Loving Jesus by Mark Allan Powell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this book very much. I couldn’t help comparing it to Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Mark Allan Powell has done a much better job of describing my spiritual journey as a “First and Second Naïvetè” than Rohr did with his “First and Second Half” of life model. The focus of Rohr’s book seems too much on the self, its “container” and “contents,” and its trajectory, “Falling Upward.” Powell’s focus, as its title indicates, is on what it means to be “loving Jesus” through all phases of life. His is an approach to Christian “piety” that grows with maturity and understanding. His tone is humble, balanced, and welcoming, where Rohr often seems arrogant, judgmental and off-putting. Each chapter describes an aspect of Christian faith and spirituality that takes a deeper account of one’s beliefs, faith and practice in the course of life without losing its passionate focus on the One with whom “all things are possible” and on whom all things depend. This is a very good guide book for renewing, and growing in one’s faith by loving Jesus.