"Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God," Mark Galli (Baker Books, July, 2006)

Mark Galli doesn’t lash out at the notion that God is love so much as he tries to introduce balance to a one-sided theology. The latest book by Christianity Today's managing editor deepens the character of a Christ that he says many evangelical Christians have softened in the last decade to such a point that he has become all grace and no grit.

Galli’s look at Jesus’ harsh side comes from an examination of the Gospel of Mark, where the sentimental idea of love is replaced by a Christ who is more "mean and wild."

The author begins by asserting that Jesus’ temptation in the desert, which immediately followed his baptism, was a sort of misery that prepares him for ministry. This was by God’s design, according to Galli. And that ministry is anchored in repentance—something Jesus shouts more often than a caricatured street preacher. It is just this sort of "meanness" that makes Jesus something other than the all-grace-all-the-time Savior that a more modern remake of the Messiah has fashioned. Jesus is concerned about holiness and repentance, not pleasantness. 

More than a belief in "niceness"

While Jesus' example also provided Christians with an ideal of humility, forgiveness and mercy, Galli writes that isolating the latter creates a false "Religion of Niceness:" "… when we hear someone quote the second Great Commandment, the epitome of Christian ethics, we tend to hear: 'Be nice to your neighbor, as you would have your neighbor be nice to you.'"

Instead, Galli champions a richer notion of love that deepens beyond civility—both in human relationships and with God. Sometimes confrontation is necessary, and the Gospels provide plenty of example of Jesus confronting people, according to Galli. So, he concludes, "To refuse confrontation is also to refuse love," Galli writes. And he goes further to assert that anger is also a holy response to certain circumstances—again citing Christ's example.

Galli writes a good deal about the duty Christians have to point out sin and most believers’ reticence to do so for fear of being considered judgmental or self-righteous. However, honesty in relationships is a requirement of loving like Jesus, Galli says.

There is much more about the wildness of the Christ as well. Galli’s book is a test of the theology of pop-Christianity, and well worth the read. Although some chapters read much like sermons (Galli’s former pulpit time obviously showing), they are good sermons.

The author helps us understand the dilemma of loving a God who is tyrannical, or resenting a God who is too nice. Rather than solving the mystery of Jesus, as so many modern ministers have been tempted to do in three-point sermons or simple acronyms, Galli seems to be encouraging Christians to embrace the mystery—even the mean and wild parts of Jesus—that make him both fully God and fully human.