Jaded Book Review

Reading Report
Spring 2005

Book Title: Jaded: Hope for believers who have given up on the church but not on God

Author: A.J. Kiesling

Synopsis of content:
Kiesling wrote this book with an attitude of “general weariness” with the institutional church. The author states that Jaded is a heart-cry for something more from the institutional church than just programs. The author states that God may be stirring up the hearts of His people to prepare us for more than this program-centered state of Western Christianity. He explores some reasons for the exodus of people from institutional churches, including spiritual burnout. He discusses attitudes people have toward church due to their own life experiences and ways that they are having the need for church community met in their lives today.

Significant Quotes:
p. 21 “The young man said he yearned for a faith experience that matched the revolutionary, even mystical, union with God he had read about in the New Testament. Why couldn’t he find that in churches? He wanted to know.”

p.115 “God was calling me, but I didn’t know how to get to him.”


Reflection:
Overall, I liked this book. I think Kiesling tastefully unloaded his own discontentment and gave voice to the discontentment of others he spoke to concerning the institutional church today. Kiesling even echoes my own heart-cry for more from the institutional church. In my opinion, this book resonates with everything that I have heard and people that I have met who are fervently church hunting and yet can’t seem to find one. In the end though, I am wondering if Jaded will be just another of the many well-spoken books piling up on this subject that seem to be collecting dust and going unheeded in the mainstream. Finally, it is comforting to hear in the book that “religion” is crumbling and “churches” are now wherever God’s people gather, whether in houses, bookstores or coffee shops. It is amazing that no matter how much we mess church up God makes sure His Word has a place to stay alive and to increase.