Four pages into this book, I knew it was one that I’d want to pass around and discuss. “Love your neighbor “, it’s pretty simple and yet we Christians struggle. In this book, the author takes a look at how Jesus reacted to injustices in his time and then challenges us as to what our response should be in our time.

This book was an excellent challenge to my faith. Sheri compares what she calls the American White Jesus to the Red Letter Jesus of the Bible. She makes it very clear how terribly short many Christians fall from what the person of Jesus would want. She hits on all sorts of current topics, such as the #MeToo movement, the LGBTQ issue, the Middle East, the NRA and the actions of our current President.

She clearly has a passion for helping the "other". And her passion shows very clearly in her writing. She has traveled the world more than anyone I know personally. I'm guessing she has also made more of a difference for people than anyone I will ever meet.

After reading this book, I know there are some immediate changes I want to make. They don't have to be big, and I won't share which parts of this book really resonate with my soul, but I don't think you could read this book and not make a change in yourself.

Having said all that, I think she uses profanity far too often. I don't think it is necessary for this context. I also think she sometimes crosses lines between Christianity and what a kind person would do. She gives several examples of where Muslim people she knows are the perfect example of living like the Red Letter Jesus would have us live. Muslims don't believe in Jesus as their Savior, so they would not believe in those Red Letter words. So, they can be great people. They can be extremely generous, kind, loving, accepting, peaceful, joyful, etc. But, they aren't living a Christian life because they don't believe in Christ. A total atheist can be an awesome person and live a great life. A Christian can be a selfish person. Our works don't make our faith. I would hope that for most people, we would want our lives to reflect our faith, but Jesus never made that a requirement.

I can't wait to go out and be the change that Sheri has inspired me to be!

First, I want to emphasize that the author does make valid, important points. Yes, a large “but” is coming, but I need to emphasize that we shouldn’t miss the validity of some of her underlying points just because of the antagonistic way she makes them. Large parts of the American Church has moved away from Jesus’ example.
Second, she is a product of current American culture. We have largely lost our ability to make our point without attacking those who disagree. It is uncivil and unfortunate, but it’s where we are. I’m a bit disappointed that Westminster John Knox Press is publishing something with that tone, but the very title of the book makes it clear that this book is a verbal assault—and the author certainly fulfills that promise. She is as needlessly extreme, intolerant, and insulting as today’s talk shows. If you can, please try to wade through that, remembering my first point above.
Third, she paints with far too broad a brush. She stereotypes rather severely, and makes some baseless assumptions. One common one in our culture that she repeats is that just because someone was against Hillary Clinton, they must be for Donald Trump. The U.S. two-party system all too frequently leaves us with no choice we particularly like. I know many people who couldn’t stomach Senator Clinton’s profiteering, deceit, and irresponsibility, but are not happy with how the alternative has worked out.
Fourth, I think it is very unfortunate that she chose the “White” label. That implies that it is an ethnic issue, when in fact her arguments are largely against a Conservative-Jesus. The abundant use of “White-Jesus” was so off-putting as to make me not want to continue reading. It is a huge, unnecessary distraction from what she is trying to say.

One of her baseless assertions (which made me want to stop reading before I was 5% in) is, “White-Jesus Christianity is a crusader for the right to birth while blatantly disregarding a right to life as it writes off children slaughtered around the globe in American drone strikes as ‘collateral damage.’”
I do not know a single Christian who writes off slaughtered children as collateral damage. That is ridiculous and insulting, and the author loses much credibility by making such an unsupportable claim. She would be far better advised to askChristians whether pro-life means all children, everywhere, including those killed in drone strikes—which, I think, is the real (and valid) point on her mind.

The author is far better when she points out truths such as, “People called him the Son of God, and yet he hung out with those that most people wouldn’t even give a second look and was only really harsh on the self-righteous religious people.” That is a fantastic wake-up call for many. But she confuses issues. She follows great points like...

“Can you imagine what the world would look like if the thousands of Christian churches in this nation actually lived like Jesus? Generous with their funds, maybe housing the poor instead of spending millions of dollars on brand new fancy buildings?”

