Churched: A Review

As some of you know, I teach a high school Bible class four days a week. It's a course of foundations; most of the students have little biblical knowledge and many of them aren't professing Christians, so I think of the class, not only as an opportunity to teach a subject, but also as a means of showing some high school kids Jesus.

What I'm finding is that most, if not all, of them already have a view of Jesus. It's been shaped by their experience or lack of experience with local churches. This creates a unique challenge for me, because I don't want these previous notions of God to taint their view of who Jesus is, but I also don't want to badmouth their church or tradition or something that there parents may think is really important. The nice thing is I've been there.

I remember going to church as a kid and hearing about Jesus and the Bible and later having some of my beliefs challenged and reshaped by other Christians, especially by professors in college and in seminary. I expect these kids will grow in their understanding of who, in fact, Jesus really is. I hope they each come to know Him personally. I also hope that I might be one of the many folks in their lives who provides a glimpse of Jesus, as he's revealed in the pages of Scripture.

I am currently reading Matthew Paul Turner's Churched. I'm enjoying it quite a bit because Matthew's been there too and come out the other side. The book is essentially a humorous memoir about growing up fundamentalist. Some parts are funny; some are absurd, but throughout the pages of Churched is an honest picture of American Christianity in the late twentieth century.

Not everyone had to get a fundamentalist haircut in order to please Jesus. Not everyone witnessed their pastor box the devil and win. Not everyone heard the rumor about MTV's Kurt Loder possibly being the anti-Christ. And not everyone attended a church that attempted to hide from the world as much as Turner's did. Still, anyone who has ever experienced the culture shock of being in the world and not of it will really enjoy this book.

Matthew was once the editor of CCM magazine, so he's walked the line of trying to do something relevant, while still remaining part of the Christian subculture. He writes as someone who gets the joke and sees how silly some of the things we do can be, but he's not mean.

St. Augustine once said, "The church is a whore, but she's my mother." The church has done some horrible things throughout history and I don't agree with many of the loyalties and priorities of today's American church, but I think it's important to remember that, when it comes right down to it, we belong to her. It's also important to laugh at ourselves, recognize when we're being foolish and always remember to reexamine our practices in the light of Scripture.

If you've been a part of the Christian subculture for a while, check out Churched. You'll probably laugh at more than a few things.

www.matthewpaulturner.com
Churched @ Amazon.com