Fulcrum Book Review of

Doug Pagitt’s

A Christianity Worth Believing

Jossey-Bass, 2008      ISBN 978-0-7879-9812-7

by James Mercer

Doug Pagitt is the pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, a fellowship self-styled as ‘an holistic, missional Christian community’. Pagitt is one of the founders of Emergent Village, a social network of Christian leaders around the world (www.emergentvillage.com).

Pagitt is an exponent of ‘emergent’ Christianity. ‘A Christianity Worth Believing’ invites readers to journey with the author (itself an emergent motif) as he narrates the story of his un-churched childhood, a life-altering, out-of-nowhere conversion at the age of sixteen, intense involvement with the church and a growing unease with the received version of Christianity that he was living.

Pagitt’s conversion happened during a passion play where he found himself embraced by a story he had always, intuitively, wanted to live within. A story of justice, of reconciliation, of rescue, of sacrifice, of courage, of hope. For Pagitt, dissonance between his formative experience of joy and love and optimism and the formulaic explanations of the salvation process he was subsequently offered, set in early. Post passion play he was counselled and invited to pray a prayer that was meant to turn him into a Christian. At sixteen he could not readily relate the bullet-pointed steps-to-salvation tract with which he was issued, which seemed to make the Gospel far more complex and mechanistic, to the liberating story he had just experienced and owned.

Pagitt identifies himself as a genetically predisposed ‘contrarian’– a character trait that has continually prompted him to approach issues of faith and life from a divergent point of view. He challenges the un-nuanced ‘legal/penal’ presentation of the Gospel, which he himself espoused for many years as a preacher and church leader. He argues that humanity is created in God’s image to be partners with God, not enemies of God. Aligning himself with Dallas Willard, Pagitt is uneasy with any presentation of the Gospel that offers a too tidy ‘sin management’ solution. Whilst sin damages the partnership, disabling, discouraging, ruining, distorting, Pagitt argues that it never completely destroys the bond that exists between God and humanity.

Pagitt contrasts what he identifies as both complementary and competing Greek and Jewish emphases within the Christian story as it has emerged and been shaped post first century. He maintains that it is essentially the Greek worldview into which the western church has bought. It is this worldview that presents Jesus as a bridge between humanity and God, offering satisfaction through blood sacrifice paid as redemption to appease a wrathful deity. The Hebrew worldview, whilst embracing images of sacrifice, atonement and satisfaction, presents a more integrated understanding of salvation, with Christ as the fulfilment of the covenant promises to the people of Israel, bringing healing, justice and wholeness to all creation. Jesus is at the centre of everything. Rediscovering Jesus’ Jewishness is at the heart of Pagitt’s thesis. To know Jesus is to know him as the Jewish Messiah calling us to join with the ancient story of God’s calling to Abraham to be a blessing to the whole world.

Pagitt argues that at the heart of Jesus’ kingdom announcement is the understanding that God is at work in the world and that humanity is called to enter into that work. This is the task of the church. The Gospel calls us to ‘partner with God’, (Pagitt is a very American author!), to follow ‘in the way’ as full participants in the new life God is creating in and through Christ.

‘A Christianity Worth Believing’ is an articulate personal and engaging expression of ‘emergent’ theology. In typically emergent phraseology and with deliberately sharp irony, the book is subtitled ‘Hope-filled, open-armed, alive-and-well faith for the left out, the left behind and let down in us all’.

The Revd James Mercer is vicar of All Saints' Harrow Weald, Diocese sof London and treasurer of Fulcrum

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