Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    #OrganicJesus: Finding Your Way to an Unprocessed, GMO-free Christianity
    Unavailable
    #OrganicJesus: Finding Your Way to an Unprocessed, GMO-free Christianity
    Unavailable
    #OrganicJesus: Finding Your Way to an Unprocessed, GMO-free Christianity
    Ebook278 pages3 hours

    #OrganicJesus: Finding Your Way to an Unprocessed, GMO-free Christianity

    By Scott Douglas

    2.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    If Generation Next is supposed to question everything and trust no one, where does faith fit in?

    Consumers demand that their food be pesticide—free, their cosmetics and shampoo be paraben-free, and that everything possible—from clothes to toilet paper—be made without additives or chemicals. But there's nothing that has more additives to the original product than Christianity. How do we get back to the 100% organic version of Jesus?

    In his personal search for the organic Jesus, Scott Douglas goes on a funny, thought—provoking romp through the foundations of belief. Christianity, he says, has become a simulacrum—a bloated, overprocessed image that lacks the true substance of the real thing. His search for the original took him far and wide through historical Christ figures, urban legends, odd facts about the faith, freakishly flawed Christians, and the Internet. Using relatable, contemporary anecdotes, and unlikely wisdom concealed within humor, Douglas reveals a way back to the authentic essence of following Christ.

    By including "wiki" breaks, social media callouts, quizzes, charts, and more, #OrganicJesus is ideal for readers raised on social media who can't step out of their house without tweeting about it or eat lunch without posting on Instagram. Douglas is careful to be as non—biased as possible, writing not for any particular agenda—political or otherwise—but instead encouraging readers to seek their own path for spiritual renewal. The result is a candid look at modern Christianity that will challenge savvy young Christians to put as much effort into discovering sustainable religion as they do in their pursuit of an organic marketplace.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKregel Publications
    Release dateJun 8, 2016
    ISBN9780825486425
    Unavailable
    #OrganicJesus: Finding Your Way to an Unprocessed, GMO-free Christianity

