Leonard I. SweetRecensioni

Immersed in a society that worships success, we have succumbed to a trendy fixation with leadership. The author reveals that the summons of Jesus and the message of the New Testament point clearly to an emphasis not on leading but on following.

There are two disclaimers that I have to put at the beginning of this review.

The first is an official one. I received this book free for review from Blogging for Books by WaterBrook Multnomah. This does not mean that the review has to be favorable, so the review is my honest opinion, but I do have to notify that it was a review copy. Consider yourself notified.

The second is unofficial. I am a huge fan of Leonard Sweet's books. I have read almost every single one of his books, so the fact that this one came up for review was awesome! The fact that two came out in one month is even better (the second Sweet book is I Am a Follower which I am also reading for fun). So, I am a little biased when it comes to Sweet's stuff.

With both of those disclaimers typed, onto the review. In Viral, Sweet introduces two concepts namely the Gutenberger culture and the Googlers culture. The Gutenberger culture is defined by Sweet as those who were raised with type and paper while the Googlers are defined by Sweet as those who were raised in the computer age. I am going to stop there before going on since this was one of the sticking points that kept nagging at me as I was reading this book. Dividing people into two groups is going to be problematic since people tend not to fit neatly into categories. I understood what Sweet was doing and even he acknowledges the difficulty of dividing at the very end of the book, but there are whole groups of Gutenbergers who are very comfortable in the Googler world. As I wrote, that was just a sticking point, but throughout the book his point isn't to divide the groups to define them, but rather to talk about how each group views God, Jesus, the church, etc. His point is that both groups come to know Jesus in very different ways and the church will need to embrace both ways eventually moving to the Googler world, but tends to reside in the Gutenberger world.

Since the Googler world is the main focus of the book, Sweet goes deeper into the world by calling them TGIF Christians. The TGIF Christian is the second concept and takes up the end of the book. TGIF stands for-Twitter, Google, iPhone, and Facebook. Googlers are comfortable in these social worlds. He uses each social network to not only show how the church should address the Googlers, but also how they see God. He uses each Social network to name to define certain views. For example, he uses Twitter to talk about Following and following Christ, iPhones for connectedness, etc. He not only shows the pluses of these, but also some of the difficulties that the Googlers will have with each of these especially around the idea of false communities.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. As I wrote, I had a stumbling block with the division in the beginning and I could not get "Thank God It's Friday" out of my head while reading the acronym in the beginning of the book. I will also say that on some points I felt that Sweet was trying to wedge Jesus into a great concept and Jesus could have been left out of that concept and it would still have been valid. Other times I think he pulled back too quickly when he could have connected the concept to Jesus easily. For example, during the Facebook discussion, he talks about the desire of Googlers to be face to face with people. I felt that he could have talked about the connectedness that Jesus had to people, but the concept never made it. I would say the book is worth reading though and it has some absolutely wonderful concepts.

It is fantastic, but gave it only three because it is a "best of" and half of it is a preview for his new book Viral. It is a good, basic intro to Sweet's works.

Incredible.

Five stars to Matthewes-Green: cogent, clear, and a good response to culture, even now (and least dated of the essays).
Andy Crouch's essay is good, and the ideas he presented have stuck with me much more than expected. The inter-text comments are annoying, and most especially against his essay: Crouch is correctly responding to culture as actually consumerist rather than properly postmodern.

The others can be skipped.

Leonard Sweet writes like the silverback alpha male in a band of disciples who are squatting around a fire and just discovered semiotics. I love this writing style--filled with depth and sly puns, often venerating the unusual, requesting a sidebar, and wincing with us. The main content is in elaborations of four perspectives on Jesus as a Cosmic Christ: Logos (Fire of Energy) "The Word", Pathos (Land of Matter) "...made flesh", Ethos (Wind of Space) "...and dwelt among us", and Theos (Sea of Time) "..we beheld God's Glory".
See what he did there? From the Gospel of John, "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, we beheld God's glory".

