Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age by Alan Noble
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Not What I Thought
First off, this book was not what I thought it was based on the title and an early portion I read in another review. That is OK since it was actually better than I expected.
Secondly, many of you may not like this book. I was not too happy having some of my well entrenched habits and ideas challenged. Be prepared to hear that the traditional VBS and christian T-shirt market may not be the best witness the church has at its disposal.
Noble makes it very clear. We live in a very secular, very distracted world. Our witness needs to disrupt peoples ideas of where fulfillment and identity come from. For many people Christianity is just one of a million choices you can base your identity. Hence, we are just one more t-shirt advertising our product, from our religion, to our politics, to our alma matter to our favorite athletic team. Its just another choice.
Noble argues that it is time for the church to disrupt that viewpoint, and he gives some very real examples and solutions. The chapters on personal life and corporate worship spoke the loudest. How do we frame our personal and corporate devotion to a transcendent God in a way that says this is not just one of a myriad of choices, but the only choice that makes sense of life, death, creation, joy, tragedy and all of the human experience.
Instead of trying to build the next big thing or the greatest show on earth Noble argues, quite effectively, for the need to practice contemplation and reflection. VBS is not about a cute video, decorations and crafts. Instead a lesson about creation should take your breath away and create a desire to experience creation and worship the creator. That is hard to do between short video clips, instagram posts and bouncing to the next activity.
Noble makes a strong case to return to some church traditions that have fallen out of practice, like the church calendar, liturgy and sabbath keeping. We can effectively disrupt the status quo when we stop “finding ourselves” in what we produce or consume and instead take time to think deep, reflect and contemplate on the God who disrupted history, entered our world and invites us to a better way.
I did notice that this book (as well as others lately) seem to draw heavily on Charles Taylor. Since I am unfamiliar with Taylors work I may need to visit his books soon.
As I read these comments I realize in this space I do not do justice to Noble’s work and would recommend that you read this for yourself, and expect to be disrupted.
If you’ll excuse me, I am going to try and walk upstairs and fight the temptation (distraction) of checking my phone to see what I might have missed since I last checked it 15 minutes ago.
Thinking About Theology 