Review: Loving God Loving Others: The Jesus Creed for Students by Scot McKnight (and a couple of others), Paraclete Press 2011

In 2006, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school building in Pennsylvania and shot ten schoolchildren, killing five of them before turning the gun on himself. Any person in their right mind would immediately [feel] anger, vengeance, rage… but this community of Amish Christ-followers handled itself differently. Within hours after the shootings, the Amish community reached out to the family of the gunman, and the gunman ¢â‚¬â„¢s widow was invited to one of the children ¢â‚¬â„¢s funerals. In an open letter to the Amish community, the widow said this:  ¢â‚¬Å“Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need… Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world… ¢â‚¬  [1]

This little 100-page book aims to guide thoughtful, committed-to-Jesus high school students as they try to answer questions like:  ¢â‚¬ËœHow do people get to be loving/forgiving like that? ¢â‚¬â„¢

McKnight ¢â‚¬â„¢s basic suggestion: repeat the  ¢â‚¬ËœJesus Creed ¢â‚¬â„¢ and the Lord ¢â‚¬â„¢s Prayer regularly  ¢â‚¬“ at least twice a day. The Jesus Creed of course is  ¢â‚¬ËœLove the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love others as yourself ¢â‚¬â„¢.

 ƒ   ¢â‚¬ËœWhen you get up, say the Jesus Creed. When you go to bed say it again. When you leave your house, say it again. When you enter your house, say it one more time… ¢â‚¬â„¢ Try it initially for a whole month, and you ¢â‚¬â„¢ll find you ¢â‚¬â„¢re starting to live it.

People want to be happy, but something happened to Baby Boomers and their offspring: their search for happiness led them into lifestyles where their own needs were the #1 agenda, rather than a cause greater than themselves. Result? More unhappiness, more depression…

According to Jesus ¢â‚¬â„¢ Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew), true spiritual fulfilment belongs to the poor in spirit… the meek and humble, those who see others in need and respond in mercy, those whose inner hearts are pure, those who get between fighters and bring the balm of peace…etc.   In Luke ¢â‚¬â„¢s version they ¢â‚¬â„¢re the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the persecuted! Who does Jesus denounce?  ¢â‚¬ËœThe rich, the eat-everything-you-can-stuff-into-your-maw crowd, the laughing, and the popular. ¢â‚¬â„¢

 ¢â‚¬ËœSo being happy is not getting what you want… Instead it ¢â‚¬â„¢s being the person God wants you to be. It is better to be blessed than happy. Blessed carries us through bad days; happy is only on good days. Blessed is about loving God and loving others; happy is about loving myself (and whatever makes me happy). ¢â‚¬â„¢ The orientation of the Jesus Creed is towards loving God and others; the orientation of  ¢â‚¬Ëœhappiness ¢â‚¬â„¢ is towards oneself.

For modern kids happiness is about what others  ¢â‚¬“ especially family/friends – tell us is important about us. We are then tempted to manicure and adjust our images so that they will think better of us. Indeed, this  ¢â‚¬Ëœself-branding ¢â‚¬â„¢  ¢â‚¬“ a result of others approving of us  ¢â‚¬“ can be intoxicating:  ¢â‚¬Ëœso intoxicating that we learn to do even religious things and even spiritual practices in order to gain the approval of others or to sustain the approval of others ¢â‚¬â„¢. This was the Pharisees ¢â‚¬â„¢ problem: doing their religious exercises in public so that others will  ¢â‚¬Ëœbrand them well ¢â‚¬â„¢. Jesus ¢â‚¬â„¢ brand for these people: hypocrites.

Scot McKnight and his colleagues suggest high-schoolers serve in a charitable institution for a month  ¢â‚¬“ but  ¢â‚¬Ëœdon ¢â‚¬â„¢t tell anyone  ¢â‚¬“ except one person you want to be accountable to ¢â‚¬â„¢  ¢â‚¬“ and see what happens.

An important note about others is embedded in a famous quote McKnight paraphrases from C S Lewis:  ¢â‚¬ËœForgiveness is a great idea… until the person you are to forgive is someone you don ¢â‚¬â„¢t even like or someone who said something that really hurt ¢â‚¬â„¢. The quote about the Amish is in that context…
Good, practical, down-to-earth guidance about life from three people who work with kids. Buy some and discuss in your youth-group, or at the family dinner-table.

Rowland Croucher
February 2012
jmm.aaa.net.au

[1] Quoted in Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed for Students, 2011, 53