Product Review

Having already written Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places and Eat This Book as the first two volumes of his five-book series on spiritual theology, Eugene Peterson continues his theological conversation with the church in The Jesus Way.

Here he considers all the ways that Jesus is the Way compared to the distorted ways the modern American church has chosen to follow. Arguing that the way Jesus leads and the way we follow are symbiotic, Peterson begins with an extensive study of how the ways of those who came before Christ - Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah of Jerusalem, and Isaiah of the Exile - revealed and prepared the "way of the Lord" that became complete in Jesus.

He then challenges the ways of the contemporary American church, showing in stark relief how what we have chosen to focus on - consumerism, celebrity, charisma, and so on - obliterates what is unique in the Jesus way. A stunning analysis of the gap between the personal Jesus and the impersonal modern church, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways is sure to engender debate and to inspire a movement back to the true way of Christ.