Russell Rathbun
- About the Book POST-RAPTURE RADIO: "Hilarious, passionate, infuriating, revealing, alarming, perplexing, illuminating. In short, apocalyptic. And definitely required reading for anyone seeking a faithful Christianity in the heart of the American Empire." "Once in a while a book reaches out from the page, grabs me by the scruff of the neck, and says something so pithy, so smart, and irreverently funny that I almost bust a gut laughing. That's what Post-Rapture Radio did to me on several occasions. The fact is, sometimes satire is the best way for us to see our own foibles, and this book is a wonderful antidote to much that ails the church. It's A Confederacy of Dunces for Christians." "Soren Kierkegaard said that people held in the grip of an illusion cannot be directly reasoned with. One must assault them with appealing but apparently absurd stories and even contradictions in the desperate hope that indirect communication can accomplish what direct communication cannot. Russell Rathbun may be Kierkegaard's great-grandson or something. If you have no illusions, you don't need to read this. Otherwise..." "Funny and thought-provoking. It challenges the way one thinks about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the church in his name." "There are times when the tongue-in-cheek can become a light in the mind -- when 'off the wall' becomes the plank of reality. Richard Lamblove was a driven crusader in his last-ditch stand against the shallowly fervent. I feel the fury of his fugitively scribbling his final battle plan on the remnants of cereal boxes and scraps of cardboard. Alas, were it not for Russell Rathbun, we would not know of these lost writings nor feel the loss of great truth to the forces of evangelical glitz." In Post-Rapture Radio, our faithful narrator finds a mysterious box containing the sermons and journal entries of a genuine, unvarnished American character the Reverend Richard Lamblove. The little-known Lamblove tried and failed to revolutionize contemporary Christian culture. As his journal entries, cereal box scribblings, and random notes written on paper scraps reveal, Lamblove sees contemporary culture as shallow, overly individualistic, and consumed with the kind of status measured by money, power, and celebrity. And American Evangelicalism -- which has been integrated into the culture as a whole -- has similar failings. Reverend Lamblove vanished without a trace, but Russell Rathbun has "compiled" his papers into a compelling critique of contemporary faith; an antidote to faith-as-usual and a wakeup call for Christians to genuinely respond to the gospel. Copyright ©2005 by Russell Rathbun. All Rights Reserved. Excerpted from Post-Rapture Radio (2005, $21.95, Cloth) by Russell Rathbun by permission of Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint.
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- Excerpt Mercy Machine |
About the Author Russell Rathbun is one of the preachers at House of Mercy Church (HOM) in St. Paul, Minnesota. A member of the American Baptist Association, Russell has been involved with HOM since its inception in 1996. Frustrated with the shallowness of the American Evangelical Movement of the past few decades, and seeing that many of his friends wanted to have nothing to do with Christianity, Russell (along with the two other pastors at HOM -- Debbie Blue and Mark Stenberg) decided to create a church that his friends would want to come to. Desiring to create a community that was Christ-centered, but not religiously generic; intellectually honest and rigorous; open to "liturgical eclecticism" (drawing from the wide expanse of historic church traditions); grounded in the good news of God's grace, and not the bad news of shame and religious manipulation; and centered on social justice and mercy, House of Mercy was formed. "We are an ecumenical fellowship in the true sense of the word, celebrating the best of what the church has to offer." House of Mercy exists to create community. Russell believes that the church needs to be found more in the midst of culture; not to be there judging it, but rather pointing people to where they can find God at work in it. Russell is married with two children and the family dog, KoKo. |
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