Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise

by Richard Beck

When Richard Beck first led a Bible study at a maximum security prison, he went to meet God. His own faith was flagging, but Beck still believed the promise of Matthew 25, that when we visit the prisoner, we visit Jesus. And sure enough, God met him in prison.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christian, Nonfiction, Faith, Spirituality, Christianity

244 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2017

About the author

Dr. Richard Beck is a Professor of Psychology at Abilene Christian University, and he is the author of the popular blog Experimental Theology: The Thoughts, Articles and Essays of Richard Beck and the books The Slavery of Death, Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality and The Authenticity of Faith: The Varieties and Illusions of Religious Experience. As an experimental psychologist and a practicing Christian, he attempts in his writing "to integrate theology with the experimental social sciences."

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Luke Magnuson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of my favorite writings of Richard Beck are his meditations on the Little Way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, which is "simply the intentional practice of kindness."

And I love the ways he describes hospitality: "Hospitality begins by widening the circle of our affections, the circumference of our care, the arena of our compassion, and the territory of our kindness."

[Kitija · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mazais ceļš. Mazā bībelīte ( nu tā, no Hermaņa “Baltais helikopters”). Nemetāties ar tādiem lieliem vārdiem kā mīlestība, jo ne vella nezini, kas tas ir. Vispirms noskaidro kas ir laipnība.
Maskējies Dievs parādās katrā svešiniekā. Maskējies Jēzus ir katrā atstumtajā. Visur tur, kur vispirms jutīsies neērti, bailīgi un rauksi degunu riebumā. Ir viegli empatizēt kādu sociālu problēmu, bet empatizēt sociālās problēmas subjektu, vairs nav tik vienkārši. Nostājoties seju pret seju, aci pret aci pēkšņi visa tava empātija var iet pupās. Viss tavs “gribu pasauli glābt”, “gribu iestāties par”. Sastopies ar savu nevarēšanu. Savu mazdūšību. Savu sirdsšaurību. Sastopies ar “Tu, kas ir Dievs” un aste ir kājstarpē.. Vēl daudz darba priekšā.
Ja tā, tad Jēzus divas dabas kļūst saprotamākas. Paldies, Ričard. Zināju, ka bija vērts atdzejot Tavu dzeju Adventes laikā, pirms diviem gadiem.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read on hospitality and where it begins. I appreciate the author giving very practical examples of how to put his ideas into practice. I can also agree that hospitality, when practiced the way God intends, is very intentional and probably uncomfortable. I'm not sure that I agree with "putting love on the bench" but I do think I understand where he was going with this idea. This book is getting four stars as it was way too wordy at the end. Could have ended several pages earlier.

[David Eiffert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've followed Richard Beck's blog (Experimental Theology, look it up) for years now, this is the first book I've read by him. Accessible, challenging, funny. SO GOOD!!!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love love love this book. I've read it 3 times since I started it. Some many great things. I'd never heard of the "Little Way." What a concept! Love can change everything, especially the way you see others.

[Bret Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it too early to say this is the best book I've read this year?

Excellent book; challenging but also encouraging. Everything Beck calls the reader to is necessary and doesn't seem impossible. He truly makes you feel like you can do this.

Check out my visible quotes. I believe they will bless you.

[Matthew McBirth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book on the subject of Christian hospitality and kindness. What I like about the book is Beck goes into the psychology of why we “lean away” from strange, and then provides a spiritual discipline to counter that habit.

[Robin Curry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life-changing book (I hope)

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a humble little book, but rich with insight. Highly recommended.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am glad that I read this book. I think it could have had about 50 less pages, but for the most part the repetition didn't take too much away from the important points in this book.

Beck is clearly versed in interesting psychological experiments that overlap with the idea of hospitality. The studies he summarizes are interesting in their own right, but also fortify his points about how Christians need to work against our natural tendencies to offer hospitality to those outside of our natural social circles. He also deftly uses scripture to illustrate the concept of biblical hospitality, how we are to treat the marginalized, and the behavior of Jesus in such situations.

