In case you haven’t already heard (and how could you have missed it?), our friend Rev. Jonathan Fisk has just published his first book with the intriguing title Broken – 7 “Christian” Rules that Every Christian Ought to Break as Often as Possible. When was the last time you saw a Christian book encouraging you to break rules?
Some of you may know Pr. Fisk from his ninja-inspired video podcast “Worldview Everlasting” (http://worldvieweverlasting.com). He is also a member of our Higher Things’ Board of Directors and a regular speaker at Higher Things’ conferences and retreats.
You really need to read his book. I’ll give you three good reasons why.
First, the book is weird. Just plain weird. This is not anything like your typical, dry as the desert dust Lutheran tome. No, this book is weird from the minute you open it. The typesetting would make Gutenberg spin in his grave. I counted at least a dozen fonts and typefaces, and I’m sure I missed a few dozen along the way. The art is weird too. It’s kind of Albrecht Durer meets Monty Python, and if you don’t know what that means, just “google it.” And the art isn’t neatly confined to tidy little boxes as in most books, but it kind of spills all over the page.
Even once you get past the typesetting and the post-modernist art, the text itself is strange, an odd juxtaposition of biblical theology and popular culture. Midichlorians? Really? Lutherans just don’t write this way. Pr. Fisk has more clever analogies and cultural allusions up his sleeve than most magicians have rabbits. The reading experience can be as herky-jerky as Fisk’s Worldview Everlasting videos, that kind of breathless stream of consciousness “now this, now that, now the next thing.” Does Pr. Fisk ever actually breathe?
Second, this is an important book. In, with, and under all the quirky weirdness is rock-solid theology. This book will make you think and think again. You will read something and say, “Hey, wait a minute!” and go back and read it again. In a way, this book is a theological Trojan Horse with a belly load of Lutheran theology. (If you don’t know what that means, just “google it.”)
“Broken” is not another Lutheran speaking to Lutherans book telling us how great we are because we are Lutheran. In fact, this book may cause you to wonder how Lutheran you really are and what’s been going on in our Lutheran churches. That’s a good thing. This book confronts our false gospels head on – mysticism, moralism, rationalism – and then proceeds to topple our cherished idols like Samson in the temple of Dagon. It exposes the underlying self-justifying old Adam who is running this phony circus of religion, and it reorients our thinking back to Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
This book will make you think, reflect, and perhaps even repent of your own faulty religious notions.
Third, “Broken” is written for, well, the broken. The brokenhearted, the spiritually hungry and thirsty, those who have been broken by bad religion, who are burned out on the latest self-help book or prosperity preacher. People who have been to the religious amusement park, bought the T-shirt, and gone off to the next thing. This is the kind of book to hand such a person and say, “Before you write off Christianity entirely, please read this.”
This is a gutsy book. Some people won’t like it. Others will love it. Personally, it makes my eyes cross just trying to read it, but as I do, I find my head nodding in agreement. There’s good stuff here.
Read it. And then give it to someone who is broken.
“Broken” is available from Concordia Publishing House. Click here to find out more.
The Rev. William Cwirla is the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Hacienda Heights, California and the President of the Board of Directors of Higher Things. He is also the co-host of the wildly popular podcast, “The God Whisperers.”
