A Review of the Book "Inclusivity: A Gospel Mandate" by Diarmuid O'Murchu

Title: Inclusivity: A Gospel Mandate

Author: Diarmuid O'Murchu

Publisher: Orbis Books

Year: 2015

213 pages

From the Back: Diarmuid O'Murchu holds high the millions on the margins of the church as well as those who honor Jesus but feel they don't fit in because of alternative vision or minority status resulting from race, ethnicity, social standing, or sexual orientation. Inclusivity offers a faith dynamic characterized by discipleship with an adult Jesus in the service of an adult God. ...an inevitable drive to reach out and bring in, the next step in a movement toward spiritual wholeness.

Personal Thoughts: One of the main lessons that I've been trying to encourage throughout preaching and teaching is how inclusive the Gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to be. God is love. God loves all creation. Period. Full stop. God was never supposed to be exclusionary. Christianity was never supposed to be a belief system that oppresses. Jesus didn't spend time with the rich, the all knowledgeable, or the powerful. His seat was always beside the downtrodden, the rejected, the lost, and the forgotten. So when I found Inclusivity: A Gospel Mandate, I thought I had stumbled across the perfect book for me to read. And I wasn't wrong. There are so many nuggets of information within these 230 pages that I almost ran out of sticky notes. Here are some of the thoughts I want to share:

        "There is no room for any form of exclusion in Christian discipleship." (93)

        "As Christian people, we have a long way to go to realize the challenge of the Gospels to translate inclusivity into daily life. (208)

        "Despite Christendom's long allegiance to the ideology of a Chosen People, the time has come to sever the historical links and return to a more primordial wisdom that never adopted this ideology in the first place." (15)

        "Gospel-based compassion...embraces and seeks to bring in all who are marginalized, oppressed, and excluded from empowering fellowship." (44)

    Inclusivity is an excellent book, well-written with plenty of thought out arguments as to why we should be considering the Gospel to be an inclusive text. If you are pondering how to see yourself in the gospel text, or how to see those other than your self throughout the Bible, take some time to read Inclusivity. It will be worth your time.