The majority of this book can be summed up in 3 major points:
1. Christians need to widen their circle of affections to include the marginalized, even though it is often uncomfortable-- because in those people we find the "Stranger God" in disguise.
2. Beck really likes Saint Therese of Lisieux's work titled "The Little Way."
3. "The Little Way" suggests that practicing hospitality isn't a series of grand "radical" gestures. It's training yourself to see people you would normally avoid (Seeing), allowing your plans to be interrupted by them (Stopping), and learning to overcome your biases to approach them with kindness (Approaching).

I took notes on some passages in the book that I thought were of particular interest and/or that pose a personal challenge to me. They are below in order of appearance. Note: Words in parentheses are my own. I used a LOT of ellipses to denote where I omitted original text (see my comment about repetitiveness above).

Pg 9 – (Discussing xenophobia) “By contrast, the biblical word for hospitality is philoxenia. Philia… is the Greek word for brotherly love… Instead of phobia, Christians are called to extend philia to strangers. So the central argument of this book is that hospitality – welcoming God in strangers and seeing Jesus in disguise—begins by widening the circle of our affections, the circumference of our care, the arena of our compassion, and the territory of our kindness. But hearts aren’t easily changed. You can’t change hearts with pep talks, protests, podcasts, Facebook rants, tweets, or a really good sermon. Hearts require spiritual formation through habits and practices that directly address the social and psychological dynamics at work that keep us from seeing and welcoming each other.”

Pg 27 - “But as these Bible stories show, we don’t show hospitality to be like Jesus. We show hospitality to welcome Jesus. In Matthew 25, Jesus isn’t the one doing the visiting. Jesus is the one being visited. In these stories, God isn’t the host. God is the stranger. Hospitality isn’t being like God but welcoming God into our lives.”

Pg 50 - (Speaking about the story of Jesus and the Leper) “Most importantly, Jesus touched the man before he cleansed him, while he was still unclean. And in the eyes of the law, by touching the leper, Jesus became unclean. Embrace came first, followed by cleansing, and we should ponder the significance of that ordering… The will to embrace, according to Volf, is the affirmation of a person’s worth, dignity, and humanity prior to and other judgements we make of the person. Jesus’ touch is the perfect illustration of the will to embrace. Jesus doesn’t first see a leper, he sees a human being. Everyone else had the order backward… Consider if the order of the story had been reversed. It’s a different story if Jesus yells, ‘Be clean!’ from a distance and only then allows the healed man to approach. Yet that’s exactly what the church does. Instead of touching lepers while they are lepers, as Jesus did, the church tells people to get cleaned up before they can be accepted and welcomed.”

Pg 61 - (Speaking about the idea of where boundaries of hospitality should be) “… hospitality may have limits. At the very least, people of good will can disagree about where the limits, if any, might be… Conversations and decisions about holiness, truth telling, justice, and boundaries follow the will to embrace. But here’s the critical part that cannot be missed: these conversations have to follow the will to embrace if they are to be humane, full of justice and mercy, truth and grace. If the will to embrace is not secured, any conversation about holiness becomes harsh, abusive, and judgmental, the exact opposite of the way we see Jesus treat sinners in the Gospels… The will to embrace doesn’t eclipse conversations about sin and oppression. Instead, it prioritizes everyone’s humanity as holiness and justice are being pursued… [It] keeps us from dehumanizing and demonizing each other when conversations and decisions about holiness and justice get difficult.”

Pg 67 – (talking about the “Hitler’s Sweater” experiment) “We don’t want to wear or be near Hitler’s sweater because we feel that it’s somehow morally polluted, and we’re worried about that evil rubbing off on us. We know this is an irrational response. Evil isn’t a germ that can contaminate fabric, yet we treat the sweater as if it has a moral virus. It’s totally illogical, but that’s how we treat moral failings. Psychologically, we treat sin as if it were cooties, a moral contaminant that is passed via physical contact, which becomes another source of interpersonal revulsion. If we emotionally treat sin as if it were cooties, we naturally keep our distance from sinners. It doesn’t make rational sense, but it’s where our emotions lead us if we don’t check them. These are the emotions that scandalized the Pharisees and religious leaders about Jesus’ behavior in the Gospels” (hanging with sinners).

