Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age is a book that drew me right away because of the title. This is a subject I have pondered on my own often, wondering how to reach others with the message of Jesus’ love for them so they can see Him as He truly is.

The first half of the book was the most enjoyable and helpful on the subject. The ideas shared regarding the distractions of our age (such as the continual notifications of our phones and social media) impacted me greatly. Also impactful were the ideas about the typical, non-ministry use of various social media avenues versus how believers and ministries might better utilize them. These observations brought me into a place of pondering the way I use technology and social media in sharing about Jesus as well as in every day life. This deeper reflection and the changes it brought forth were in themselves worth the book!

I appreciated the presentation of the ways in which Christ followers can serve as witnesses in our age through the practices of our faith both individually and in community, as well as in other ways presented. In order to most benefit from this book, I recommend reading slowly while taking time to ponder the ideas presented, perhaps journaling your thoughts about them and pondering them out loud with other believers.

My only frustration is the book seems geared more toward students in seminary, or at least people who have a college education or beyond. I had next to no issues reading (other than having to remind myself of the definition of the philosophical terms included). However, this is a message that needs to reach those of any level. I do not feel the book could easily do this in its current state, and this brings hesitation in recommending it to just anyone. I think the book would require a simplified writing style and approach to reach the Body of Christ at large.

Also lacking was the use of God’s Word to strengthen and support what was shared, the benefit of which I sorely missed.

All in all, this book contains an important message about the world we reside in during this age, a message that needs to be known, understood and lived by every follower of Christ. However, I think there is much more to be discovered in this issue of our age, and more solutions to come forth that will be able to be implemented by any believe, anywhere in the world.

* I received a free review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. * ( )

Summary: Drawing on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, Noble explores our longing for fullness in a distracted, secular age of "buffered selves," and the personal, communal and cultural practices Christians might pursue to disrupt our society's secular mindset.

When I first came across this title, I was expecting something different, a call to a form of Christian activism, a form of resistance against prevailing destructive and unjust structures. This book both isn't and is about that. Noble's analysis looks at deeper causes in the secularism that shapes the warp and woof of our lives.

Drawing on the work of Charles Taylor in A Secular Age, Noble focuses first on the endless distraction of our lives. He illustrates from his own life:

"Sufficient to the workday are the anxieties and frustrations thereof. And so, when I need a coffee or bathroom break, I’ll use my phone to skim an article or “Like” a few posts. The distraction is a much-needed relief from the stress of work, but it also is a distraction. I still can’t hear myself think. And most of the time I really don’t want to. When I feel some guilt about spending so much time being unfocused, I tell myself it’s for my own good. I deserve this break. I need this break. But there’s no break from distraction."

Such distractions are inimical to Christian witness in making us and those we engage with impervious to the contradictions in our fragmented lives, unable to engage in the extended reflection needed to wrestle with hard questions, and prone to present faith as just one more lifestyle option.

All this feeds into a perspective on self that is "buffered" rather than "porous"--where meaning and our understanding of ultimate reality comes from within rather than is open to the transcendent. Noble observes, "As Christianity has ceased to offer the vision of fullness shared by the vast majority of people in the West, in its place we find billions of micronarratives of fullness." It is critical for Christians to understand this, both because they need to abandon treating their own faith as a micronarrative and then, in engaging their neighbors, must refuse to treat faith as mere preference.

The second half of Noble's book explores how we engage in disruptive witness in a distracted world of buffered selves. He explores personal, church, and cultural practices that eventuate in disruptive witness. He begins by commending this double movement:

"This is the movement we need--a double movement in which [1] the goodness of being produces gratitude in us that [2] glorifies and acknowledges a loving, transcendent, good, and beautiful God." [enumeration added]

For this he commends the simple practices of silence, the saying of grace at meals, and the practice of sabbath, each of which open us to gratitude that acknowledges a transcendent God.

Noble is critical of high-tech, staged worship in which "our focus is directed to the stage rather than to one another." In place of this, drawing on James K. A. Smith, he calls for the retrieval of liturgical practices that draw us out of ourselves and remind us of the transcendent. He contends that our observance of the Lord's supper may be one of our most disruptive acts in reminding of the transcendent God who is also immanent, sharing our body and blood, and nourishing us with his in the bread and the cup.

He also advocates culturally disruptive practice, and observes that "intimations of the transcendent" arise in our exercise of human agency, in moral obligations, and aesthetic experiences. As a good English professor, he contends that stories are a place where we may particularly encounter these intimations, offering The Great Gatsby as an example. He concludes by advocating that disruptive witness cannot play by the rules of the secular age, but rather provide a contrast of lives limited around the transcendent that, in Flannery O'Connor's words, draw "large and startling figures."

As I concluded the book, I found myself musing as to whether this was "disruptive" enough. In discussing this with a friend, he observed that the re-centering of our lives around a transcendent God not of our own making is pretty disruptive! Moving from distraction to attentive reflection is disruptive. Refocusing worship from an event with high production values to an encounter with the transcendent God is disruptive. Moving from stroking our personal preferences to recognizing goodness for which we are grateful and turning that to an acknowledgement of the transcendent in our daily practices, and in the stories that shape us, is disruptive.

Alan Noble encourages me that disruptive witness isn't found in how hip, tech-savvy, plugged in, and "relevant" we are, which may be simply Christian versions of a distracted, buffered self. Rather, disruptive witness arises when our lives and cultural engagements are disrupted by the transcendent God in the gospel of his Son. Silence, sabbath, saying grace, participating in liturgy, and the expectation that the transcendent will show up in all of life may seem insignificant, and yet may be the most profound disruptions of all.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. ( )

Meditations on applications of the lessons of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age to Christian faith in modern America.

The author distills many of the primary lessons from A Secular Age: the "optionalization" of faith, the development of the buffered self, etc., and also spoke of the siren song of modern consumerism and the constant distractions of the age.

The author makes a case for living the faith as a disruptive witness: no longer content presenting Christianity as but one option for lifestyle among many, to take its claims seriously and to live like it, and attempts to find some ways forward.

His analysis and application of Taylor is excellent. I appreciated his concern regarding how the Gospel and church are presented to people in terms of what works in marketing, with kitsch, or in any other way that makes the Gospel look like just one option among many in the modern marketplace. His focus on practices which are countercultural - to cease distraction, at least at times, for prayer, service, and devotion, to really mean what is prayed, sung, and preached, etc., are beneficial.

At times the Reformed/Calvinist inclinations of the authors are made evident, and that must be kept in mind. Nevertheless, a work which deserves the high regard it is receiving in many places. Worth consideration.

**--galley received as part of early review program ( )