Blind Spots

Very helpful and encouraging book. Thankful for Collin Hansen's work on this subject and am hopeful for the fruit it will produce in my life, my church and the wider church as we all strive to follow our courageous, compassionate and commissioned saviour Jesus Christ

It was a good read.Yet it really started out good and at the final chapter fizzled out. I was wanting Hansen to talk more on the vine and the branches.

good

The landscape of Christianity is changing. Denominational divisions are quickly fading, and new lines are being drawn in the sand. These days Christians are divided by causes, movements, and tribes–each with their own pedestaled preachers, key issues, and whipping boys. As Editorial Director of The Gospel Coalition, Collin Hansen admits he has had his fair share of interaction with the temptations of tribalism in contemporary Evangelicalism. In his latest book Blind Spots, Hansen invites us to consider if his personal experience resonates with our own. He found himself looking down on other believers who, in his mind, just didn’t get Christianity. Hansen introduces his latest work Blind Spots by saying, “I wrote this book so you might learn to compare yourself more to Christ than to other Christians” (19).Could it be that your version of Christianity has blind spots? Is it at least conceivable that the Jesus you follow is not the fully orbed Christ of the Bible? Hansen singles out the way our blind spots quickly form: “We tend to cluster around Christians with similar personalities, who reinforce our strengths but turn a blind eye to our weaknesses” (32). By separating from Christians with different passions from us and gathering with others who are exactly like us, we are slowly inbreeding terrible blind spots.Hansen challenges:"Here’s how you know you’re divisive: you thank God you’re not like those theology-obsessed fundamentalists. Or those bleeding-heart liberals. Or those pragmatic megachurch pastors. You already know the enemy before you know the details. You know the solution before you ever know the specific problem. Furthermore, you don’t pray for these opponents in the church. If anything, you pray against them."But Jesus himself told us to pray for our enemies. Can you do so? Can you understand that different approaches may be needed in different scenarios, like a counselor exercising discernment and care? Even better, can you admit that we need all the compassionate, courageous, and commissioned Christians we can muster to work together out of respect for God’s gifting and in obedience to Jesus? The magnitude of our challenges today ought to dispel the illusion that any one wing of the divided church can go it alone."The rest of Hansen’s book lays out a description of three basic camps: Courageous, Compassionate, and Commissioned. Each chapter characterizes the strengths and blind spots of each group. Compassionate Christians understand the throbbing heart of Jesus the Shepherd and desire to care for the poor and neglected. However, they can also fall to the temptation of scapegoating and blaming elements of society rather than recognizing the influence of sin in the world. Courageous Christians stand firm on God’s truth, but they succumb to the blind spot of alarmism and seeing heroes of the past through a gauzy nostalgia. Commissioned Christians recognize the need to seek and save the lost. Sometimes in “their search for cultural relevance they can slide into syncretism” (90).Hansen writes, “It’s easier to associate only with our own. But anyone in the world can have that kind of community” (105). Perhaps this was the most pricking truth in the whole book. I read about the diversity of the body of Christ in passages like 1 Corinthians 12, and I recognize the foolishness of an eye saying to the hand, “I have no need of you,” but this is exactly what is happening on a grand scale in the Church today–and many times in my own life.Hansen has a very plain writing style, and this book is a quick read. If you have found in the past year that you have parted ways with someone, allowed a friendship with a Christian of a “different stripe” languish, or have thought about leaving a church because it doesn’t share your particular passion, Blind Spots is the book for you. We need believers who are different from us, who will challenge our preconceived notions, and who will help us continually return to Christ.(Discloser: I received this book for free as a part of the Beyond the Page program at Crossway Publishers. I was not influenced in any way to give a favorable review.)

Sadly, we all have blind spots in our lives. Areas that we do not see as we ought to, as Christ did. What is even more sad is often times we see other believers who are gifted different than we are as the enemy. We seek out the negative instead of the positive and focus on it. So, instead of being a unified church doing kingdom work we can quickly become divided and hinder our witness to the world. In Blind Spots: Becoming a Courageous, Compassionate and Commissioned Church, Collin Hansen defines three different types of Christians and examines both the strengths and weaknesses of each group.The classifications that Hansen uses are: Courageous, Compassionate and Commissioned. In the Foreword Tim Keller provides a helpful overview of these classifications. He states, "The 'courage' group stands valiantly for the truth; the 'compassion' people stress service, listening, and engagement; while the 'commissioned' folks are all about building up the church and reaching the lost. Once things are broken down like that, it becomes clear that these should be strands in a single cord. Each group goes bad to the degree it distances itself from the others." It is along this line of thinking that Hansen explores these three groups, examining the strengths and weaknesses of each. If a church can become unified around Christ and the gospel and recognize that each member of the body will be gifted differently by God then it can keep from becoming warped and having blind spots where it neglects one' of these areas. The chart below breaks down these three groupings with positive characteristics listed in yellow and blind spots in greenHansen says that "we talk a lot about church unity. So where is the evidence that we actually want it?...You lament the divided church, yet you're quick to speak about the problems you see with other believers." I know this is so true in my life. It is so much easier to write-off other believers than to actually take the time and effort to get to know them as a brother or sister in Christ. We can so often treat our Christian family as if they are the enemy. The solution is to compare ourselves to Christ instead of comparing other believers to ourselves. As Hansen states, "When you and I compare ourselves to Christ, we get unity because we see our sin and forgive one another as God forgave us....When you and I compare ourselves to Christ, we're more impressed with the grace he lavished on us than with our own contributions to the kingdom."Ultimately looking at Jesus as our example is the solution to our blind spots. As Hansen says, "Almost everyone loves something about Jesus. Some of us love his courage to endure the scorn and shame of the cross. Others love his compassion to associate with sinners and liberate the oppressed. Still more love his compassion for the disciples to heal the sick and cast out demonic spirits. It's harder, though, to love the real Jesus who does all this and more, then calls us to follow in his steps. We often seize on one aspect of his character and ministry and brandish it as a weapon against other believers." The call of this book is to recognize different believer's giftings as from God and to work together to further the advance of the gospel. To do this we must first, examine our lives and our hearts to see what blind spots we have, repent and love our brothers and sisters in Christ.You can check out a free excerpt of Blind Spots here.I received a copy of this book from Crossway in exchange for an honest review.

Excellent book, a very worthwhile read.

Nothing special. Could have a good article but not the entire book.