Pg 113 - (Heart triggers that make us pull away: politics, habits and lifestyle, hygiene, appearance, disabilities, demographics, social skills, sins, crimes, moral failures, personal history.)

Pg 166 - “Think about all of the things we do to try to get closer to God and how few of these things move us toward the stranger God. For example, I read a lot of books about Jesus, faith, and theology. I have a huge stack of books on my bedside table… but at the end of the day, reading books about Jesus isn’t the same as welcoming Jesus in the hungry and the homeless... spending hours online reading, listening, and writing about Jesus isn’t the same as welcoming the Jesus who comes to us in strangers… we can fill our lives full, to overflowing, with things that are good and spiritual but that keep us perpetually distracted from and deferring the work of moving toward each other in love.”

Pg 170 – “As Therese looks at the sisters (nuns) being socially excluded for their difficult personalities, she observes that these social ‘infirmities’ are like a chronic social malady. Sadly, Therese concludes, ‘there is no hope of a cure’ for these sisters. Some people are just hard to get along with. But if these sisters have a chronic social illness, Therese makes a startling observation about a mother’s love: ‘I know that my mother would not cease to take care of me, to try to console me, if I remained sick all my life.’ Notice the affectional work Therese is doing: her natural inclination is to lean away from these sisters, but Therese pushes herself to adopt a caring, affectional, maternal posture. Maybe these sisters are socially sick, but we take care of the sick. We lean in.”

Pg 175 – “Ponder the very nature of patience; ... it’s mastering our emotions in order to behave kindly toward others.”

Pg 182 – Social Blindness on a Brain Scan (2006 Princeton study of people’s reactions to pictures of people selected to elicit emotions of pride, pity, envy, and disgust) “When the subjects of the study looked at pictures of elderly and disabled people or rich business people, they did report feeling pity or envy. Those more negative emotions, thankfully, still triggered the medial prefrontal cortex to light up. Even though the feelings were more negative, the brains of the participants still recognized these people as people. But things were different for the emotion of disgust, triggered by pictures of homeless persons and drug addicts. When the participants looked at these people, the medial prefrontal cortex didn’t light up. The brain was not recognizing the homeless people or the drug addicts as human beings. The brain saw the homeless people and drug addicts not as people, but as objects. This is what dehumanization looks like at the neuronal level.”

Pg 194 - “One of the reasons we don’t see each other… is the pace of our lives. We hurt and wound each other with our hurry. The speed at which we move through our days is a form of violence. Seeing each other requires that we become interruptible… seeing requires stopping. We describe hospitality as ‘making room,’ and we tend to think of this as making room in a physical space… Interruptibility is a practice of making room in time, finding space for others in the midst of our busy day. That’s the inhospitality of hurry; there’s no room for you in my schedule.”

Pg 196 – “What Darley and Batson’s study with hurried seminarians tells us is that most of us are Jesus hobbyists. We pursue our hobbies when we have free and spare time. And that’s how we treat Jesus. We’ll welcome people like the Good Samaritan when we have the time. We get around to Jesus after all the other important stuff on our To do list has been checked off. We follow Jesus if we’re available, which means following Jesus has become a hobby. The practice of stopping, the discipline of being interruptible, is what turns a hobbyist into a follower of Jesus.”

Pg 215 – “Far too many of us love issues more than human beings… I have many Christian friends who care enormously about the issue of homelessness. Yet few of these friends actually know a homeless person or have welcomed a homeless person into their own home. It’s so much easier to have compassion for the homeless in the abstract, as an issue, that to actually approach a homeless person to enter into a surprising friendship.”

