The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus

“The God of the Bible chooses the side of the oppressed,” suggests Garcia, a former youth minister, in his impassioned debut. Garcia details his efforts to reconcile his progressive values with the political conservatism of the Christian church, and argues that the New Testament calls Christians to radical action: “In response to injustice, this God riots alongside us, within us, and through us.” The author, disturbed by his church’s disinterest in Black Lives Matter and Trump’s Muslim travel ban, describes forgoing his pastoral license and leaving evangelicalism to stick by his belief in a social justice–oriented God. Garcia thoughtfully examines such topics as wealth inequality, LGBTQ rights, and colonialism through a Christian lens, advocating for prison abolition by chronicling the history of white supremacy in the U.S. and expounding on Jesus’s promise that the “last will be first and the first will be last.” Readers familiar with the writings of John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan won’t find much new in Garcia’s theology, but Garcia offers more accessible prose than these literary forebears, and the uninitiated will overall be well served by his exegesis and passion. This doesn’t break new ground, but the stirring delivery connects. (Aug.)