LOGOS. Heraclitus (500 BC) was first we know of to use Logos as a term for the underlying coherence of the cosmos. He said "Everything becomes fire, and from fire everything is born." Here, Sweet introduces Process theology. "Stuff" is an activity, not just an aggregation. [61]

In PATHOS, the author finds weltering humanity mixed with a godhead. "Everything matters". We are created by our surround and we are the landscape. Citing the "major voice of 20th century Christianity" and process theologian, Teilhard de Chardin: "God makes things make themselves". Sweet empowers the human-scale small church of four hundred interconnected interactive members -- the "optimal" number. [144]

ETHOS is an elaboration of the church as a "spatial force", in which space and energymatter have coevolved. Exploring "geomancy" as the act of finding the right time and place for the right human activity. [167-168].

In THEOS, Sweet finds the Einstein/Minkowski secret that E=mc2 is really about Time. And can the infinity of the Present, fusing time and space where motion enables neither, be anything other than the place of basileia, the glory of God? [219]

This work is filled with explanations of the work done by the most significant theologians while at the same time diving into the post-modern perplexities and sciences. One of the Sweet additions to scholarship is that when he introduces another author, he uses identifying labels, often surprising, always helpful. For example, in quoting Honore de Balzac ("I feel in myself a life so luminous that it might enlighten a world, and yet I am shut up in a sort of mineral."), described as "Nineteenth-century French novelist/printer/typefounder". He cites Newton's story of playing on the seashore, and identifies him as "Mathematician/philosopher/botanist/ biblical commentator."

This robust work will be gratifying to those who have come to realize that we have spent too much time and energy on senseless "theology". Sweet adapts and adopts "new light" language and reveals a genuine skill and contagious interest with semiotics. It is ironic that the Evangelicals only recently got around to accusing Sweet of "false teaching". After the Evangelical Right has devoted itself to supporting a gambling hall swindler, they wildly attack the leaders of the Emergent church. How sad.½

Leonard Sweet is a United Methodist clergyman based at Drew Theological School, in Madison, New Jersey. He is also a preacher and scholar, and an author of several books. His latest contribution, The Bad Habits of Jesus is about how Jesus challenged the ideas, beliefs and customs of the day through his behaviour, and how these behaviours, if adopted by today’s churches, would transform what we know and understand as Christian behaviour. This book is as much a call to the church to really look at its own behaviour in comparison with that of Jesus as it is to Christians as a whole to do the same. The author considers a number of aspects of Jesus’ life which could be described as bad habits, and looks at them with a revealing set of eyes. According to Revd Sweet, Jesus not only was offensive, but also disappeared when he was needed most, refused to answer questions, and told stories which didn’t make sense, among many other annoying habits.

I was first drawn to this book because of its title “The Bad Habits of Jesus”. I was very curious as to what these bad habits were, but did not really know where this statement would lead. It’s always a risk to read an author you’ve never encountered before but I wasn’t disappointed with Leonard Sweet. His writing style was very easy to read and follow, and I found it very difficult to put the book down.

Each chapter challenges the readers’ understanding of scripture, and then makes suggestions as to how the church could incorporate and/or change its way of doing things to come into line with how Jesus behaved, and therefore be able to minister more effectively to people’s needs. When I was reading this book I was enjoying it so much that didn’t want to find anything wrong with it. It was an inspiring and beautiful piece of work. Having said that, however, I did find that, in the complimentary pre-publication copy provided for me by Tyndale House, Revd Sweet seemed to labour a point a bit too much near the end, and this irritated me just a little. In spite of this I would gladly re-read this book without hesitation.

Overall, this was a brilliant book and is a great resource. I have recommended this book to my husband, who is studying declining attendances in the Anglican Church. Due to my experience of this book I gave it 5 stars, not a rating I give easily. Well done, Revd Sweet. I look forward to reading more of your work in the futu

FaithQuakes is an important wake-up call for the Christian churches in the western world. Sweet brings theological and cultural insight to his message. Looks at how to rekindle Christian imagination through sensuality, virtual reality and energized prayer, music, or spiritual experience.

There are some great recent books on habit formation, both in the secular market (i.e. Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit, David Brooks's The Road to Character) and in the Christian market (see James K.A. Smith's You Are What You Love and other books of his). Leonard Sweet's approach to habits is another thing entirely. The Bad Habits of Jesus is an examination of how Jesus own habits defied cultural expectations. Ms. Manners would take the rebellious rabbi to task; However Sweet sees Jesus as a revolutionary willing to buck convention to reveal the truth about God, ourselves and the world.

