Book Review: Jesus For President

Although I don't tend to review too many books I thought this one was worth it.
Jesus For President: Politics For Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Zondervan, 2008
I haven't read Claiborne's previous book (yet), the successful "the Irresistible Revolution," but I gather it is very good. The book can be divided into 2 halves, the first half is about Jesus, the political statements he makes and the political environment he is speaking into and t second half is about America today and how as Christians we can enact the politics of Jesus today. So far so good. The first half is very well researched and written, although the authors go to excessive pains to say "Jesus is political, honest," I don't know who said he wasn't in the first place but it wasn't me. There isn't that much else I have to say about it other than it is very good and gave me a new and deeper understanding of some of Jesus statements. For example I did not know that when Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God the word, basilea, that he used was the same word as was used to refer to the Roman empire.
In the second half Claiborne and Haw talk about how, as Christians, we need to shape our lives around God's values in areas such as resisting climate change, in order to make an impact on the world. The problem with this part of the book is that neither Claiborne or Haw have some kind of qualification in politics (I do) and it shows. When they are working on the material that is clearly their strength (the word of God and I wish I have that kind of understanding of it) they are strong but when they move off it they are unable to keep a politically neutral attitude as they discuss the big issues. By this i do not mean that they are biased towards a particular political party, they clearly dislike them both, but they have formed a collection of political thoughts that they argue without thought for counter arguments or a sense of balance. That means that there are occasions when they say that Christians should be living a certain way the implication is that if you are not you are sinning. One of the aims of the book is to convict the church which in my opinion needs convicting on these issues but the problem is that the Holy Spirit convicts out of love but when men convict it isn't always and that comes through. I was also displeased with a few times where they seemed to advocate practises against the teaching of Jesus, and once again their failure to balance their arguments meant that my questions were never answered. For example there is a part of the book where they talk about taxes and they mention when Jesus is asked whether the people should pay taxes to Caesar or not and Jesus says "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." They then follow this statement by suggesting that instead of paying all my taxes I could pay the proportion of my taxes that pay for education and social security etc. and give the proportion that would have been spent on the military to charity. This is not what Jesus meant in that scripture and in my opinion Claiborne and Haw's political opinions were taking priority over the word of Jesus at this point.
I am aware that I have been very negative in this review so far. I did so because it is very easy to be persuaded by the book and put it down having absorbed all of their political opinions where the reader should be questioning all their statements and coming to their own opinions on these issues. However it is good that there is a book that engages with the big issues and that makes people think about them. Politics tends to be somewhat of a taboo in the church as some people turn off when politics is mentioned and partly because there is an unspoken rule that people keep secret who they vote for, where their political allegiance is and consequently there is never any political debate in the church. I think that political dialogue needs to be stepped up in the church. I don't believe that Jesus wants the church to support a political party but I believe that he does want the church to start telling the government to stop thinking about ID cards and start thinking about all the people whose houses are being repossessed, who can't afford a Christmas this year.
In conclusion, the book is written by Americans, for Americans so there are many points, particularly about Iraq, that do not apply as much to the British reader. The same goes for the points where they talk about being "green" and say in Philadelphia we run our cars on vegetable oil. Living several thousand miles away from Philadelphia and having no means in Sheffield to run my car on vegetable oil I, and I expect most people who read the book, can't even if they want to. While the book is far from perfect the theology of the book is very strong and certainly worth a read, 7/10.