Book Review #7 – “Subversive Spirituality” by Eugene Peterson
Book Review #7 – “Subversive Spirituality” by Eugene Peterson; published 1994, Eerdmans Publishing.
“Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16).
In Other Words. On the one hand, play it smart as you run through that inevitable wolf pack in your life. Be clever as you strategize for your survival. Be shrewd as you learn to outthink those hungry wolves. It’s okay to be savvy and mindful of your best interests. Just remember to keep your wits about you as you work the angles. Refuse to be gullible as you walk on those mean streets. So be street-smart and use that good brain your Lord gave you. On the other hand, during all your clever scheming against the howling enemy, remember to keep your good conscience through it all. Keep examining your motives and remain pure as you consider your motivations. Stay away from self-serving agendas when they raise their ugly head in your heart. Be honest with yourself, brutally honest, and remain innocent of wrong-doing, assuming that the ends justify the means, which they don’t. Be gentle and harmless and kind without being naive or blind to reality. In your shrewdness, it’s okay to be viewed as someone relatively tame. Be as trustworthy as you are clever. (thoughts of SWL).
Peterson’s Thoughts on Being Subversive. “I am a true subversive. My long-term effectiveness depends on my not being recognized for who I am as a pastor. If the church member actually realized that the American way of life is doomed to destruction and that another kingdom is right now being formed in secret to take its place, he wouldn’t be pleased at all. If he knew what I was really doing and the difference it was making, he would fire me. We live in a culture that we think is Christian. When a congregation gathers in a church, they assume they are among friends in a basically friendly world. If I, as their pastor, get up and tell them the world is not friendly and they are really idol worshippers, they think I’m crazy. This culture has twisted all of our metaphors and images and structures of understanding. But I can’t say that directly. The only way that you can approach people is indirectly, obliquely. A head-on attack doesn’t work. Jesus was a master of indirection. The parables are all subversive. His hyperboles are indirect. There is a kind of outrageous quality to them that defies common sense, but later on the understanding comes. The largest poetic piece in the Bible, Revelation, is a subversive piece. Instead of being a three-point lecturer, the pastor is instead a storyteller and a pray-er. Prayer and story become the primary means by which you get past people’s self-defense mechanisms…. Remember Emily Dickenson’s little poem, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant. Truth in indirection lies.”
In Other Words. We are called to be crafty but innocent subversives. It is our spiritual lives that will coexist with and challenge the prince of this world. He may be on his last legs, but he is still perpetrating his evil in the King’s world. We, however, are in the service of the Lord of the universe, and we are a little like a whistle-blower in the prince’s wicked business. We are like secret agents for the King as we spy out where the prince’s captives are hidden. We are like undercover moles planted in enemy territory as we work against the prince’s plans. We’re in the hidden underground as we help the captives escape the prince’s slavery. We are like the Resistance Movement in the shadows as we subtly and shrewdly thwart any advancement of the prince’s front lines. We will quietly work inside the prince’s domain and overthrow his evil warriors from within. The prince is the establishment, and we are belligerents and rebels. We resist the prince’s means to the end and his modes of operation. We will remain the resident dissidents while the prince foolishly continues with his plans, and we will secretly plot to help the King advance His agenda. We will be the salt preservatives worked into the meat of the world to keep it from rotting. Our spiritual lives are subversive this way, working against the prince’s system without a frontal attack. We will have a hand in making the changes needed. We will enter the prince’s pretend throne room through the side door and eventually overthrow what he has so carefully built. (thoughts of SWL).
Brief Bio of Author. After being raised in rural Montana by a father who was a butcher and a mother who was a Pentecostal preacher, Eugene H. Peterson enjoyed a world-renowned career as pastor, divinity school professor, author, and Bible Translator. In his 85 years of life (1932-2018), He wrote over thirty books, on everything from various books of the Bible to a vast array of biblical characters. He wrote about spiritual theology and advice to parents about raising teenagers. He composed poetry and book reviews. He highlighted the importance of living into the Resurrection and the importance of parables. He wrote about wise ways of reading the bible and praying. His many volumes of advice to pastors are classics. But it is with “The Message” that he became a household name. Peterson believed that Scripture was largely written in the spirit of storytelling and street talk than it was in a literary way. So, being a scholar of the original Bible languages of Hebrew and Greek, he started composing a “para-translation” of the Bible, taking the original words and then paraphrasing them into contemporary language. His paraphrased translations are highly acclaimed for being dynamic as they were also highly informal. He said he wanted the Bible to have more of a “conversational energy,” and he was successful in the eyes of many. He started this huge project of rephrasing the original words into everyday language in 1993, and ten years later the entire Bible was completed. As of 2026, The Message has sold over twenty million copies around the world. Many have not fully accepted Peterson’s version of Scripture, though, finding his occasional poetic license a bad look for sacred Scripture translation. From the very start of his translation work, he has submitted his texts to over twenty biblical scholars for their approval, and The Message is widely accepted now as a powerful devotional supplement to the more traditional translations. It seems that his translations were composed in the spirit of Peterson’s subversive strategy of sharing the truth. Instead of word-for-word full-frontal appearances of the Scripture text, he leaned into offering God’s Word from a side angle in everyday lingo. He told all the truth, but at a slant.
