My Review of "Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower"

Tom Krattenmaker's Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower: Finding Answers in Jesus for Those Who Don't Believe helps secularists -- not necessarily atheists, but those for whom religion is a social curiosity -- find in Jesus a role model of the highest order.  Jesus is worth listening to, according to Krattenmaker, even worth following, so long as you don't call it "religion".

Jesus' words in the New Testament are not sacred to Krattenmaker but are indeed worth utilizing for daily ethical dilemmas.  "When it comes to a secular engagement with Jesus," he notes, "we can pick and choose, accept and reject, mix and match, however we wish."  The author stands in a difficult position.  To nonbelievers, he will come off as a Christian.  No matter how much he protests, the reality is that many self-professed Christians are just as unconvinced as he is of the supernatural aspects of Jesus' story.  Yet to many committed Christians, he will seem to be appropriating what they hold dear for his own purposes.

Krattenmaker is surely right to find moral authority in Jesus' teaching, but the rest of his argument falls flat.

I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.