Abstract
David Crump is a former professor of New Testament studies at Calvin College and has been a pastor for more than 30 years. This, his latest book, takes on the agenda of a divided America, a country of bitter partisan conflicts and unresolved divisions in arenas ranging from gun control to abortion. Moreover, the country now has a president who is a source of further divisiveness. Whereas, in the past, presidents of the USA were often figures of unity, sometimes transcending party differences to bring the nation together, the Trump era has ushered in nativism, narcissism and intemperate neoconservatism.
The book begins with a moving meditation on the state-sanctioned torture of terrorist suspects following the 2001 attacks on America, and is a prescient, prophetic plea to Christians to wake up to their responsibilities as citizens of heaven, rather than functioning as (merely) compliant residents within the political state. As one would expect from a New Testament scholar of Crump’s calibre, all his subsequent arguments are rooted in the radical teachings of Jesus. Crump belongs to that strong communitarian strain of North American theology that finds expression in the writings of Ronald Sider, Stanley Hauerwas, Ched Myers and William Cavanaugh, to name but a few. The thesis is compelling, and the book, with its clarion call to action, is both bracing and brisk, scholarly and accessible.
Crump’s thesis closely examines the ethical teachings of Jesus, and, using contemporary illustrations, tackles the vital issues at stake, challenging Christians to embrace the radical, communitarian and revolutionary ‘way of Jesus’ to contest the alienating forces of modernity. These forces, argues Crump, must be interrogated and resisted, since the ‘spirit of the age’ strongly dictates how we all think and live, shapes our cultural conventions, and serves the political ends of those who wield power. Only the kingdom of God can challenge these prevailing powers. Thus, Crump argues that to defy this age of dysfunctionality and corruption, Christians must invest in more radical, out-facing communitarian faith and action. His writing echoes that of another pastor and New Testament scholar from a different era, but who may be more familiar to readers of this journal. I refer to John Robinson, and, in so doing, compliment Crump’s work. Robinson is, perhaps unhelpfully, best known for his popular Honest to God, but his detailed New Testament studies were arguably his better work; like Crump, he had the knack of applying such studies to the contemporary Church. For example, writing in The New Reformation (1965), Robinson reminded his readers that Christians must ‘relearn that “the house of God” is primarily the world in which God lives, not the contractor’s hut set up in the grounds’.
Crump makes a similar plea to twenty-first-century Christians. God’s work is not about building more churches, or even about defending the institution against criticism. All the Church was ever meant to be was a constructor’s hut on God’s building site, which is the world. Building the kingdom of God is the project we should all be investing in. But far too many Christians today seem to care only about renovating the hut – otherwise known as the Church.
Crump’s book is brave, and, in places, brilliant. If you want to understand the challenges facing Christians today, and how to meet them, you will find it illuminating and inspiring.