Sweet is a prolific author, professor, and preacher, and podcaster. Since the 90s he has written relevant-y type books about soical media, technology, culture, postmodernity, and spirituality. The habits he explores here reveals a Jesus who:

• spits


• procrastinates


• appears wasteful


• is constantly disappearing from both crowds and his group of friends


• offends people in high places


• loves to party


• is dangerous


• spends too much time with bad people


• talks too much and is silent when he shouldn't be


• broke the (cultural and religious) rules


• enjoyed the company of women (not just men)


• focused on the little stuff


• thought he was God

Sweet's exploration of these habits show how rude Jesus defied convention and suggests ways can learn from Him. The overall effect is kinda fun, but not all that deep. As I read through the chapters I imagined ways this book could form the basis of a mega-church sermon series (similar to Craig Groschel's Weird: Because Normal isn't Working). The bad-habits motif is a tongue-in-cheek look at the picture the gospels paint of Jesus. Sweet's hopes are that we will see something worth imitating in Jesus' habits, even, or especially, his bad ones (xvi). Of course some of the habits Sweet looks at aren't all that bad, just unexpected.

Sweet wants us to see Jesus' revolutionary edge instead of our soft, tame Jesus, whitewashed, flattened out and trapped by stained glass. Jesus didn't live and die to make us good American citizens but to reflect His coming Kingdom. Sweet does succeed somewhat in showing us ways in which Jesus defies systems, culture and our expectations. However, the political aspect of Jesus (i.e. his challenge to Empire, how his claim of Lordship mutes Caesar) is fairly muted in Sweet's prose. Sweet discusses how Jesus offends people in high places, (i.e. critique of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, calling Herod a fox), but he frames this for us as an example of how we ought to buck political correctness and likewise be willing to offend people instead of placating interest groups (63). True as far as it goes, but Jesus' critique of political systems was more profound and has much more to teach us about how to navigate the world.

I give this book three stars. The book doesn't quite deliver on showing us the revolution implicit in Jesus' habits and actions. But I still enjoyed it. Sweet's Jesus has some bad habits worth copying and that may be the gateway drug to revolution.

Note: I received this book from the Tyndale Blog Network in exchange for my honest review.

This is not a new book. It is a new title for a book that is eight years old. Waterbrook Multnomah has latched onto a marketing strategy for giving older books a new lease on life by re-releasing them with a brand new title. Titles are often the privilege of the publisher anyway, so certainly re-titling is their prerogative. Of the five re-titled books I have read from Waterbrook Press I have read, at least three of them benefited from the re-christening. So does this one. Previously released as Out of the Question. . .Into the Mystery in 2004, the old title doesn’t seem to get at the heart of all this book is about (though does allude to an important aspect); What Matters Most” How We Got the Point but Missed the Person does a good job of summing up the major message of this book.

In What Matter Most, Len Sweet makes the claim that the truth of the gospel is not primarily propositional. Nor is Christian truth fundamentally addressed at moral behavior. What stands at the center of the gospel is the relationship we have with God through Jesus Christ. Certainly this is a claim common to evangelicals (with our ‘personal relationship’ language) but we have been prone to mess it up. Sweet puts our relationship with God, one another, people outside the faith, and creation in perspective as he challenges our tendency to run from relationships and want ‘faith’ on our own overly intellectualized and individualized terms.

Sweet organizes the book into eight parts. In part one, he talks about how our faith is relationship (versus intellectual assent). In part 2 he addresses our relationship with God by exploring the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Issac and what ‘God’s test’ in that context meant. He argues that when Abraham lays Isaac on the altar he passed the obedience test, but he failed the relational test (failing to ‘wrestle with God’ as Jacob later would). For this section, Sweet leans on Jewish Midrash for his exegesis and gives a fresh and interesting read to this troublesome passage. In part 3 he looks closer at God’s story recorded in scripture and how we ought to read scripture relationally. In parts 4-6, Sweet talks about our relationship with one another, those outside the faith and creation and he addresses how human sinfulness has caused us to mess up our relationship with each. In part 7 he discusses art and symbols in our relationship with God (and the church). And in his last section Sweet discusses our relationship with the ‘spiritual world’ entails our willingness to be open to mystery (remember the original title?).

