The Party Crasher: How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual and Redeems Our Partisan Divide
Joshua Ryan Butler
Multnomah, 224 pages
Published March 5, 2024
A longtime pastor of my church used to say we leave our bumper stickers in the parking lot when we enter worship. In The Party Crasher, Pastor Joshua Butler observes that the divisions in his church community could be attributed to the different ways groups of people relate to each other, engage with the world, and vote. We all have our “leanings” (left or right), yet we worship only Christ. The Party Crasher suggests practices and strategies to help us “get along” by centering Christ ahead of candidates and parties while recognizing that those we disagree with are still made in the image of God. Butler offers talking points and tactics to lead to more civil discussion and disagreements without the demonizing that characterizes much of political discourse, and his work is a great read as we endure the final slog of a presidential election — and all those ads!
Reviewed by Harry Ogden, a retired lawyer and lifelong Presbyterian from Knoxville, Tennessee.
Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism
Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood
Chalice Press, 264 pages
Published July 9, 2024we
Mainline churches know that (White) Christian Nationalism is a heresy, right? So why does it appear so similar to the seemingly benign “civil religion” that American Christians have created? When Christian chaplains pray in Congress, national hymns are sung, and we insist on inserting “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, we reinforce the assumption that America is a Christian nation. Kaylor and Underwood connect the dots between these practices and Christian nationalist activities, particularly the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The book is easily organized for a small group study and would be an excellent choice for churches looking ahead to the program year.
Reviewed by Amy Pagliarella, Outlook book review editor.
Jesus Is Not King
James W. Miller
157 pages
Published May 1, 2024
I’ve served my entire ordained life in the small state of South Carolina, and I often say that we are all related by blood or legend — there are few degrees of separation between any of us. Fred Miller was a thoughtful and engaged member of the church I served until he moved to California to be near his son, Jim Miller, a self-proclaimed conservative evangelical Christian. So when I received a package from proud daddy, Fred Miller, I eagerly opened it. And, because of the provocative title of the book it contained, Jesus Is Not King, I read it. I found that Jim Miller’s book — written from inside the conservative evangelical Christian church — contains a word of prophetic warning that is timely and essential for us all.
Miller traces the path of Christian nationalism, suggesting that the American conservative Christian movement in America that got in the boat back in Ronald Regan’s presidency now finds itself on a boat bearing little or no resemblance to the one they initially boarded. He argues that instead of evangelical Christians influencing politics, the reverse has happened: “the bulk of the Political Right does not worship Jesus so much as it simply worships America. Nationalism is not only an ideology; it is a theology.”
Miller reminds us of the church’s humble beginnings; those gathered in 325 at the Council of Nicea to clarify the movement’s core beliefs were not an empire, but rather, in the words of Bishop Theodoret of Cyrus, “an assembled army of martyrs.” Miller contrasts the stark difference between the kingdoms of the world and the Kingdom of God, concluding that “Church will only become the center of American Society when it stops trying to conquer American society.” With unflinching honesty, Miller lays out the lack of moral compass exhibited by Donald Trump and calls for the church to renew its vision of the Kingdom of God.
While I suspect that Jim Miller and I would disagree on some matters of faith, I am grateful for the new language he provides for me to speak with family and friends on the religious right. I read Jesus is Not King because I know and respect Jim’s father. Jim’s book reminds me again that what an independent, conservative evangelical pastor in LA says to his church, can also be the Word of God to me in a purple, PC(USA) Church in South Carolina. Like it or not, we are all related, and this book speaks to all branches of the family.
Purchase Jesus Is Not King by James W. Miller.
Reviewed by Rev. Ellen Fowler Skidmore, pastor of Forest Lake Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina.
Want to join our monthly newsletter for book lovers? Sign up here.