...with ill-considered assertions like:

“According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, around 21 percent of children in the U.S. live below the federal poverty line. That’s close to 15 million children living below the poverty level—the second highest rate of child poverty of any developed nation. That is appalling in itself, but in a nation that claims to follow the ways of a man who lived his entire life serving the poor, it is straight up shameful.”
No, the U.S. does not claim to be a Christian nation. In fact, Christians are about the only category of people that it is acceptable to ridicule here. You certainly couldn’t say anything negative about Muslims, blacks, gays, the disabled, or really any other group besides Christians. To imply that White-Jesus Christians are the reason there are so many U.S. children below the poverty line is ludicrous. She would be far better advised to ask the valid question of why churches—not a non-Christian nation—aren’t doing more to address the problem.

When she makes the broad assertion that “mega churches produce multi-millionaire pastors,” she sheds more credibility, because she proves she is spouting opinion but hasn’t bothered searching for the truth. If she had she would know, for example, that Rick Warren takes no salary whatever from Saddleback Church.
Unfortunately, all this loss of credibility (and her flippant use of “J-man”) can make it easy to overlook her brilliant, impactful, modern paraphrase of the Good Samaritan.

I quickly grew sick of her use of terms like “red-letter Jesus” and “red-letter Christians.” If you want to talk abut the biblical Jesus rather than the churchified Jesus I will be onboard completely, and celebrate your efforts to point out the difference. But are we to throw out all that others taught us about Jesus in the rest of the Bible? Is that not making yourself the arbiter of truth rather than the Bible? If you aren’t prepared to believe other parts of the Bible’s teaching about Jesus, why would you believe the red letters? And please, by all means, show me the early biblical manuscripts with Jesus’ words in red.
The author was blatantly hypocritical about this. “Let’s talk a bit about the Jesus of the red letters who was born a little over two thousand years ago in a little town called Bethlehem.” Sorry, there’s nothing in the red letters about being born in Bethlehem. Please, please, refer to the biblical Jesus and get rid of all the red-letter idolatry.

The author challenges us with, “I could be wrong, and if someone could explain how these self-proclaimed American Christian views of White-Jesus align with the true Jesus, please enlighten me.” No, those are not self-proclaimed views. You are the only one who has proclaimed them to be American White-Jesus views.

In her zeal for the people of Palestine she describes Israel this way, “It’s an apartheid state, one which is basically funded and strongly supported by the American White-Jesus Church with its weird Christian Zionist ideals.”
Yes, I get that Jesus was Palestinian. I also read in the Bible that that had nothing whatever to do with his ministry. On the other hand, he wept over Israel. See Matt. 2:6, 10:6, 15:24, 19:28, Mark 12:29, Luke 1:33, 1:68, 2:32, John 1:31, 1:68, 2:32. Romans 11:17 teaches that all Christians become adopted Israelis. Actually, read the whole Romans 11 chapter and explain to me why support of Israel is “weird.”

“Are you telling me that God cares for one group of people more than others based on their blood line?” No, it’s the Bible—and Jesus Himself—telling you that. Why else would Christians need to become adopted Israelis (Rom. 11:17)? Look again at the verses I referenced above. Several of them are in more than one of the gospels, but I included only the first one. There are many more. Then go back to Genesis and read the story of Jacob. Look at all of Romans 9, especially verse 13, for the answer to many of the supposedly-rhetorical questions you raised.

All of this is highly unfortunate, because I actually agree with many of the core thoughts the author has about areas where the church has lost Jesus’ basic teachings. I would be in complete support of a book like that. But she went so far out of her way to discard parts of the Bible and insult anyone who disagreed with her that it was nearly impossible to give her thoughts any credence.
For me, the author has failed to achieve her stated goal of getting people to think about what Jesus actually taught. I doubt that anyone in human history has changed their minds because they were yelled at and insulted. Those who already agree with her will praise the book. That may make her feel good, but it accomplishes nothing. She has valid points, but has much to learn about the art of persuasion before anyone is likely to listen.

Dnf...3% in made trump bashing statements that are unproven, furthering the untruths that are prevalent in our society. People need the facts not hear-say to base their opinions on.

Will leave a poor review on Amazon to prevent others from spending money on a book based on untruths. Very disappointed in how quickly this book took to untruths.