The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

This was honestly better than I expected. This book got a lot of hype, and I was very critical of the only other book I've read by JMC due to some pretty significant differences between historic Christianity and JMC's theology, however I loved this book a ton. JMC seemed to put flesh on ideas that have been floating for a while in my head related to hustle, Sabbath, & materialism. A lot of what he discusses (such as silence & solitude) will be viewed my many modern Christians as new ideas, yet this couldn't be further from the truth. JMC retrieves many practices of the early church such as were practiced by monks under Saint Benedict's Rule for example and even the practices of Jesus himself.

Although I've given high praise for this book, I did find objection to the lack of encouragement to seek God's Word in silence & solitude. Silence and solitude is great, but a person who never reads God's word has nothing to dwell on! JMC seems to hint at ‘hearing from God' while practicing silence & solitude but ... we have already heard from Him in the Bible, God's very own word!

My minor second critique would simply be some of JMC's off-hand comments seemed unhelpful, distasteful, and rude. He even makes a jab at ‘conservative Christianity'. If he meant ‘Republican Christianity' then it's probably a jab well-deserved ... but did he mean ‘theological conservatism'? Is he siding with theological liberalism? Hopefully not. Comments such as this from time to time in the book threw me off and left a bad taste in the mouth.

Overall, this is a great book which I thoroughly enjoyed, but not an endorsement for every single sentence. As always read with an open mind ... but an open Bible as well! There are some great ideas in this book.

Chew the meat, spit out the bones.