This is my favorite Sweet book I’ve read. There is so much here that provokes a whole life response. I am certainly on board with the centrality o Jesus and found that this book made me hunger for a deeper relationship with Him. As always Sweet has questions for ‘further contemplation’ and discussion (as well as ‘bonus online content’ which I have not looked at). In other books, I feel like Sweet tries too hard to be culturally relevant, but I didn’t feel that with this book. This is Sweet at this best: engaging, historically astute, challenging and winsome in his presentation of Christian truth and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thank you to Waterbrook Multnomah for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for this review.

A couple of years ago a co-worker of mine came back from a conference and quoted Len Sweet as saying, "The question is not whether or not Jesus would tweet, the question is how he would tweet." I was curious but remained unconvinced. Technology comes with a whole set of issues and where I have connected most with Christ has been when I have unplugged (rather than from some 140-characters-long-message). Then a year ago, a friend and professor of mine, John G. Stackhouse, Jr. came back from an `Advance' with Len Sweet in the Orcas Islands and decided to jump into the twitterverse . I was already on Twitter, but only making occasional use of it and didn't see the point. So when Len Sweet published a book detailing how social networking is poised to ignite revival, I thought I should read it, so I could maybe understand (and jump on that bandwagon).

Ideologically I generally feel a little out of step with Sweet. He is always waxing eloquent about where we are in culture and how we should speak relevantly in our context. I want to ask how our context can prevent us from experiencing the truth of the gospel and numb us to the Spirit's movement. I feel this most acutely in relationship to technology. I have a blog, I'm on Facebook and Twitter and happy to amass friends and followers at each venue (and yes, I blog as a Christian), but I also wonder how technology is numbing my ability to know God intimately, to be in silence and solitude, and to make meaningful connections where I live.

When I read Viral, I heard Sweet's strong exhortations to get with the time, to embrace the social medium and use my platform to share Christ. These pages don't have the prophetic edge of a Jacques Ellul or Albert Borgmann questioning what meaningful thing is lost when we embrace new technologies (although Sweet quotes Marshall McLuhan several times). You also won't find Neil Postman's incisive analysis of how Western culture developed technology, but technology is now making us. But Sweet is not wholly ignorant of the dangers inherent in this tangled web we weave. He just chooses to accentuate the positive.

Sweet compares the two cultures that co-exist in our time. The Gutenbergers, love the printed word, sustained thought, but are also individualistic, narcissistic and prone to argument. The Googlers are digitally connected, think its more important to be in relationship than to be right and prize images and symbols and metaphors (though they still like text). As I expected, Sweet thinks that the Googlers are where our culture has moved to and so if we are serious about engaging the world with a Christian message, than we ought to move into the digital age engaging in the entire spectrum of the `TGIF' culture (Twitter, Google, iphone, Facebook).

Yet Sweet does not give his wholesale stamp on every phenomenon in the Google world. What he is really interesting is describing our context, where we live and how we relate to each other in our day and age, and how we remain faithful to Christ in the midst of that culture. So while much of this book is a glowing endorsement of twitter and iphone, Sweet augments that with suggestions of how to tweet in a transformative way and how to tell beautiful, poetic stories of God's goodness in an era where people spend half the day looking at cat memes. A lot of what he says tells people how to navigate the Google world better, some of it cries out for some of the Guttenbergers' literary skill, left brain thinking and analysis. So while Sweet comes down on the side of the Googlers, he affirms that both groups need each other.

This a worthwhile read and despite my skepticism and suspicions, I found some real insights here on how to use my online platform for the kingdom of God. This book is way over simplified in its analysis (Sweet admits as much) but it does a good job of naming and illustrating some of the major trends in culture that has happened over the past forty years. As always, Sweet provides you with a plethora of acronyms and witty terms which you will either enjoy or roll your eyes at. But despite his trendy, poppy prose, this book has good stuff to say and I would recommend it to those who are trying to be ambassadors for Christ in a digital world. As always, Sweet's interactive discussion questions, poke and prode and invite you into deeper learning (rather than just rehearse the chapter for you). Read it. According to Sweet, if you are Googler you will read it on your reader or ipad, if you are Guttenberger, you will read the print version. I read both, which I suppose means I'm every woman (or boy).

