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A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age
Why have some Christians, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr., been able to speak truth to power at great personal cost, while others readily capitulate to injustice? In this magnum opus, Christian ethicist Glen Stassen argues that such robust Christianity stems from believing in a "thicker" Jesus, who is Lord over the whole of life and not just one compartment of it. Belief in this thicker Jesus results in "incarnational discipleship" and can help Christians deal with the challenges of what Charles Taylor has identified as a secular age. Stassen elegantly weaves the characteristics of incarnational discipleship as correctives to secularism.
- GenresTheologySocial Justice
280 pages, Paperback
First published October 25, 2012
27 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Glen H. Stassen
17 books10 followersGlen Harold Stassen was a Southern Baptist theologian who helped define the social-justice wing of the evangelical movement in the 1980s and played a role in advancing nuclear disarmament talks toward the end of the Cold War.
Stassen studied nuclear physics at the University of Virginia and worked briefly in a naval laboratory after graduation before deciding that he could not contribute to the development of nuclear weapons. He quit to attend Union Theological Seminary in New York City and received his doctorate from the Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C., in 1967.
He taught at Kentucky Southern College (now part of the University of Louisville) and Berea College in Kentucky before joining Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. There, Dr. Stassen clashed with administrators who urged faculty members to place ideas like prohibiting abortion, the subordination of women in the family and the literal truth of biblical texts at the core of their teaching.
More than personal rectitude and obedience to rules of behavior, Dr. Stassen argued, Christian ethics demanded organized action to save the world from self-destruction.
“Christians need more than an ethic of ‘just say no,’ ” he wrote. “Jesus didn’t just say no to anger and revengeful resistance, but commanded transforming initiatives: ‘Go make peace with your brother or sister; go the second mile with the Roman soldier.’ ”
What Christians needed, he said, was “an ethic of constructive peacemaking.”
Dr. Stassen championed a pragmatic approach to social justice and world peace. In a series of books beginning in 1992, he outlined a program of grass-roots activism to reduce military spending, improve the lives of the disadvantaged and give citizens a voice in international conflict resolution.
Dr. Stassen’s version of political activism in the 1980s and ’90s put him at odds with leaders of the religious right, who were focusing on opposing abortion and gay rights.
Dr. Stassen was among the few prominent evangelical leaders to publicly challenge the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the leader of the Moral Majority, over his electioneering on behalf of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984. And he was among the few to criticize Reagan over his domestic spending cuts, his military buildup and his use of the phrase “evil empire” in 1983 to describe the Soviet Union.
He went on to help mobilize the international disarmament movement that, by some accounts, played a role in removing intermediate range nuclear missiles from Western Europe in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
Theologians had long wrestled with the Christian response to war, and whether it was ever morally justified to kill. Two schools of thought had emerged: pacifism, which said it was never justified, and “just war” theory, which described circumstances in which killing in war was morally defensible. Dr. Stassen advocated what he called a third option: preventing wars from starting in the first place.
In Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives of Justice and Peace (1992) and a dozen other books on nonviolence and conflict resolution, Dr. Stassen described techniques for hard-nosed negotiating in which both parties admit culpability for past deeds, take a clearheaded measure of the interests of the other side and sometimes make calculated unilateral initiatives.
“Biblical realism,” as he described the mind-set for negotiations like these, “is about diagnosing sin realistically and seeking deliverance, not merely about affirming some high ideals.”
- summarised/edited from The New York Times Obituary
Stassen studied nuclear physics at the University of Virginia and worked briefly in a naval laboratory after graduation before deciding that he could not contribute to the development of nuclear weapons. He quit to attend Union Theological Seminary in New York City and received his doctorate from the Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C., in 1967.
He taught at Kentucky Southern College (now part of the University of Louisville) and Berea College in Kentucky before joining Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. There, Dr. Stassen clashed with administrators who urged faculty members to place ideas like prohibiting abortion, the subordination of women in the family and the literal truth of biblical texts at the core of their teaching.
More than personal rectitude and obedience to rules of behavior, Dr. Stassen argued, Christian ethics demanded organized action to save the world from self-destruction.
“Christians need more than an ethic of ‘just say no,’ ” he wrote. “Jesus didn’t just say no to anger and revengeful resistance, but commanded transforming initiatives: ‘Go make peace with your brother or sister; go the second mile with the Roman soldier.’ ”
What Christians needed, he said, was “an ethic of constructive peacemaking.”
Dr. Stassen championed a pragmatic approach to social justice and world peace. In a series of books beginning in 1992, he outlined a program of grass-roots activism to reduce military spending, improve the lives of the disadvantaged and give citizens a voice in international conflict resolution.
Dr. Stassen’s version of political activism in the 1980s and ’90s put him at odds with leaders of the religious right, who were focusing on opposing abortion and gay rights.
Dr. Stassen was among the few prominent evangelical leaders to publicly challenge the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the leader of the Moral Majority, over his electioneering on behalf of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1984. And he was among the few to criticize Reagan over his domestic spending cuts, his military buildup and his use of the phrase “evil empire” in 1983 to describe the Soviet Union.
He went on to help mobilize the international disarmament movement that, by some accounts, played a role in removing intermediate range nuclear missiles from Western Europe in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
Theologians had long wrestled with the Christian response to war, and whether it was ever morally justified to kill. Two schools of thought had emerged: pacifism, which said it was never justified, and “just war” theory, which described circumstances in which killing in war was morally defensible. Dr. Stassen advocated what he called a third option: preventing wars from starting in the first place.
In Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives of Justice and Peace (1992) and a dozen other books on nonviolence and conflict resolution, Dr. Stassen described techniques for hard-nosed negotiating in which both parties admit culpability for past deeds, take a clearheaded measure of the interests of the other side and sometimes make calculated unilateral initiatives.
“Biblical realism,” as he described the mind-set for negotiations like these, “is about diagnosing sin realistically and seeking deliverance, not merely about affirming some high ideals.”
- summarised/edited from The New York Times Obituary
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 28, 2013
This is a "thick" book--not in its number of pages, but in its depth. It is a book that needs to be studied, not just read.
The purpose of the book is stated this way: "Mainline churches need a clearer and deeper theology and ethics, and theology needs to focus on a thicker Jesus. . . . Evangelical churches and seeker-friendly churches need a thicker Jesus to guard their members against being coopted by political ideologies . . .” (x).
In the second chapter Stassen writes about how incarnational discipleship involves “a thick, historically-embodied, realistic understanding of Jesus Christ”; “a holistic understanding of the Lordship of Christ or sovereignty of God throughout all of life and all of creation”; and “a strong call for repentance from captivity to ideologies such as nationalism, racism, and greed” (16-17). These are the three main characteristics of incarnational discipleship and are examined throughout the rest of the book.
In the fifth chapter Stassen particularly emphasizes the “free-church type of Puritanism,” and he mentions both Baptists and Anabaptists (as well as Quakers). But then he says that it was the Baptists who “had committed themselves to following a thicker Jesus” (66). (I think he should have said Anabaptists.)
In Chapter 10 Stassen goes to considerable lengths to point out how “Jesus emphasizes transforming initiatives that empower us to overcome self-defeating and disempowering power dynamics” (195). This detailed analysis of “transforming initiatives” seems to be one of the original, and most helpful, parts of his work.
The book ends with this "one remaining question: Will you join in the apostolic witness to a thicker Jesus—in the tradition of incarnational discipleship? (221).
While I felt that the book was maybe a bit pedantic in places, and also while I thought there could have been better, more creative titles used for the subsections of the chapters, this is a significant book and one that deserves to be widely read (studied) by those who are concerned about what it means, or what it should mean, to be a following of Jesus in this secular age.
The purpose of the book is stated this way: "Mainline churches need a clearer and deeper theology and ethics, and theology needs to focus on a thicker Jesus. . . . Evangelical churches and seeker-friendly churches need a thicker Jesus to guard their members against being coopted by political ideologies . . .” (x).
In the second chapter Stassen writes about how incarnational discipleship involves “a thick, historically-embodied, realistic understanding of Jesus Christ”; “a holistic understanding of the Lordship of Christ or sovereignty of God throughout all of life and all of creation”; and “a strong call for repentance from captivity to ideologies such as nationalism, racism, and greed” (16-17). These are the three main characteristics of incarnational discipleship and are examined throughout the rest of the book.
In the fifth chapter Stassen particularly emphasizes the “free-church type of Puritanism,” and he mentions both Baptists and Anabaptists (as well as Quakers). But then he says that it was the Baptists who “had committed themselves to following a thicker Jesus” (66). (I think he should have said Anabaptists.)
In Chapter 10 Stassen goes to considerable lengths to point out how “Jesus emphasizes transforming initiatives that empower us to overcome self-defeating and disempowering power dynamics” (195). This detailed analysis of “transforming initiatives” seems to be one of the original, and most helpful, parts of his work.
The book ends with this "one remaining question: Will you join in the apostolic witness to a thicker Jesus—in the tradition of incarnational discipleship? (221).
While I felt that the book was maybe a bit pedantic in places, and also while I thought there could have been better, more creative titles used for the subsections of the chapters, this is a significant book and one that deserves to be widely read (studied) by those who are concerned about what it means, or what it should mean, to be a following of Jesus in this secular age.
May 5, 2016
Glen Stassen, ethics professor at Fuller Seminary (my alma mater), Baptist Free Church Christian, and son of the late Progressive politician Harold Stassen, has written a wonderful book on incarnational discipleship in a secular age. His is a call to discipleship that affirms realism over idealism, that seeks to move us toward transformative initiatives in the world in which we live. Countering the move toward secularism requires an ethic that is rooted in this kind of faith. A fuller review coming -- but excellent book.
November 11, 2019
I found this book difficult at times. However, I found myself agreeing with his basic tenets and especially his argument for transforming initiatives. I am an amateur theological investigator in the Anabaptist tradition so incarnational discipleship as Stassen promotes it makes sense.
January 24, 2026
It was a dense read but a great read. Stassen was so prescient and prophetic on issues like authoritarianism, violence, sin, and love. The book is more relevant than when it first came out because Stassen could tell which way the tides were carrying the American church.
June 10, 2021
A wonderful book about transformational discipleship. Professor Stassen was a gem!
June 1, 2016
In "A Thicker Jesus" the author presents a vision for an "incarnational discipleship" that resolves the common tendency to interpret Jesus' sermon on the mount as impractical idealism while also addressing the secularism at work in this age (as understood by Charles Taylor). Special place is given to the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and, to a lesser extent, Martin Luther King. This is deep and challenging read.
July 25, 2015
Likely, I would find it difficult to argue with most of what Stassen has to say. I didn't rate the book higher because it seemed to me it took him forever to say it. He is greatly influenced by Bonhoeffer and also makes frequent reference to Charles Taylor.
August 15, 2013
One of the best books I've read this year. Good interaction with ethics, discipleship, and secularism. I appreciate his strong emphasis upon Incarnation.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews