by David Augsburger

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review by Gene Pickard

DAVID AUGSBURGER'S BOOK Dissident Discipleship focuses on a demanding and dissident form of discipleship from an Anabaptist perspective. Therefore, the reader gains both a better understanding of the biblical pattern for Christlike discipleship and at the same time learns more about Anabaptist theology and practice.

The subtitle of the book—“A Spirituality of Self-Surrender, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor”—indicates the primary focus. Augsburger coins the term tripolar spirituality to encapsulate this form of spirituality. Monopolar spirituality is “the inner, subjective encounter with one's own inner universal self” (p. 11). Bipolar spirituality “is both an inner, subjective experience of coming to know one's true self and an objective experience of existence before God” (p. 12). But tripolar spirituality “possesses three dimensions: it is inwardly directed, upwardly compliant, and outwardly committed” (p. 13).

The author characterizes this tripolar approach to spirituality as “a cluster of practices of dissident discipleship, not a set of disciplines” (p. 9). The book is not so much a “how-to” book as an “ought-to” book—what true Christian spirituality and Christlike discipleship ought to look like in practice. The eight practices that Augsburger discusses are: 1) radical attachment (not believing in Jesus, but believing Jesus and believing what Jesus believed); 2) stubborn loyalty (living one's Christian life in loyalty to community); 3) tenacious serenity (the practice of self-surrender not separated from stubborn commitment); 4) habitual humility (“willingness to live out self-renunciation in noncoercive mutuality that refuses domination,” p. 122); 5) resolute nonviolence (“Because my life is in God's hands, I will never take my enemy's life into my hands,” quote from John Howard Yoder on p. 125); 6) concrete service (the best form of this is secret service—one that does not seek recognition and applause); 7) authentic witness (practice of the Great Commission must always be tied to practice of the great commandment to be authentic); and 8) subversive spirituality (downward to the powerless, poor, helpless, oppressed, rather than upward to power, wealth, success).

This book will not allow the reader to be comfortable in the status-quo form of evangelicalism. It challenges us to go beyond the “what-would-Jesus-do” bracelets and T-shirts to a living-as-Jesus-lived-and-believed mentality and practice. It calls for a life of integrity, authenticity, loyalty, humility, and genuine, altruistic service while rejecting a more typical narcissistic form of Christianity. It summons us to a nonviolent life of true love for neighbor, a political involvement on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed. Augsburger challenged me to self-examination in regard to my devotion to Jesus, and especially to my fellow man. I often found myself, while reading the book, asking the questions: Can I live this way? Do I want to live this way? But I ended with the question: Hadn't I ought to live this way if I really want to be a disciple of Jesus?

Despite these positive aspects, Dissident Discipleship will undoubtedly find some dissident readership. Augsburger at times makes statements that seem over-the-top when dealing with the issues of our responsibility and relationship to our fellow men and women, loyalty to community, and resolute nonviolence. For instance, when he speaks of fellow disciples as “not just co-travelers but…the presence, the face of Jesus in the actual body of Christ” (p. 41), and again, “each disciple is the actual face of Christ to another” (p. 42), this reader was left wondering if this is the Anabaptist version of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

In his chapter called “Stubborn Loyalty,” the author makes statements like: “Christ is most truly known in community” (p. 65). “In communal spirituality, community, not the private closet, is the location—the community of the Spirit—where we experience God-with-us” (p. 67). And “To be in Christ, in the Spirit, in the Lord, in the body, in the church, are interchangeable, essentially equivalent” (p. 76). Of course the author is trying to make us aware of the need for one another and of how unbiblical our stress is on individuality in the Christian life. But it seems to me that these statements, especially the last, go too far.

Finally, though I myself did alternative service as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, I found some dissidence with the author regarding some of the statements he made on the practice of nonviolence. It was not hard to agree with the author that coercion decreases humanity (p. 134), and to some extent, that pacifism justifies itself in Jesus, not in its effectiveness (p. 137). However, to state that “all followers of Jesus are pacifists” (p. 136), to reject self-defense as less than spiritual (p.142), and to classify those who participate in military service as apostates (p. 205) made me realize I am probably a modified pacifist (if that is not an oxymoron) rather a true pacifist, at least as the Anabaptists describe them. I was also disappointed to read that “the dissenting disciple refuses to join in the pitched battle over abortion” (p. 209). It seems inconsistent to me to say that the dissident disciple must take a stand against injustice and coercion, and practice nonviolence, and then state that we shouldn't join in the battle over abortion. Who are the most unjustly coerced and violently treated members of our society if not the aborted unborn?

Recognizing that there will be disagreements with his positions in some cases, the author places a section entitled “On the Other Hand” at the end of each chapter in anticipation of some of those questions and objections.

Dissident Discipleship is a challenging book, well worth the read—unless the reader is satisfied with static spirituality over dynamic spiritual growth.

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