Spencer Williams reviewed The New Reformation by Shai Linne
Review of 'The New Reformation' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
If the title had you thinking, "yet another book on race", then, friend, I couldn't recommend this book more: yes, it's about race (or really, ethnicity), and Christianity, but it's really about Christlikeness, and ethnic unity is a symptom of what getting that right would look like, if we could do it.
Similarly, if it sounds like a book that will "lay waste" to the errors in the modern American church, then I'd recommend this book to you: rather than an assault on all that's wrong with American Christians (you know, those ones over there), it gives instead a diagnosis and treatment for how we as individual Christians can grow in Christlikeness (and yes, that includes overcoming the tendency to look and think like our surrounding culture).
Shai writes with a clear, instructive style, soaked in Scripture at every turn, that avoids both didactic condescension and trite obviousness. He challenges …
If the title had you thinking, "yet another book on race", then, friend, I couldn't recommend this book more: yes, it's about race (or really, ethnicity), and Christianity, but it's really about Christlikeness, and ethnic unity is a symptom of what getting that right would look like, if we could do it.
Similarly, if it sounds like a book that will "lay waste" to the errors in the modern American church, then I'd recommend this book to you: rather than an assault on all that's wrong with American Christians (you know, those ones over there), it gives instead a diagnosis and treatment for how we as individual Christians can grow in Christlikeness (and yes, that includes overcoming the tendency to look and think like our surrounding culture).
Shai writes with a clear, instructive style, soaked in Scripture at every turn, that avoids both didactic condescension and trite obviousness. He challenges readers to check how their attitudes and actions line up with Christ's vision for the church (painting a realistic, but gracious view of its failings both current and historical), while practicing and advocating the gracious "along-side-ness" of a fellow sinner saved by Jesus's mercy. As much as each principle in the book is explicitly rooted in Biblical references, the book as a whole is an exemplar of what it looks like to take 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 to heart.
The orthodoxical-and-orthopraxical "third way" Shai lays out (the titular "New Reformation") is first of all humble, gracious, and fixated on what God would have us to do and be in order to mimic our Savior, and not at all distracted by what that implies about political or social affiliations. It's believers who are quick to be peacemakers both by confessing our own sins and repenting of them, and by letting love cover over a multitude of sins and offenses from others.
This baseline humility and grace-oriented-ness shines through in the book, in Shai's interactions in his public life, and in the imitation of Christ that Shai points to over and over again in this book.
I'd recommend this book to any believer, anyone interested in overcoming (or even just understanding) ethnic divisions in the US, anyone curious what Christianity is about, or really just anyone. It's excellent.
