Book Review: "Humanitarian Jesus"

Ryan Dobson is an established author in his own right, with several published works, including Be Intolerant, 2 Die 4, and Wrecked.  Christian Buckley is a death-row attorney who serves on the boards and offers leadership assistance to philanthropic organizations such as Christian Surfers International and others.

Both men are actively involved in issues of social justice and evangelism, and have often mused about the church's lack of success in incorporating both aspects of Jesus' calling and works in their mission.

Humanitarian Jesus is the result of their working through this quandary. A compact treatise on the 150-year history of Christianity and philanthropic works, coupled with interviews from the people and organizations who faithfully live out the call. Yet, despite this rich tradition and Jesus’ mandate to his disciples to preach the gospel and do good works, there are still whole sections of Christianity that see the social gospel and/or social justice issues as an excuse to water down the true gospel.

Humanitarian Jesus dives in with both feet to address this divide, seeking to bring clarity, direction and a new paradigm.

Technology has allowed us to become globally connected like never before, and the power to do good is available to us at an unprecedented scale. Humanitarian Jesus dares to ask bold questions about the work that should be done and how we as Christians are to address the needs around us. Though the goal is to answer these questions, if the immediate answer does not fully address the subject, the writers try to outline a model for moving the debate forward.

Humanitarian Jesus encapsulates and responds to these questions with elegant prose, wrapped in precise metaphor. The writers challenge the traditional views of both social justice and evangelism, examining both through the lens of temporal and eternal concerns, thus creating a new structure. This is done particularly well in the choice of individuals and organizations interviewed. The writers chose a spectrum of social justice advocates, Christian philanthropist, and humanitarian leaders and thinkers, who represent the left, right and center on most of these issue. The interview subjects are household names like Tony Campolo, Franklin Graham, and Mark Batterson, as well as lesser-known individuals such as Jim Moriarty of Surfrider Foundation, Rusty Pritchard of Flourish, and David Batstone of Not for Sale. The reader may not even consider some of these individuals fitting the mold of humanitarianism or social justice, but each interviewee offers unvarnished responses to questions about how they strive to fulfill their organization’s mission, and live out the call of Jesus, and the call on their lives.

Mark Batterson pastors the National Community Church congregation in Washington, DC, and rewrites the paradigm of where and how ministry is supposed to happen. Batterson equates coffeehouses as the postmodern equivalent of wells, and through the church's ministry through coffeehouses, seeks to “create a place where the church and community and cross paths.”

For the first part of the book, each chapter proffers a challenge, and after looking at the challenge from every perspective, offers a provocation to all believers.

In Chapter 3, "Three Truths", the challenge proffered is if Jesus' does call us to do good works, what should be the foundation?

 In Chapter 5, "Gospel-rooted Humanitarianism," the writers challenge, "Our work must always be rooted in the understanding that all of mankind is suffering under both the physical and spiritual consequences of brokenness." This chapter paints a powerful contrast between humanitarianism for humanitarianism's sake and humanitarianism that is rooted in the Gospel's model.

The book's end-goal is to pique the reader's thinking: about issues of social justice, and how one can insert himself as part of the solution. The concept of social justice, evangelism and the Christian's role in implementing both is a broad topic, and the writers could have easily gone all over the map in addressing it. But the focus was wisely chosen, and the book manages to stay directed in fulfilling its goals.

The book properly concludes that Jesus coupled evangelism with humanitarian work, and one was not mutually exclusive of the other. At the very least, this work can be considered an argument intended to provoke consideration and action, and offers several directives toward that end:

• The accepted mindset on what Christian humanitarianism looks like must be changed. Christian Buckley stated well that one of the "failures" of the traditional model is that it is monolithic, when in actuality, Christian humanitarianism in action could take any shape or form.
• Believers must take up the challenge to seek out need--not just assume someone else will attend to it, but actively look for ways to do good locally, regionally, nationally and globally.
• Meeting other’s need are part of the "risk" of discipleship, and every Christian should be looking for ways to live this out.

The first part of the book lays the foundation and sets the challenge, the second part of the book wisely lets those who are living this life speak, and each does so eloquently.

Having read many of the Christian works on the market, I find very few do the job of provoking, prodding or teaching believers how to view the Christian walk through fresh eyes. Humanitarian Jesus succeeds well in this regard. It is a book that stirs, educates and reforms.

For more info: about Humanitarian Jesus, visit the website.