Thank you to Waterbrook Multnomah for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for this review.

It has been 10 years since I read a Leonard Sweet book. This is my first Frank Viola book. The first couple of Len Sweet books I read I really liked and then I started to get annoyed at how trendy they were and how eager he was to ride the post modern wave (remember that?).

This was refreshing in that it was a book which was dedicating to not getting stuck in trends, false-steps and wrong priorities. This book was about refocusing on Jesus as the author and finisher, beginning and end. Len and Frank do their best to get you to sense how big Jesus is, how everything was leading up to him, and he is the one that will bring things to completion. They try and get you to be 'Christ-centered' and let His life live in you and through you. This is good.

What is not as good is they fail to adequately explore the political dimensions of Jesus' message (they mention it and say it is important, but if this is a manifesto something is missing). Also how they categorize different approaches doesn't always seem fair (i.e. devalue 'justice' as too judicial and promote mercy, but say little about how the church is to work against systemic injustice; says that 'theological ethics' is a wrongheaded approach to scripture when they should be articulating an ethic of correspondence to the person and work of Jesus Christ).

Furthermore this book is attempting to give the expanse of Jesus' role in our lives and the cosmos. Great, but seems to do this by rattling off verses and quotes rather than delve deeply into any part of Christ's work. Some wonderful and worshipful phrases here, but in their rush to say a lot, Len and Frank do not unpack much. Instead there is a series of pithy vignettes.

In general, I have mixed feelings about Len Sweet’s books. A decade or so ago I would have told you to read his books. His books were then in high circulation for those who were ‘emerging’ from the swamp of 20th century mega-church Protestantism. Len Sweet was thoughtfully engaged with some of the trends that were happening in the church, especially in regard to the then buzzword, post-modernity. I loved Soul Tsunami and yes, there is a special place in my heart for Soul Salsa.

And then I completely lost interest in his books. He basically put out a decade of books on Christian Spirituality with suspect titles which didn’t appeal to me (like The Gospel According to Starbucks). Occasionally I would hear from friends tell me something Len Sweet said at a conference which just sounded Bizarre to me. Like when he says Jesus would tweet (Really? We know this?).

Last year I picked up Jesus Manifesto, the book he co-wrote with Frank Voila and thought that the two of them had some great things to say, so I am back to reading Len Sweet with appreciation. I think Len Sweet at his best calls us to creative fidelity to the gospel. He offers a rich engagement with the Christian tradition and the gospel and explores how the kingdom can seep more into our present context. When I don’t like his writing, I find it too slick, too much acronyms and alliteration and it seems like he is trying too hard to be relevant.



This book is Len Sweet at his best. He creatively and courageously takes on the Christian preoccupation with leadership (a preoccupation which he has contributed to, I might add) and rightly points out that the Christian life is more about followership than leadership. This is a sorely needed and overdue critique on the church in USAmerica and Sweet makes some great points. He challenges that the best-selling ‘Christian’ books are about leadership. He indicts the leadership culture for its glitz and chutzpah and glorification of people’s’ strengths when Jesus’s power is made perfect in our weakness. He gives practical advice on how to enter into the way of Jesus.

After introducing the theme of followership, Len Sweet organizes his meditations into three sections which explore what it means to follow Jesus: The Way, The Truth, The Life. The chapters are short and pithy, probably about 50 chapters if you total up the chapters in each section (they are not numbered). As you may expect, Sweet offers some interactive reflections at the end of each section in order for his readership to internalize his message more.

I found myself really liking this book and think it offers a good critique on how we Christians can sometimes want to lead, but are less thoughtful about how to follow Jesus. The brevity of each chapter makes this book ideal for devotional use. It may be an especially good devotional book for your bathroom.

The image that Sweet opens his book with, is this viral video from 2009, of a lone dancing man, another man who decides to dance with him and the impromptu big-crowd dance party which ensues. Sweet suggests that Jesus is the lone crazy dancer, but the one who incites the crowd to join in the dance, was the ‘first-follower,’ not the leader but one who followed. He suggests that if we want to see a new movement of God, we do not need the silver-bullet of leadership, as much as passionate followers.

Good point.

Thank you to booksneeze for a copy of this book in exchange for this review. I was not asked to write a positive review, just an honest one. This review is a little of both and you can decide which.