    Read more from Scott Douglas

    Related to #OrganicJesus

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Reviews for #OrganicJesus

    2.5/5

    6 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      What a disappointing book. I was looking forward to reading this one, but it failed to make a good impression.On the plus side, he acknowledges that God is known by faith, and that faith should be in God, not in church or other people, since those can let you down.The first flaw in this search to find the "organic Jesus" is the inane set up of this book; even my teens found all the little blurbs, sidetracks and suggestions to post things online distracting and not well done. If indeed people are distracted by technology, this book does nothing to help with that with its format.The second is the very surface discussion and the failure to back up most of what he said. Douglas basically comes up with a somewhat twentieth century looking Jesus based largely on the theology hacked out in the first few centuries by the church fathers, politicians and a sometimes violent and bloody fight over whose version of the trinity and theology should dominate, which often had little to do with actual scripture and a lot to do with inculcating doctrines of other religions and, at times, adding scriptures (this is known to anyone who has done careful study of this.)He is rather fickle on what he takes (evolution, for example, despite the fact that it is based on the philosophy of materialism and much of it on the theory of uniformitarianism and that it hasn't been fully proven, and yes it's true that that theory led theologians to investigate creationism etc in a way not done for a very, very long time, which doesn't make it a bad thing or even wrong), and what he drops (the rapture only because he can only find references to it for the past couple of hundred years, even though it's known that for centuries Roman Catholics would rout out people who disagreed with them and wipe out much or all of their theology, and really without any indepth discussion of it; whether or not it's accurate has little to do with the age of the theology). As if the reformation wasn't an ongoing process and stopped shortly after Luther et al.But basically, it's just shallow, splashy writing that doesn't give us anything to really sink our teeth into. It's sort of a homogenized theology popular in many churches, but not all, and certainly not well documented.
    • 2/5
      This one took me some time to get through - not because it was a difficult read, but because of the annoying "WikiBreaks" and conversational rather than expository nature of the writing. If you're looking for a book of solid Christian apologetics, there are far better books to be had. This book had nuggets of truth on a subtle backdrop of postmodernism. It will probably appeal to the millennial generation, but it will not make a list of my recommended books for a new or mature Christian.I received this book in exchange for my honest review as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
    • 2/5
      Scott Douglas' #OrganicJesus reminded me of "Blue Like Jazz": a witty attempt to engage those who believe and those who don't. Then again, I was reminded of "Radical" as well. Somehow the impression that the orthodoxy that built up the church is now its sickness is a strong force in contemporary writing...but I found as I read on that such a sweeping assessment for this book was largely a mistaken impression on my part. (Although, I think Douglas makes some terrible statements anyways, such as in his sections contending that the Bible is myth. His argument is a fiction.)It seems to me that a person who believes that "faith is believing in something you cannot understand with rational thought" (25) might be better off owning the mysticism of any other Eastern religion but Christianity. This unfortunate statement is about the worst Douglas says in the entire book (beaten only by the Bible is myth statements), although a number of statements just had me shaking my head and moving on.I am glad I did because, like Douglas, I enjoy observing and analyzing what is going on in our American culture. Douglas gives us lots to engage with, more to assimilate, and even things to memorize--if one is so inclined.Overall, I would recommend this book. Read it by the fire, or in the coffee shop and enjoy. But, don't give it to so-called "seekers" and young believers until they have a firm foundation in their Bibliology. The Bible is a revelation that has an authoritative word from God for us. It is not a myth, but a history of redemption and the things necessary to be known and believed for salvation.
    • 3/5
      An interesting book but the author holds some opinion that I do not. The humor was good but a touch over the top at times. I did enjoy the interjection of social media and wikibreaks.
    • 4/5
      #OrganicJesus lightly pokes fun at both contemporary pop culture and the culture that has grown up around the church, but don't let the veggie-related title fool you. This book is meaty. It does not shy away from history or deep theology. It just offers up those subjects with an eye on the world around us. Those of us who follow Christian culture have probably seen the myriad headlines about the number of millennials abandoning institutional religion, among the many other sins this generation gets blamed for. Douglas nods and winks in their direction with the format of his book, which references social media that may seem stale in ten years' time. But look just past these attention-grabbers, and you will see that his message could not be more serious: When Christians act as if everyone in our midst should look or think or behave a certain way, we turn away the people who most need our fellowship. When Christians turn music into entertainment and prayer into formulas, we shut down the part of our brains that thinks about the encounter we should be having with God in those moments. When Christians try to shelter ourselves from sin or science, we miss out on opportunities to witness more boldly and to know God more deeply. These are but a few of the ways in which the author turns his focus on his own traditions and tries to reclaim a relationship with the Biblical Jesus from the Kirk Cameron, Amy Grant, Duck Dynasty, Republican party culture that (in America at least) has so shaped what we think of when we think of the church. Strikingly, however, Douglas manages to acknowledge those influences without indulging in the temptation to waste prolonged time bashing them. He references Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and his experiences with Campus Crusade not to mock, but simply to draw into relief his main point, that what we can add to Christian faith is no substitute for Christian faith, and that, without care, what we add to Christian faith can even take away from it.The book is blurbed as suitable for both new and old believers alike, and it is, provided that new believers don't rely on it as their sole source of information about who Jesus is. The Gospel message is present, and Douglas will take you on a whirlwind tour of Christian history and apologetics, but hopefully his book will whet your appetite to dig in further by seeking out other sources. Even as someone familiar with church history, I felt that he drew my attention to areas I knew little about and wished I could research further. Some points of discussion may be confusing to non-believers or new Christians; maybe a more practiced Christian's first application after reading this book could be to engage those readers in dialogue and further study on some of the stickier issues of faith and theology.
    • 1/5
      This book is obviously written for someone but it is not written for me. I found it glitzy, "stunningly tacky" (the phrase the author uses to describe the one-time Crystal Cathedral) and distracting. There may be good content here, and its style may be helpful to some, but the more relevant we try to be to some, the larger the group of people who don't share that relevance. But that doesn't mean you won't like it.