Pg 217 – (talking about Fred Gray, the civil rights lawyer) “During our time with Fred Gray, we asked him about why we’ve experienced so little racial progress since the 1960s. ‘I was able to change the laws,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t change the hearts.’ … the research about how you change prejudice is clear. It happens through interpersonal contact, specifically face-to-face contact, where we interact with each other as equals.”

Pg 229 – (talking about Granovetter’s ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’ study; a strong tie is a close friend/family, a weak tie is an acquaintance) – “simply put, when a person is looking for a new job, acquaintances are often more helpful than friends. Why is that? Because friends, our strong ties, tend to move in the same, small social world in which we move. While these friends are vital in helping us feel connected, loved, and known, this intimate circle of friends only has limited connections with the outside world. Our friendships are deep, but they often aren’t wide…our weak ties, our acquaintances, provide us with breadth, with a network that connects us far and wide.

Pg 233 - (continuing on about 'The Strength of Weak Ties) "That brings us back to our desire to do things for the poor. The truth of the matter is that the poor are capable and resourceful. What the poor lack isn’t competence but connection. The poor are very much able to overcome the problems they face, they just need to be given the resources. A key and vital resource is the network of social connections we take for granted.”

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

An ancient belief suggested that in entertaining strangers one might entertain angels (gods) unawares. Abraham entertained three strangers, who are identified as "the Lord." These same three strangers visit Sodom, and are welcomed by Abraham's nephew, but not be the community at large, leading to their destruction. Jesus spoke of judging between sheep and goats (Matthew 25)The basis of judgment was serving Jesus, but in the form of the naked, the imprisoned, the hungry (that is, the stranger).

Stranger God is Richard Beck's most recent book. If you haven't read Beck, you should. I have found Richard to be one of the most insightful and provocative writers and speakers of our day. A psychologist teaching at a Church of Christ related university in west Texas, Beck has found a way to integrate his training in psychology with profound theological insight. He also brings significant practical experience with living as a follower of Jesus, not as a perfect exemplar, but as a fellow traveler.

In this book, Beck invites us to meet Jesus in disguise. By that, he means the men he meets in prison when teaching his Bible study at a local prison, or a homeless person. This is a book about hospitality, but with a twist. You won't find any recipes or guidelines for proper etiquette. Instead, we have here a book rooted in Matthew 25, inviting us to encounter the Jesus who "comes to us in disguise, in foreigners and refugees, in the homeless and the outcasts, in the prisoner and the hungry. This is a book about the strangeness of a God who comes to us in strangers" (pp. 1-2). Martha Stewart will be of little help with the kind of hospitality envisioned here. With Matthew 25 in mind, Beck suggests that we tend to act as goats because "strangers are strange. And that makes God strange" (p. 6). Such a God makes us feel uncomfortable. The reason why Beck isn't offering us a Martha Stewart manual on Christian hospitality, is that the kind of hospitality he envisions is not wrapped up in a program, but is rooted in the heart. We can have programs and pass laws, but nothing really changes until hearts are changed.

Stranger God is divided into five parts with seventeen chapters in all. Part one is titled "Entertaining Angels," and in the three chapters in this section of the book, Beck lays out the theological and practical foundations, including focusing on the nature of our circle of affections. In this chapter he reveals a key to our struggle to be truly hospitable to the stranger, and that is our desire to connect with our friends. This is the question that is firmly planted in our minds when we go somewhere, including church -- are my friends here? With this as our primary focus we find it difficult to see the stranger in our midst. As Beck puts it: Jesus comes to us in disguise. 'Welcome the ignored and marginalized,' says Jesus, 'and you welcome me.'' (p. 36)

In Part 2 of the book, titled "The Emotional Battlefield," Beck takes up the elements of our lives that tend to keep us from fully recognizing and welcoming the stranger. Much of this section is rooted in Beck's earlier book Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. He deals with issues of disgust, death, contempt (He writes that "hospitality isn't just about welcoming sinners; it's also about welcoming people we think are idiots" (p. 98). There is a powerful chapter here about building walls, that is, when fear captures our hearts. We know how that works at this moment in time. Some of those walls are present in our churches -- when "those people" show up, whoever "those people" might be.