Very interesting. I was, at first, a bit irritated by the constant references to Starbucks, a coffee shop which I find over-rated, and vastly over-priced. It seems to me to bear little relationship to the Gospel message. However, the author argues persuasively that the aims of Starbucks, and its purpose, do reflect some of what the Christian life should be, although sadly the 'modernist' church of today has veered far from the friendly, active, participatory community of the first century. But the writing is good, there are some thought-provoking questions and comments, and the later chapters are well worth reading. Useful notes in the back, too. Recommended.

What a helpful book. Anticipate that will refer back to this book time and time again. Occasionally the premise was stretched but good stuff...½

here's today's exercise from Len Sweet's study guide to 'So Beautiful'. this one will encourage written reflection ~ perhaps grab your journal and a good hot drink ~ unless you're baking in some tropical heat! then grab whatever suits your fancy :) Steve Bell's song clip 'Here By the Water' offers a great suggestion for the spiritual markers we've collected. EnJoy this day and the start of this new week. Peace be with you ...
Questions:

1. Have you ever thought of your life-story as a pilgrimage?

Are there spiritual markers you have collected?

Luke 9:28-36 is an example.

Jesus: A Theography is based on a bold assumption:

"The sixty-six books of the Bible are woven together by a single storyline. … It’s the story of Jesus Christ. … Every bit of Scripture is part of the same great story of that one person and that one story’s plotline of creation, revelation, redemption, and consummation" (ix-x).

This is a presupposition I happen to share (along with Karl Barth and many other Christian theologians). This idea serves as the foundation for the greatest strengths and weaknesses of this book.

My frustration with the book struck early and flows directly out of Sweet & Viola’s hermeneutic. They attempt to uncover details about Jesus by mining all 66 books, confident that “the Holy Spirit often had an intention in Scripture that went beyond its author’s present knowledge” (xvi). They boldly follow the style of interpretation that the New Testament writers did when reinterpreting the Old Testament in light of Christ. This leads to some assertions that, at best, are a stretch.

One example of this is the schema Sweet and Viola create to relate the days of creation to Jesus. In their understanding, the third day of creation (dry ground and vegetation) points toward Jesus’ resurrection because of mere numerical synergy and the mention of “life”. While I appreciate the desire to relate the Old Testament to Christ, these sort of stretches feel more like Dan Brown code than legitimate foreshadowing.

Now that my frustration’s out of the way, I do have to praise Sweet and Viola for the sheer number of poignant connections and insight they display. Here are just a few to whet your appetite:

- “Eternal life is the life of God’s new age that has broken into the present one. It is Christ Himself in the Spirit” (157).
- “You can’t worship a book when the Founder didn’t give us a book, only Himself and stories from others about Him” (178).
- ”The ultimate issue in the universe is over who will be worshipped” (284).
- “What Torah is to Judaism, and the Qur’an is to Islam, Jesus is to Christianity.” (300)
- “In the first-century Roman world, however, the word gospel was used to describe the announcement that a new emperor had taken the throne” (306).

These insights are the result of many theologians whose ideas have been assimilated into the book. The footnotes take 83 pages, and that’s after 21 pages spent reviewing the lives of various “Post-Apostolic Witness,” from Augustine to Tim Keller.

This book will spark your sense of wonder at the glorious interconnectedness of scripture but some of the interpretive leaps may drive the theologian in your life crazy in the process.

Excellent insight into the digital culture that permeates our society today. Sweet refers to this culture as the TGIF Culture (Twitter, Google, iPhone, Facebook). And, the generation of people who have grown up in and live in this culture are called Googlers. Any of us who have grown up or lived in the generations prior to these Googlers are referred to as Gutenbergers. Why? Because we are accustomed to the printed word and the mindset that accompanies it (i.e. power of words, dogma, exactness, institutions, etc). Sweet does a terrific job in contrasting these two generations and explains what the Googlers are and what they are not. No matter how you may view these Googlers, they are indeed relationship and community minded. They may go about this in a matter that we Gutenbergers are not accustomed to (i.e. through texting, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Nevertheless they are relational. Relationships through Facebook, Twitter, texting, etc. is how they do it. And, we as a church must face this reality, learn to become a part of it, or essentially become irrelevant. I highly recommend this work to those who are comfortable swimming in the Gutenberg pool and are dumbstruck about this new digital culture. And, I highly recommend this book to Christians who want to better understand this culture in order to be relevant in an increasingly post-modern, post-Christian era.

