Your Jesus Is Too American: Calling the Church to Reclaim Kingdom Values over the American Dream

by Steve Bezner

The American church faces a discipleship crisis. Instead of following the values of Jesus, many Christians are chasing after what our culture prizes: power, money, and political influence.

In Your Jesus Is Too American, Baptist pastor Steve Bezner invites Christians to rediscover what Jesus treasured and incorporate those kingdom values into the church's witness.

With a pastoral voice, Bezner shares the lessons he has been teaching in his church community for 11 years--humble service rather than worldly success, healing relationships across religious and ethnic divides, repairing harm against marginalized groups, giving generously, and providing a political witness rooted in the local church. Bezner shows that Jesus's vision of discipleship points toward a different way of being in the world.

The book offers a welcome perspective for church leaders and congregants alike who are frustrated with the way many churches pursue values that are not in line with Jesus's teachings and are worried about the American church's credibility crisis. It includes a foreword by Beth Moore.

• Publish Date: 8 October 2024
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Brazos Press
• Edition: Kindle Edition
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 208
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

No Matter Your Thinking About 'Christianity', This Will Challenge You. This is one of those excellent books that truly no matter what you think of Christianity or any given Christian-type theology, Bezner is going to find ways to challenge you - in the manner of the classic pastor joke as follows:  

 

Man comes up to the Pastor after the service. "Preacher, you were stepping on my toes in there!"

Pastor replies: "I apologize. I was aiming about 3 feet higher." (For his heart, in case that is unclear.)

 

In other words, yes, Bezner is a pastor and yes, this is written in that general style - but it also isn't a book seeking to destroy everything you hold dear so much as gently goad you in areas where maybe you're wrong - or maybe Bezner is.

 

And I'm not joking when I say no matter your thoughts on Christianity here. Bezner goads the conservatives with his talk of their lily white - or coal black - churches and the need for churches to be more multicultural. Bezner goads the liberals with his insistence that sex is only for straight married couples - and goads everyone with his insistence that more needs to be done to support single adults, no matter their sexual choices. He even manages to goad the Anarchists by *actively citing 1 Samuel* - the very passage where YAHWEH decrees that obedience to an earthly king as a rejection of Himself! - and arguing that earthly kings are necessary, but that a "prophet" is needed to stand outside their court and hold them to account.

 

If you're looking for a book "taking down" "Christian Nationalism".... this isn't your book, and Bezner never intended it to be. If you're looking for a book that decries *all* politics in the American Church and instead calls for complete separation between the Church and politics... this isn't your book, and Bezner never intended it to be. It is quite clear that he sought to write exactly the kind of book he did - calling Americans of *all* political persuasions and telling them that according to his own beliefs, they're wrong. As with anything else, at that point your mileage absolutely varies. I do believe that we can all gain something from reading this book, but I do NOT believe that Bezner is as correct as he clearly thinks he is.

 

Ultimately two stars were deducted here. One for the prooftexting, even though it only *blatantly* happened as quotes to begin chapters - I don't really recall seeing it anywhere else. (For those unaware, "prooftexting" is the practice of citing Bible verses out of context in support of some claim or another.) So while not as bad as some others in this space, it is a practice that is an automatic star deduction from me *any* time I see it.

 

The other star deducted was for the near absolute dearth of any bibliography. While this book was indeed more pastoral in tone, it was still a nonfiction book and should have been cited much more thoroughly than it was - 20-30% bibliography is my general expectation based on my experiences overall, though I'm a bit more willing to come down to 15% as the lower number with more recent (2021 and forward or so) texts seeming to indicate this is a general shift in nonfiction books of this era.  

 

Still, despite the two star deduction here largely on technical matters, this really is a solid book that every American needs to read - perhaps particularly during election seasons.

 

Very much recommended.