Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith

Rating:
Summary: This book is Super Gay!!!
Review: I am currently a college student and I have been one of the many victims forced to read this book. Unless you enjoy reading about some randomman describing the life of Jesus and his disciples, or if you would like to know how the Christaian church as we know it tday was derived from, do not read it.

However if you are an insomniac,I would highly suggest this book. I have spent many sleepless nights reading this book, and let me tell you, it just hits the spot when I am exhausted. It is just the right book for a tired college student.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Biblical Scholarship
Review: This is one of those books that does all the hard exegetical work on which numerous later works depend (another being John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus). In this excellent study of the New Testament's perspective on the social dimension of Christian faith, Gerhard Lohfink shows brilliantly how Jesus' proclamation was directed toward the formation of a distinct, visible society. Jesus' teachings, Lhofink shows were not simply pietistic plaitudes desigined to stimulate the consciences of individuals. Rather, Jesus' (and the Apostles') aim was the creation of a concrete, counter-cultural community that embodied a contrast-society in the midst of the world.

Lohfink does a great job of surveying the teachings in the gospels, the epistles and early church history to show how this radically ecclesial form of life was at the center of Jesus' teaching and the praxis of the earlist churches. He does all of this particularly through an examination of the nature of Jesus' ministry in Israel and how his shaping of the church pertained to Israel's eschatological hope of messianic regathering.

There are a number of particularly helpful sections in this book. Some of the most notable include Lohfink's discussion of the Praxis of Togetherness, Nonviolence and the renunciation of Domination.

As I mentioned above, this is one of those books that really does all the legwork to support its argument. The result is a powerful piece of biblical study which, in my opinion shows quite well how the vision of Jesus centered on the creation of the church as a distinct, alternative society that stands over against and for the world as God's witness to the presence of the Kingdom brought about in Christ. I highly recommend this book.