Though the cover somehow may lead you to expect Leonard Sweet to dive into the latest technologies to create a new expression of christian faith outreach, Real Church in a Social Network Word is different. It’s an e-book exclusive compilation of provoking thoughts published in different forms in earlier books Out of the Question … Into the Mystery (2004), retitled What Matters Most in 2012, The Three Hardest Words (2006), and The Gospel According to Starbucks (2007). The last part is a introduction to and first chapter of Viral: How Social Networking Is Poised to Ignite Revival (2012), which indeed deals with the Gutenbergers (people born in the 20th century) and the Googlers (born in the 21st century aka digital natives). What’s connecting and dividing them?
Relationships is the main theme in this book. Both the relationship between God and you, as well as the real-life connections between people. Sweet testifies of a living faith, and rejects any claims to a belief system (ever heard of a life of belief?). Sweet is to the point, and at almost every page he leaves you pondering on a thought or phrase.
If you already have read the earlier books, you may skip this one and purchase Viral.

A collection of material by the author regarding faith, relationships, and inter-connectivity.

The author seeks to challenge the paradigm of considering Christianity in terms of philosophical propositions, pointing rather toward Christianity in terms of relationship and development of the character of Jesus individually and collectively. The author makes a good case for understanding the emphasis in Christianity in terms of relational unity with God and one another according to the truth embodied by Jesus rather than merely focusing on propositions and their relationship with the truth.

The major challenge of the book is not really the book itself but its very existence; if I have read right, this is not a coherent book presented by the author but instead a collection of various parts of other books which the author has written. It seems that the book is a promotional vehicle for the author's most recent book, "Viral," the introduction and first chapter of which make up the conclusion of this volume.

There are good thoughts here, but it is probably better to search out the full books from which these selections derive.

**--book received as part of an early review program

A discussion of current Internet trends and their possible impact on Christianity, the church, and evangelism in the future.

The author seeks to understand the impact of current Internet trends through the prism of the contrast between those whom he calls "Gutenbergers," those who feel at home in the culture sustained by books, modernism, and all that is able to be quantified and analyzed, and the "Googlers," those who feel at home in the culture sustained by social media, postmodernism, and all that is relational. The author considers himself as an ex-"Gutenberger" who has come to appreciate the benefits of "Googler" culture.

The book primarily discusses "TGIF culture," or the impact of Twitter, Google, the iPhone, and Facebook on life, faith, culture, and church. The author thinks quite highly of the value of "TGIF culture" and its emphasis on the relational aspects of things. He wishes they had more appreciation for poetry (a rather long aside in the book), and thinks there is great potential in the holistic, relational, interconnected world of the "Googlers."

The more positive assessment of modern Internet culture is good to see: too many times such books assume the inherent "rightness" and benefits of "Gutenberger" culture, over-emphasize the downsides of Internet culture while seemingly unaware (or unconcerned) about the downsides of their own culture, and prove to be reactionary.

On the whole, though, I struggle with the contrast being made between "Gutenbergers" and "Googlers," mostly because the categories are defined by media and the means of consuming media. Most of the time I can see the generational/cultural contrasts made by authors in books like these, but this one was more difficult, and it's probably because one cannot categorize merely on the basis of prevalent media. Shifts from modernist to postmodernist thinking, the toppling of the Enlightenment paradigm, among other things, shape and inform the contrast between "Gutenbergers" and "Googlers" as much, if not more so, than using books vs. using the Internet. The contrast is useful inasmuch as it helps to inform why there are such differences between the "Gen-X/Buster" and "Gen-Y/Millennial" generations and the "Greatest/Builder" and "Boomer" generations. So yes, the attitude toward the Internet and the re-shaping of thinking, learning, researching, and connecting because of the Internet does have some explanatory power, but ought to be subject to these greater trends and themes for them to be fully appreciated.

