Upon Further Review. . .

I finished reading Jesus for President a couple weeks ago, but I've been meaning to write my final opinion on the book. I put down the book with mixed feelings - on one hand I really felt inspired and affirmed in some of the things that I believe, but on the other I felt guilty about not being "set apart" enough and buying into what America is selling me. I wanted to take time to really consider this conviction because Claiborne's ideas about the life of a follower of Christ are really radical to the average American Christian, and I didn't want to dismiss these ideas simply because they are new and scary and pretty much mean I'm currently a total failure. Upon further review, however, I feel pretty secure in saying that, while the ideas and lifestyles presented in Jesus for President are virtuous and make sense in light of our calling to be "not of the world", they are not for everyone and I am not living in sin if I don't ride a bike everywhere, grow my own food, and live with twenty other people.

There are a lot of good points made in the book that have helped to really consider the ramifications of my actions. What are my actions saying when I buy cheap stuff made by foreign workers that live and work in awful conditions so I can save a couple cents? How can I support war and the military when we are called to be peacemakers and supposed to be loving our neighbors? If I believe that God created the world and called us to be stewards of it, why don't I care more about sustaining it and making more eco-conscious decisions? It's these little aspects of my life that I was really challenged about, and makes me reconsider my motivations behind the decisions that I make.

One of the things I didn't really care for was the over-emphasis on the soft, hippie, lovey-dovey portrayal of Jesus. I feel like much of the recent Christian movement, led by guys like Piper and Driscoll, has been about portraying Christ as a powerful and sovereign dude that is not to be messed with. This re-emasculation of Jesus has been, in my opinion, long-overdue and a more accurate description of the nature of Christ, and so it was a little weird for them to dwell on the softer portrayal - it seemed a little out of touch, or something like that. Claiborne took a very passive and monastic approach to dealing with people and culture. As I said I think it works for some and in some situations but not for all.

I think that's all I'm going to write for now. I would definitely recommend that everyone read it and consider it. I think it leads to really good and creative discussion about what our lives should look like.

I haven't been very tenacious about reading recently, but I did recently purchase a collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor called " A Good Man is Hard to Find" and I've been slowly working my way through that. If you've never read anything by her, you owe it to yourself to. Especially the story that the collection is named after, it is amazing.

Power of Acquaintance

So remember those connectors I was talking about? Those people who do an amazing job of networking with tons of people. The trick is not that these people have some special gift to have 1,000 best friends that they know and love. Connectors remember names and characteristics about people. They really do care for and want to know these people, but they don’t know them like best friends. It is impossible to know so many people as best friends

The interesting point made in the book was that it is these “acquaintances” and not good friends that give you power. It is having a large network of acquaintances in good standing that will get you a job. He even presented research to prove his point. In surveys it was amazing to me to see how most people get their job, not through submitting a resume cold, but through a personal contact. Even on top of that the percentages showed in astounding fashion that those personal contacts usually did not come from good friends but from acquaintances. This makes some statistical sense. You have many many more acquaintances that would consider mentioning your name during an interview and hiring process and only a few “good friends”. However that doesn’t change the fact that having many acquaintances can be beneficial.

Malcolm says that the close you are to the connector, the more acquaintances you have, and so the more power you have to do things and make things happen.

Food for thought.