Book Report

Do I dare?
Really, do I?
I told myself at a few points that it was blog worthy so despite the social whiplash I'm going to get for doing this, I'm doing this.

This past week I read a book titled "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion." The book was about a woman, Sara Miles, in California converting to Christianity. Not that radical right? Well..
Sara Miles was raised an atheist.
Sara Miles was living in San Francisco at the time of her conversion.
Sara Miles was living with a man in third world country during a revolution and got pregnant and had a baby out of wedlock. She was taking care of this child without a man in her life at the time of her conversion.
Sara Miles is homosexual and living with another woman.

The interesting thing about the book was that she was a real person and a real Christian. Two things don't mix as often as they should.
The impressive part of her writing was that she was able to get to the core of Christianity instead of simply following rules and then calling herself a Christian.
Sara Miles started a food pantry that would sell food for next to nothing to the poor. This food pantry allowed anyone to come and buy food. The process wasn't regulated. It didn't matter if the people were obviously on drugs, were schizophrenic, weren't legal, or if they appeared to be rich. All were welcome.
The food pantry serves over seven hundred people a week.

"These things need to be regulated! This is just promoting laziness!" is the reaction that I think this project would've gotten here in Utah.

But wait! Miles has a point.
The first thing that Miles points to is that Christ ate with sinners and prostitutes. He condemned those who put regulations on every last detail. Remember these weird scriptures:

"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?"

Honestly, I've given this book no justice. It was quite the book. As far as recommending the book goes: I loved the parts that were about Miles' radically different life and her views on Jesus that were not mystical, but not the mystical stuff (which is the stuff that almost everyone who would read this blog would like more) I really didn't care for as usual.

It would seem as though throughout my life I've never really been exposed to this idea of "liberal Christianity" and now that I keep running into it I've got to say that it has quite a few very valid points. To say something extremely out-of-line in Utah: Jesus teaches mostly liberal ideas.

Overall, Miles makes one really consider Christianity in a different light.