), mystical (engaging in life with wonder and eager for connection with the divine), and curious (prone to asking questions and exploreing reality, even if it means “offending religious sensibilities”).
He then gives an overview of what he calls a “four-dimensional orientation for pilgrimage,” which evidently the rest of the book unpacks. He speaks of these dimensions as aspects of reality (like length, width, height, time) and are completely interdependent: one is not more important than the other. Also, he mentions that there isn’t some predetermined order in which to experience them, not some specificed phases or linear levels we progress through–they are simply characteristics of the pilgrimage, and some of us may be drawn to some at different times than others, etc.
The dimensions are active, contemplative, biblical, and communal (the book is then divided into four parts which deal correspondingly with these dimensions).
