Published in 2020 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Read by Trevor Thompson.
Duration: 6 hours, 7 minutes.
Unabridged.
I heard Lipscomb University professor Lee C. Camp on Voxology, a Christian religious podcast with a more progressive bent. One of the hosts made multiple references to this book and how he had read it multiple times and referred to it often. The interview was good, the discussion was lively and I immediately burned my monthly Audible credit on this book.
Scandalous Witness consists of 15 propositions about Christianity, politics, and American history. I had no problem with Camp's propositions or his conclusions, but I did realize one very important fact - the hosts of the Voxology podcast are very, very good at creating interesting conversation.
There is nothing wrong with this book and its conclusions - I heartily endorse almost everything he says. The problem is that I found it to be a tedious read and I only finished it out sheer stubborness precisely because I had used my monthly Audible credit and I didn't want to waste it.
Maybe it's because I have read a lot of serious books along this vein like Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes du Mez, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta, and The Ballot and the Bible by Kaitlyn Schiess that cover these topics. Even a more political book like John Fugelsang's Separation of Church and Hate covers a lot of this same material in confrontational manner.
There is nothing wrong with this book - I just found my mind wandering way too often. A good place to start if you haven't thought much about these topics.
His fifteen propositions are:
Proposition 1: History Is Not One Damn Thing after Another
Proposition 2: The End of History Has Already Begun
Proposition 3: American Hope Is A Bastard
Proposition 4: Christianity Is Neither A Prostitute Nor A Chaplain
Proposition 5: The United States Is Not the Hope of the World
Proposition 6: The United States Was Not, Is Not, and Will Not Be a Christian Nation
Proposition 7: How Christian Values, and the Bible, Corrupt Christianity
Proposition 8: Every Empire Falls
Proposition 9: Christian Partisanship is Like a Fist-Fight on the Titanic
Proposition 10: Hostile Forces Have a Role in the Unfolding of History
Proposition 11. Christianity Is Not a Religion; Christianity Is a Politic
Proposition 12: Liberal Political Puissance Is Not the Goal
Proposition 13: Exemplary Political Witness Is the Goal
Proposition 14: Christianity Is Not Counter-Cultural
Propositions 15: Christian Engagement Must Always Be Ad Hoc
This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians.
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