This week most of my posts will consist of quotes from, and a brief review of, a remarkable book I’ve recently read entitled Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World (BrazosPress, 2008, 2nd ed.; http://amzn.to/9SJCtm). The author is Lee C. Camp, an associate professor of Bible at Lipscomb University. The first installment of quotes follows.

There is no compartmentalization of the faith, no realm, no sphere, no business, no politic in which the lordship of Christ will be excluded. We either make him Lord of lords, or we deny him as Lord of any. (p.27)

The church … exists not to show the world how to be “religious,” but to show the world how to be the world God created it to be. (p.30)

Innumerable businesses, schools, and churches, all run by Christians, begin to assume that the final measurement of success is “effectiveness” and “efficiency.” And yet “effectiveness,” as if a quantitative “bottom line” is the sole measure of “success,” completely ignores the question of faithfulness: to what are we called, and to whom are we accountable? (p.36)

“Christianity” has become a vaccination protecting us from discipleship. (p.37)

On that cross at Golgotha was nailed the One who was unjustly abused, tried, and murdered – and in his dying words he prayed that the Father would forgive those who killed him. But instead, imagine the result if Jesus had lived in Kentucky, and just before they nailed him to a cross, he claimed his rights as a citizen and pulled out a .38. (p.44)