Part 3 is titled "I shall be love." Here he writes abouit the nature of love and how it is the heart of the church. Here in this section, he brings into the conversation his reading of Therese of Lisieux's "Story of the Soul." From Therese he discovers a form of radical hospitality that is not meant to fill our schedules with more things to do, but opens us up to doing the little things that make a difference. Then in Part 4, "Practicing Hospitality," he writes about seeing, stopping, and approaching, all concepts and practices that flesh out what he learns from Therese. In the chapter on stopping, he reminds us that too often we fail to notice the stranger, because we're too much in a hurry. It is a time thing. The Samaritan helps the wounded person, because he took the time to see and stop, and then approach.

Finally, in part 5, he explores our desire to "save the world." To do this, he suggests we love locally. This is, he suggests, the "little way," of St. Therese. The key here is "breaking down affectional barriers so that surprising and unexpected friendships can happen (p. 211). Until we can expand our own circle of affections, we will not in a position to save the world. Saving the world involves doing for, but loving locally involves doing with. There is a difference.

Beck's conclusion will surprise. I think I'll leave that unrevealed, because you need to read the book to be prepared for his rather simple recommendation.

This s a book that needs to be read and taken to heart. Yes, you might call me a Beck fan, but that's because I have found him to be a person of profundity, but who is also very down to earth. I've had the opportunity to get to know him through some local connections. I've come to know his story, and I am always enriched both by his conversations and by his books. And just as I found Reviving Old Scratch: Demons and the Devil for Doubters and the Disenchanted to be essential reading, I would say the same for this book. In fact, read this book before you begin your next Facebook or Twitter spat. It might change the way you view the other!

[Julie Pahutski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for an Adult Sunday School class at my church. It's an inspiring book focused on how we as individuals can be more hospitable to others who aren't like us. My pastor picked this book in an effort to help well-meaning Christians make a difference in our highly polarized world through simple steps to welcome the "stranger." While I thought it was a little repetitive, the message is a good one. I have already taken some of the steps and have found my life enriched by being hospitable to people outside my social circle. It wasn't even very hard.

[Gerald McFarland · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weak, mainly because it repeated the same message over and over--to be kind to strangers, especially those who are different from you. I like the idea, but Beck takes what could have been (should have been) a short essay and stretches it into 244 pages.

[Steve Irby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quarantine-Book #13 with a change of scenery:

I just finished "Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise," by Richard Beck.

I've appreciated Beck since I first read his "Reviving Old Scratch," a year ago. This book, "Stranger God," was written a year after "...Old Scratch" and it has some familiar themes: the men in white and Freedom Fellowship.

The main premise is that you are not being Jesus to the world when you help the stranger but you are meeting Jesus in the stranger when you help the stranger.

Points to Beck for working off of both Moltmann and Volf before even 40 pp in.

A wonderful concept Beck has in here is that we have our circles, circles are barriers, people are in or out. This defines how we act and react to them in life. If someone is in our circle of friends and has a heroine habit we are quick to be there for them whereas a junkie on the street only gets our disdain. Jesus had a circle that embraced people into it before anything else. That is the only way to truly love the sinner and hate the sin: accept them first.

This concept or "widening ones circle" so that, like Jesus, we have more people closer "in" with us rather than a small circle and us dismissing the uncircled. But how? Obviously it is not plug-n-play but the more you love people the more open you are to letting them in and widening your circle. Even more, start with kindness and work up to love.

"The practice of stopping, the discipline of being interruptible, is what turns a hobbyist into a follower of Jesus," p 197.

"Care globally, love locally," p 215.

