Living in a Salad Bowl

There’s a disturbing trend in Christian nonfiction: the tendency to write books whose central idea (usually correcting some common misconception) can be effectively summed up in a single paragraph on the back cover. Scot McKnight, professor of at Northern Seminary, and host of the popular Jesus Creed blog, isn’t given to writing such books. His latest, A Fellowship of Differents: Showing the world God’s design for life together (Zondervan, 2015), is no exception. Raising two perennial questions of ecclesiology, McKnight asks, “What is the church supposed to be?” and “If the church is what it is supposed to be, what does the Christian life look like?”

The product of these foundational questions is a remarkably personal book. McKnight embraces the quest, integrating experiences from childhood that lend immediacy to his response. The experiences he related range widely—from exegetical clarities to summer tomato gardening—and rest not just on theological abstraction, but on his experiences and the experiences of others. He writes with conviction but an obvious and appealing humility. There are no “preachy” passages, no finger-wagging tone. This, in a book on the church, is itself a gift.

There are no “preachy” passages, no finger-wagging tone. This, in a book on the church, is itself a gift.

What he does provide is a rich litany of Christian basics outlining the life of the church: Grace, Love, Table, Holiness, Newness, and Flourishing. (My weakness for biblical numbers made me itch for him to add one more to make this a list of perfect seven.) These doctrine-practices form an elegant framework, pointing the way to how the church’s life should be a salad bowl, a one-and-a-many, the “fellowship of differents” of the title. A single central idea? Not as much as a single need (to understand the church), embodied in two questions, answered by six ideas, worked out in 22 chapters, all forming the basis of that life in the world God desires for all Christians.

McKnight has written a book that is erudite but accessible, at once relevant to pastors, lay leaders, small group studies, and interested Christians longing for a timeless treatment of who and what “church” is, and more importantly, who and what we can be. McKnight’s always-practical theological gravity lends itself to applying the text to your immediate context with a minimum of “translation,” even for new Christians or those who might shudder at a two-dollar word like ecclesiology. This book has a depth of thought and feeling that will both inspire readers to move their idea of community from one of “sames” and “likes” to cultivate a joyous fellowship of “differents.” Life together. God’s design. Highly recommended.

Paul J. Pastor is a Leadership Journal contributing editor and author of The Face of the Deep: Exploring the mysterious person of the Holy Spirit. (David C. Cook, 2016.)