Jesus Circles: A Way To Heal Our Wounds, Subvert The Domination System, And Build An Abundant Future

Rating:
Summary: Circle to the Truth
Review: Robert Warren Cromey-3839 Twentieth Street-San Francisco, California-94114-3018
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Jesus Circles
By Peter R. Lawson
Xlibris Corporation
www.XLibris.com
ISBN 1-4134-4084- 3
154 pages
2003


Jesus Circles is book with a radical way to look at the life of Jesus and its application to the broken world in which we live. The circles refer to a specific method of getting people into deep dialogue and reaching consensus in non-violent and caring decision making.

Lawson is deeply influenced by the Jesus scholars John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. Tracing the culture of Jesus' time as different from our in many ways yet shows the results of domination and violence are essentially the same. We don't have slavery in the US but overlook it in other places in the world. Corporations treat people as objects - means of production. Our addiction to violence is not with lions in the arena but in the brutality of football, hockey and wrestling.

Less concerned about the divinity of Christ, Lawson focuses on Jesus the sage and proclaiming of the Kingdom of God. Jesus teased the elites and people in power, he broke the tyranny of the rigid family structures of his time, named the poor and lowly as those most blessed by God, ate with those regarded as sick and impure, encouraged the lower classes to be "non-violent provocateurs of the new Empire of God." These sections of the book are inspirational pictures of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

The final sections of the book describes how circles as ways of making decisions break the tradition of decisions made by the powerful at the top, the dominant ones. In the circles people share their stories, their frustrations and joys and then work toward making decisions in a whole new and joyful way rather than where majority rules and the losers feel rejected and hurt. The chapters are helpfully specific in how to set up groups, how to proceed and how to reach decisions.

This is a fascinating and rewarding read for anyone who calls him or herself a Christian, a follower of Jesus. Preachers will find a store house of interesting ways to tell and re-tell the Jesus story and lay people will find help and hope in defining what it means to follow Jesus and use some of the principles of that following to be in community and make decisions.

Peter Lawson is a retired priest of the Episcopal Church. He last served as co-rector of St. James's Church, San Francisco. He lives with his wife Danielle in Valley Ford, California.