#StrangerGod #RichardBeck #RevivingOldScratch #PoplarSpringsLifeGroup

[Kyle Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Beck (of ACU!) offers a truly excellent and accessible book on hospitality and spiritual formation through his typical blend of psychological and theological expertise. My congregation's leadership team read this book leading up to an annual spiritual retreat and then discussed its insights throughout the weekend. Whether encountering its insights individually or communally (retreat, small group, etc.), I think you'd be blessed.

"While other spiritual disciplines move us toward God, they routinely fail to move us toward each other. This is the genius of the Little Way (of St. Thérèse of Lisieux), the lost spiritual discipline, a habit-forming practice that moves us toward each other so that our affections for each other expand and widen. The Little Way is a spiritual discipline of hospitality and welcome. This is exactly the practice we need if we want to overcome the strangeness of strangers, a habit-forming discipline that enables us to encounter the God who comes to us in disguise. The Little Way trains us to entertain angels unawares, God coming to us in coworkers, neighbors, refugees, the homeless, and the people in line with us at the grocery story."

[Joy Matteson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's the first thing you do when you arrive at a party? As Dr. Beck elaborates here, you look for your friends, of course. You don't beeline towards the first stranger who looks down at their feet, you look for your social circle. This is the reason we don't understand Jesus' kind of hospitality. He specifically looks for those people at the party, and spends the rest of His time with them.
Kindness is kind of a buzzword for 2017 or even the concept of "radical" hospitality--but how does one do it in one's social circle? Dr. Beck has written a wonderfully practical guide expanding the little way of kindness towards social outcasts as a way forward to finding Jesus among us. A beautiful read that I hope I don't just read and forget, but remember that small kindnesses mean more than large sacrificial gifts. Highly recommended.

[Dave McNeely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Beck is one of my favorite (Christian, non-fiction) authors and this book is somewhat of a sequel to Unclean, which is one of the most profound books I've ever read (go and read it now). Whereas Unclean explores in more depth and detail the psychological, sociological and theological underpinnings of morality, purity, and boundaries, Stranger God presses into more practical considerations of how to overcome these obstacles to "the will to embrace." Beck spends the first half of the book outlining the challenges of and the call to philioxenia (love of strangers), while the second half represents Beck's attempt to identify a spiritual discipline that helps us to do so, namely "the Little Way" of St. Therese of Lisieux.

[Daniel Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

See the need for kindness and relationships around us without ignoring material need

Richard Beck tells us we should take seriously the Gospel saying that we see God in the face of the homeless, sick, disabled. This book is as good as I could ask for for a book about helping the other from a liberal, individualistic perspective. I would want more attention paid to the systems and structures that produce poverty. There aren't enough real life social networks recommended by the book to counteract a world that is reeling from exploitation and an never before more powerful capitalist class.

But that is outside the purview of the book. The Little Way of St Therese, we learn how God can use simple acts of kindness to widen our scope of hospitality.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books where the author is living his topic, therefore has "skin in the game." It reads from the front lines, down in the dirt, personal.

The perspective Beck offers is practical and heartfelt about hospitality. It is also convicting - to me.

Here are some highlights from the book, and Matthew 25:31-46

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=440916124

We fail at hospitality because hospitality doesn’t begin with a program, with a new “welcoming” or “neighboring” initiative. Hospitality has to begin in the heart.

Hospitality, expanding the moral circle, is how the early Christians overcame these ethnic and racial divisions. Because the gospel was at stake.

Hospitality is exactly how we’ll overcome our own present-day divisions. We care for and break bread with those we ignore and exclude.

