Book Review - Love Kindness

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KINDNESS

(by Barry H. Corey)

Biola University's President Barry Corey does an excellent job in highlighting what he calls 'a lost virtue' on the topic of "kindness". His title follows Micah 6:8. Although I feel he gets long winded or discusses this topic throughout this book, the point still remains and perhaps it's one of the reasons why he keep repeating: Christians (true believers in Jesus Christ) need to have a firm center with soft edges. These soft edges equal the kindness. Many Christians today, and I agree with him, either have hard edges (and maybe even soft centers), no edges, or have the soft edges but with no firm center.

Therefore, his position and perspective is challenging for Christians who somehow have stopped learning the way of Jesus. In addition, the challenge is greater as the stance on kindness is an outwardly act and not one to be kept within Christian circles. We, followers of Jesus Christ, are to be kind to everyone. I love some of his stories where he struggles to be kind with those who believe and think differently than he. More so, I love his joy in the struggles to be kind to those who express their negativity with Christians and/or with Jesus Christ. Like him, I agree that people in general don't know Jesus primarily because they don't see this loving kind Jesus in his followers - us Christians.

I welcome and am applying his thorough explanation of being kind to all out of the love of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, I hope that people including my friends and family see me being kind. I hope my family and friends will correct me when I am not kind. I pray the Holy Spirit will bless you and me with the fruit of kindness as well as teach you and me how to be even more kind. In today's world where many are all about "me" and not "we", I pray the Lord will help turn my "me" into "we" and with a loving kindness. Then, maybe someone will know the Lord Jesus from our kindness.

Well done and thanks for highlighting this need especially among the crises of today, President Barry Corey.

Main Points

Here are the main points that I really liked from this book.

• A Father's Kindness - sets the stage of life
• Seeing kindness modeled through his father (also a pastor) while growing up was his key influence which also helped in understanding the Father's kindness. 
• Countercultural engagement
• Kindness must be authentic and persistent even through messy situations
• Kindness includes humility
• Kindness takes patience: time and positive energy
• Kindness has more power than people think, and comes back around stronger than karma
• The story of Leah (in the Bible): The Way of Kindness sees Beauty in Ashes
• Kindness is attractive, publicly and privately
• Kindness is a free gift with no expectations of any returns
• Kindness is not accepted nor recognized by everyone, and that's okay
• Kindness leads to repentance and new life
• The Kindness Challenge
• Every Christian is challenged to be kind like Jesus Christ, all the time. This is essential to understanding and practicing the grace we have received from God.
• The Kindness Experiment: 7 Thoughts on Softening our Edges (& Keeping Firm Center)
• A firm center and soft edges means:
• 1.  we become more involved in the culturally unfamiliar.
• 2. we are creators of goodness and beauty.
• 3. we approach the growing opposition in our day by leading with humility.
• 4. we fear not when our grace is met with hostility.
• 5. we remain even more deeply rooted in biblical faithfulness.
• 6. that evangelism is at the heart of why we live this way.
• 7. we need to remember that Christ-centeredness means we will never be marginalized.

Favorite Quotes

There were a lot of nice quotes by the author, but I'll limit to eight...teen. :)

1. Repentance, more than anything else, changes lives. And kindness leads us there.
2. Kindness embodies courage.
3. Kindness focuses on how I open myself for others to receive me, whether they choose to or not.
4. Life is a journey from certainty to uncertainty...the antidote to uncertainty is not certainty. It's confidence (meaning "with faith").
5. Not all who wander are lost. (J.R.R. Tolkien)
6. The kinder way is to be present in others' lives with an honest spirit that isn't waiting for the conversation to turn toward me. That's a spirit that receives others more than it wants to be received.
7. Performance is less effective than purpose.
8. May I learn that a lesson in life is a lessened me. (John 3:30)
9. In our home countries, we identified as Presbyterian and Pentecostal, Baptist and Anglican, Reformed and Lutheran. In Dhaka, we identified as Christ-followers, worshipping together and walking side by side to the Lord's Table as the people of God.
10. Loving those who are different than we are is what we are supposed to do.
11. Kindness - listening while wanting to learn about someone.
12. Listening is a dimension of loving.
13. God's kind of kindness is far different from niceness or tolerance because it leads us to see our own depravity. In Romans 2 Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that kindness will reveal in us and in others our fallen nature and will draw us all to the cross of Christ: "God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance" (verse 4). This profound truth about kindness points to its purpose: repentance.
14. Compassion demands proximity.
15. Rejection. We need to get use to it and get over it.
16. Nobody single-handedly has the capacity to change the world. Christians tend to love extra large strategies that pledge to impact the world in short order. We need to take the long view through respectful collaborations and earnest conversations, all done in the spirit of kindness.
17. Life in Christ is less about our results and more about our character.
18. Kindness that bends to accept as valid everyone else's viewpoint is not kindness. We can be kind and strong in our perspective. We can be kind and encourage one another toward purity before God. We can be kind and lovingly persuade someone to at least consider our perspective on what the Bible teaches. Kindness is not built thoughtlessly on the cliche that we "agree to disagree" and then never engage in conversation. Kindness frees us to hold deep moral convictions minus the vitriol.

Favorite Verse

"Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." - Matthew 10:40

What's Missing?

Well, I think a training program is required for such a book because "kindness" takes lots of practice. We're talking about an exercise like "strength & conditioning" for athletes. Also, I don't agree with the term "evangelism" being at the heart of why we live this way (in point 6). But, I do agree with his explanation in point 6. He mentions "The time-honored calling of the church to start hospitals and rescue missions and schools has been overtaken by others of no faith at all." I agree to a degree. ;-) I simply think many churches have lost their connection to the historically founded hospitals and schools. Furthermore, I think Christians have forgotten to use all of their gifts with much of the hype being around evangelism and focus on sharing faith by word instead of "word and deed". Which is why I love how President Barry closes out point 6: "In a world increasingly skeptical of Christians and stereotyping from a distance, we have to restore our approach to the Jesus way, calling us to a more winsome and savvy articulation of the gospel in word and deed."