I'm concerned that the author might be a bit too rosy regarding the "Googler" culture, but time will tell. If nothing else, the book might encourage "Gutenbergers" and "Googlers" to be better able to appreciate which each brings to the table and to supply what the other lacks. That is far better than for each group to despise each other and to attack each other, and is more consistent with 1 Corinthians 12:12-29.

An interesting analysis, and one that is useful to stimulate thinking.

**--book received as part of early review program.½

NCLA Review: There is a lot being written on social networking and the church. Some is critical and raises concerns about the effects of new media on society and ecclesial life. Others serve as handbooks to the digital church, offering insights on how to make the shift to the digital age. Sweet’s book conforms to neither of these types, and for this reason among others, it is a necessary addition to your church library. Sweet, known widely in the church for his insights into shifting culture and its implications for theology and Christian life together, has written an amazing book that looks at social networking from a generous and welcoming perspective. Examples: a subtitle for chapter five, “How Twitter Produces a Better Follower of Christ.” And this quote, early in the book, that gives a sense of how open to, and passionate about, the social networking era Sweet has become: “How many cultures in history have devoted so much effort, invention, time, and passion to building networks that offered no payoff beyond engaging with other people?” The book includes an initial comparison of two cultures, the Gutenberg and the Google culture. Sweet then offers meditations on some of the primary social networks: Twitter, Google, iPhones and Facebook. For those of us raised in the Gutenberg culture, the final appendix on “How Gutenbergers Can Learn from Googlers” is the icing on the cake. Rating: 4 —CS

When Jesus says, “All Scripture points to me” (John 5:39, what does that mean exactly? Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola, both authors of Jesus Manifesto, return with their answer: Jesus, a Theography. They show that the 27 books of the second Testament (aka New Testament) are largely a commentary on the first Testament (aka Old Testament). Where written biographies of Jesus try to shine a light on the historical Jesus, these books give little attention given to the grand storyline of the Bible. Many theologist on the other side aren’t interested in historical Jesus studies. Though advertized as meant to both seasoned Christians, new believers or fellows only intrigued by Jesus, this Theography requires a lot of its reader. Greek and Hebrew words, while their meanings are explained, are thrown in. Lots of Bible verses and passages, with most exact locations in the Scripture hidden through end-notes. Furthermore, Sweet & Viola, use a lot of allegories, connecting dots in several ways, that only longtime Christians can recognize and position easily.
The Grand Story of Jesus Christ doesn’t start at Christmas Eve, in Bethlehem, not even in Genesis 1, but before time, in the Triune God. From there a non-linear, mainly thematic journey with Christ unfolds: before time, in creation, birth and boyhood, missing years between age 12 and 30 and his preparation for ministry. You follow Him while He’s baptized by his nephew John and tempted afterwards by the devil. Jesus’ disciples, mission, healing and miracles, teachings and sermons, but also his human side (where did He live, what emotions did he show?) are digged. Jesus’ Trial and Crucifixion, with explorations of the atonement and the harrowing of Hell, resurrection, ascension to heaven and Pentecoast. Finally, the authors share some thoughts on the return of the King.
Of you’re familiar with The Jesus Manifesto and From Eternity to Here, you’ll recognize the ageless purpose of God and the crucial role of His Son, Jesus Christ in that mission. The allegorical treatment of facts, colours, figures and names distracted me at first, but the main message kept me reading along and enjoying this new work from Sweet & Viola. Be prepared to adjust your beliefs, knowledge and appreciation of God’s work.

Discernment has always been a noteworthy trait. In the days of Kg David, the men of Issachar were singled out because they "understood the times and knew what Israel should do" (1 Chr. 12:32). today, reading the culture and knowing how to respond is still crucial.

NCLA Review - Not being a fan of the apocalyptic novel genre, it was difficult to get immersed in this novel. The plot centers on the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and it relates the story of eight babies born in 2012. Half of them are pure evil and half of them are pure good. When the book jumps to the year 2048, the reader is left to figure out who they are and what will happen in the end times. Multiple layers, jumpy and hard to follow dropped plot threads and questionable theology make for a difficult read. The book suggests that the end times are about people united in love in more of a “new age” concept rather than the Biblical second coming of Christ. The best part of the book is the appendix, which would have been a great basis for a non-fiction book on the apocalypse, and the symbols and traditions related to it. Rating: 3 —AL