'Nuff said

[Nigel Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very accessible book that grounds the ministry of hospitality in the overcoming of triggers that cause us to disengage from those we meet. It is very encouraging that the ministry of hospitality does not become yet another programme to factor into busy lives but is instead framed as an intentional, positive approach to others. In welcoming others we will encounter God. Hence the title, stranger God. A specific spiritual resource the author commends is The Little Way of St. Therese. This discipline, with its focus on everyday interactions, has particular appeal as it does not require a life of heroic commitment but can be practiced within any context.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an exceptional book on the theology of kindness. I had a friend mention Beck's Slavery Of Death to me and I trust his opinion that I ordered it that day. I noticed this book which was immediate in some research I was doing about NEIGHBOR in the Bible. So I went ahead and bought this book as well. I read this one first for obvious reasons. It is a beautiful exposition on embracing others. It is very accessible while also rich in depth. Beck is an incredible thinker who appears to simply be in the act of orthopraxy in such a way that he isn't bogged down theologically while at the same time being theocentric. Read this book. It is inviting, challenging, and beautifully done.

[Jan Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will be read for a summer book discussion at my church. It is inspiring but not saccharine. On the surface, it may seem like it is just encouraging people to be kind to one another, but it is much deeper than that. The challenge is to open ourselves to our neighbors, whoever they may be. I especially like his premise that small changes can make big differences. As we are easily overwhelmed by the onslaught of media, this book is helpful to return us to some basics that can move the kingdom of God into our lives.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I'm still working through how to practice the Little Way in a way that is not approaching others in an non-instrumental way this was a really, really powerful call to widen the circle of my affections and to see Jesus/God where god really is, radically incarnated in the world in the faces and bodies of the least of these. But not just the least of these, but in the faces and bodies of those that I have disgust responses to (read this book for a more streamlined presentation of disgust psychology than in Beck's book Unclean). And to realize that people have disgust responses to me.

[Austin Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This was great. I was preaching through a sermon series in the Gospel of Luke this fall, as we were leading up to the 2020 presidential election in the US. The book was a perfect companion for me.

It was accessible, theologically rich, and practical all at the same time. Beck’s emphasis love locally is huge. And his encouragement to be with people, looking for little, everybody opportunities for seeing others and extending kindness feel so accessible, so hopeful, and so revolutionary.

I’m buying this book fir my family for Christmas and for our church leaders, too.

[Nicolas Upton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stranger God seems like two separate book ideas tied together to help reach a page limit. I would call the first half “held in contempt” and the second “the little takeaway.”

If you’ve read his other books this one doesn’t have a profound takeaway like asking protestants and Catholics to switch up points of view and worship habits or turning Satan into a antithesis of Jesus metaphor. Stranger God is also not as clinical as the authenticity of faith.

We have such a divide between being a doer and a thinker and this book serves as evidence for people thinking their way into doing.

[Beth Halda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was once an undergraduate student of Dr. Beck's and let me say that I promise he's just as genuine in person as he is in this book.

I greatly appreciate his love for the marginalized and he so eloquently sums up ways to help others in this book by not only teaching how we can love like Jesus, but also citing research to back up his points.

This book reminded me how honored I am to know him and how I can help others by doing.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beck reviews his thoughts in his previous book 'Unclean' while bringing great reflections to current society. It was really the last several chapters that he delved into some phenomenal ideas around The Little Way & what it would look like to Care Globally & Love Locally. I look forward to his future workings in seeing, stopping, & approaching in kindness. The world needs this now more than anything!!

[L Frost · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Christian should read this and just consider what the author is suggesting. It’s not earth shattering, not profound, not philosophically deep, not theologically difficult. It’s practical. It’s real. The stories Beck uses make the book readable and applicable. It’s not an academic approach, but something tangible for everyone. It’s a suggestion of something so simple that we’ve often missed it in our search for something bigger and better which is often less effective.

[Andrew Choy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a wonderful, interesting and easy-to-follow read. It's also my very first book ever read about hospitality. The "Little Way" originally from Therese of Lisieux is very practical with a potential to change the world - thanks to Beck's unpacking and illustrating with great examples. I got hooked now.

[Margaret D'Anieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

The description starting with his work in a maximum security prison may be off-putting because most of us will never do that. But he writes with humility and of his own struggles, and it ends up being a wonderful meditation on Terese of Lisieux and her “Little Way”. Readable, thoughtful, funny in its ability to name our foibles with love.