Brief Overview of “Subversive Spirituality.” This book is a wonderful collection of some of his Bible studies, novel reviews, poetry, sermons, articles and interviews collected over a period of 25 years. The sheer variety of these miscellaneous aspects of his spiritual life is eye-opening in its scope and helps us to understand better this amazing man. This seemingly random mishmash of his works has something for everyone… a chapter of his poetry based on the Beatitudes called “Holy Luck,” an examination of a famous murder mystery series starring Nero Wolfe, some fascinating interviews in which he was surprisingly transparent, to insightful articles on various Gospels, to wise character studies on Jeremiah, David and St. John. Through all his words in this collection, we can conclude one thing for certain… Here was a man who truly loved Scripture. As one reviewer commented, the Bible was not simply an academic exercise for him, not just an intellectual pursuit. It was more like a romance. Gene Peterson had a lifelong love affair with God’s Word. He would often say things like, “Let the Holy Spirit read you while you are reading the Bible.” “Let the Bible text master us, and not think that we can master the text;” “Our goal in reading Scripture is always 1 Corinthains 2:2, “… to know nothing except Jesus Christ.”
Some Favorite Quotes:
On the Imagination. “If I were to start a divinity school, a seminary, we would spend the first two years studying literature… The importance of poetry and novels is that the Christian life involves the use of the imagination – after all, our largest investment as Christians is in the invisible. And imagination is our training in dealing with the invisible – making connections between material and spiritual, visible and invisible, earth and heaven. I don’t want to do away with or denigrate theology or exegesis, but our primary allies in this business are the artists. I want literature to be on a par with those other things. Artists need to be brought in as full partners… The imagination is among the chief glories of the human. When it is healthy and energetic, it ushers us into adoration and wonder, into the mysteries of God. The American imagination today is distressingly sluggish. One of the essential Christian ministries in and to our ruined world is the recovery and exercise of the imagination. One of the greatest sins of the Christian Church right now is the starving of our imaginations, for everything originates and depends on what we cannot see and is worked out in what we can see. Imagination and explanation cannot get along without each other.”
On the Bible as Story. “Existence has a story shape. The most adequate rendering of the world in words is by storytelling. It is the least specialized and most comprehensive form of language. Everything and anything can be put into a story. And the moment it is in the story it has meaning, it participates in plot, and is somehow or other significant. The biblical revelation comes to us in the form of story. Nothing less than story is adequate to the largeness and intricacy of truth of God and creation, or of the human and redemption.”
On Humility. “Somehow we must be able to enter the story without becoming the center of the story… The world does not need more of you; it needs more of God. Your friends do not need more of you; they need more of God. And you don’t need more of you; you need more of God. The Christian life consists in what God does for us, not what we do for God; the Christian life consists in what God says to us, not what we say about God… If there is such a thing as infinity, I am not it. I am finite. If there is a God then there is no room for me as god… Cultivating humility, keeping close to the ground, practicing the human, getting our fingers in the humus, the rich, loamy garden dirt out of which we have been fashioned.”
On the Holy Stump. Full Disclosure: Sheri and I were privileged to be in the audience when Eugene Peterson preached this sermon at Regent College in Vancouver. We were inspired by what he shared about Isaiah focused on Holy, Holy, Holy, of course, but perhaps even more so by his Q and A immediately after the sermon. A cocky, outspoken young seminarian popped out of his seat and challenged Dr. Peterson with a question that was an amazing combination of impudence and arrogance. It seemed so disrespectful to Sheri and me that we looked at each other after this young man’s question and wondered, how in the world is “Pastor Pete” going to react to this question that was not even close to the spirit of what we just heard from the pulpit? Eugene Peterson was completely nonplussed, pleasantly kept his composure, and humbly addressed what seemed to be on the mind of this young man. Dr. Peterson was totally respectful and gracious throughout his response, and Sheri and I were in awe of his humble, Christ-like response. His closing comments in his sermon text were also memorable… “The holy seed is its stump… A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” (Is. 6:13 and 11:1-2)… “A squat stump in a field of stumps. The stump, unlikely as it seems and against all appearances, is the holy seed from which salvation will grow. All of us know how that eventually turned out: in a word, Jesus. And so we joyfully and gratefully sing the praises of our holy Lord. We can never sing those praises loudly or joyfully enough, but while doing so we must not lose touch with that stump. For very often that stump and nothing but that stump will characterize and dominate our lives. Never, never forget that holy stump. Everything in Scripture and the Gospel tells us that this is the truth, the reality of Jesus and our lives with and in Jesus. Holy. Life that issues out of death. Beauty that begins in ugliness. A holy revolution. What we can be quite sure of is that the Holy, God’s unmanageable but irrepressible life, is ever present and hidden within and around us.”