NCLA Review -Since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, we have seen progress toward integrated schools, workplaces, and now the presidency. Yet the Christian church today remains the most segregated institution in our society. Free to Be Bound chronicles twenty-something Pastor Wilson-Hartgrove’s pilgrimage from his childhood in North Carolina clan country, across the color line to an all black church. He and his young wife moved into “the hood” in Durham , joined a movement call New Monasticism, and began to minister at a historically black church. Reaching out to their neighbors, they invited homeless people to live with them. They mentored neighborhood kids, provided summer camp and work experiences for teens, and organized community celebrations. His hospitality, peacemaking, and reconciliation efforts provide us with inspiration to address racism and segregation in our own churches. Pastor Wilson-Hargrove’s book is a call for true unity within the church. Some of his ideas for sharing of resources and redistribution of wealth will be challenged by many readers but because of the hopeful aspects of his young ministry, I do recommend this book for group discussions on how to integrate and transform the body of Christ. Rating: 3 —BM Navpress 2008, 206p, 9781600061905, $12.99 [277.3] ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! In fact, I read it in one sitting. Wilson-Hartgrove's message resonates with me powerfully. I must admit that midway through I became a little worried that he was preparing to say the Church's new identity in Messiah is "black", but he more than adequately addresses this idea as the story progresses. Which is another thing I like about the book. It addresses significant theological issues as part of a narrative - the narrative of our story as recorded in Scripture and of his particular life. I was cheering over statements like, "forsaking one's people to become part of God's people is an experience so radical that it tests the limits of human language."

I took the primary message of the book to be that in Messiah, we are to be a new people, a people with an identity beyond that of race or culture. To go a step further than Wilson-Hartgrove does (at least in this book) we are to have a new culture - that of the people of God.

I pastor a mixed congregation so I've seen firsthand that the "Black church" has also suffered from the ways in which it has failed to take on the character and culture of God's people.

A good follow-on to this book would be an extended reflection on the Torah as God's cultural guide-book for His people? I'm convinced that if we would simply implement the instruction given there that many of the societal ills we battle would be addressed. It's a society of sowers rather than laborers, yet provision is made for those who are unable to be competent managers of their inheritance, etc. Our congregation is struggling to figure out how to implement the instruction of Torah as our model for the culture that God's new people are to take on. We often run into theological conflict from those who want to challenge whether or not they are obligated to forsake pork, or observe the Sabbath, etc. Personally, I think anyone determined to defend their right to live as their neighbor is still asking the wrong questions. I'm happy to discuss the opportunity of living out God's culture-guide, but have essentially no interest in debating whether it's an obligation or not.

The model of the Exodus is clear: God called His people out and fashioned them into a new society, one that challenged by its very existence the cultural norms of surrounding nations. Unfortunately, Israel was less than successful in implementing God's culture, but I believe we have a new opportunity since Pentecost to do this more successfully, now that the Spirit Himself is writing God's laws on our hearts. I suspect it is in this way that we will make Israel after the flesh jealous.

My black friends often talk to me about how the consumption of pork is physically killing the black people. Imagine if they embraced as part of their new identity in Messiah the necessity of abandoning pork. Imagine if whites embraced as part of their new identity the necessity of abandoning the "American dream", and the practice of relieving debt every 7 years. Indeed, if we became convicted of the need to stop charging interest to our brothers in the first place, as the Israelites were forbidden from doing. Imagine if black men became convinced of the need to bless their wives and children- to be a patriarch to their family (without the misogynistic baggage that has been unjustly added to this term).

One of the other evils we have inherited as the American church is a theological reading of the NT that is based on racial prejudice against the Jewish people. I've benefited greatly from the writings of post-Shoah theologians like Clark M. Williamson and pioneers like Walter Kaiser, Jr. But reading the NT again through the eyes of the Jewish Jesus won't be of any value if we aren't willing to then implement a new society in the midst of a culture that calls itself Christian but is indistinguishable from the economic practices, the music, the food, etc. of the world.

I highly recommend this book both as an interesting read and as an excellent contribution to a continuing conversation about the Gospel as a way of life rather than a set of beliefs.