Book Review: Tea With Hezbollah

I have a new favorite Ted Dekker book.

The 3.5 faithful readers will know that Ted is pretty much my favorite fiction writer. Okay, so he's pretty much the only fiction writer I have read in the past 10 years. His writing, while fiction, is so stimulating theologically that I suck it dry when I read it.

But this new book is not fiction. Far from it. It's all too real.

Ted, and his friend Carl Medearis, travelled a few years ago to the Middle East, on one specific quest: to discover if the teaching of Jesus--that we are to love our neighbor as ourself--is being talked about, taught, or even followed. And specifically when that neighbor is your enemy, what then?

Ted & Carl sit down with many people that leaders here in the US (and can I say, most people who call themselves Christians) would clearly define as enemies. Muslim teachers and leaders. Hezbollah. Hamas. Regular people like cabbies and tour guides. And in between the great writing of Ted, they post verbatim what these "enemies" have to say about life, about what makes them laugh, and what they think about Jesus' teaching to love your enemy. And at the end they even get to meet some of the remaining 700 or so Samaritans still living in Israel.

This book is, as my friend Thom Wolfe said on the back cover, irreverent. But it is full of truth. And it point to Truth in the man from Nazareth.

Muslims, Jews and Christians have several things in common. A couple of them are (1) they claim to worship the God of Abraham; and (2) they by and large ignore the actual teachings of Jesus.

This book gets the coveted 5 bellybutton rating. 00000. Read it. And take another look at what Jesus calls us to.

A Christian response to Muslims...

Sorry I've been off the blog lately...I will write more, I promise!

Here's one of the best articles on the status of religious freedom from a Christian perspective I've read in the news lately. How are American Christians called to react to Muslims? In this article you'll find some great answers. Let's talk about it.

Ultimately, as the editorial says, it MUST be about neighbor love and the Golden Rule for us who follow Jesus. I have to admit, I'm a little tired of believers who are USAmericans first and followers of Jesus second. As a friend of mine wrote, it's interesting that the Gainesville pastor wanting to burn Qur'ans pointed to his Constitutional right to do so, but not a biblical justification for doing so.

The way of Jesus is not to fight fire with fire. Newt Gingrich's suggestion of no more mosques until Saudi Arabia allows churches is NOT New Testament truth, but exactly the opposite of the teaching of Jesus, Paul and Peter. We never overcome evil with more evil. Period. Evil is ONLY overcome by good. And history has shown that religious freedom is good.

On this anniversary of 9/11, I pray for the hurt evil has caused. I mourn for the loss of life. I pray for God's justice in the world.

And if I'm honest, I pray for redemption.

The evil that motivates every terrorist to kill metaphorically lurks outside my door, and literally battles inside my soul. I have not murdered, but I have hated. I have not cheated, but I have lusted. I have stolen, I have lied. I have looked out for my own interests before others. Someone I know called those things equally evil. And that evil is only defeated through the power of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Glorious grace!

To paraphrase Frodo when Sam wanted to kill Golom, if there's no hope for the redemption of a terrorist, there's no hope for my own salvation.

Good must win. In Christ, good will win. Look to the cross of Jesus, your redemption draws near...

Great article from Brian McLaren...

One of my favorite writers, Brian McLaren, had this post recently on the God's Politics blog. Where do we as followers of Jesus need to stand on the line of balance between self-protection and love for enemy?