This book was disturbing to read.
I have long been a supporter of Mike Foster's organization, "People of the Second Chance," which is all about waging grace as a way of life. I've been inspired by Mike and his partner Jud Wilhite to get off my high horse and let go of judgment in choosing radical, irrational grace-filled interaction with everyone I come in contact with. I've been inspired to extend grace like Jesus did - in loving broken people and wrecked people who need the life-changing power of the grace of God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That grace is what they need. It is really the ONLY thing we need... before anything else. The grace of Jesus Christ is our breath and heartbeat. Our only hope.Therefore it was disturbing to read "Gracenomics." I tore into it, eagerly expecting a platform - a scriptural framework - a manifesto of the powerful grace of Jesus alive in us that undergirds and empowers our ability to give grace to others in return. Instead, there wasn't a single mention of God.Not one.Mike Foster is a Christ follower. I understand that People of the Second Chance is a 501-c3 faith based organization, yet per their website, they "work diligently to produce 'human' messages and not religious ones." These ideals stand in conflict with one another.Instead of a grace-filled reminder of the cross of Jesus and our freedom to love the marginalized and wounded in His name, "Gracenomics" presented a combination of self-help therapy and a law-filled "do it better, do it more, try harder" message that, frankly, is the OPPOSITE of grace. Without Jesus, our best efforts are anemic at best, misguided and ineffective and dangerous at worst. Without Jesus, "Gracemenomics" is empty.For those who believe, we can still read Jesus INTO the book, and try to filter the grace dynamic through our own theological grid, but the size and depth of the missed opportunity here is staggering.Also, I found the many editing errors to be very distracting. The book design is flat-out gorgeous, but cool graphics can't redeem sentences that end with "anyways" and phrases like "all of the sudden" and spelling REIGN as RIEGN. I stopped counting after about a half dozen or so of these errors. Even though the book is beautiful, the shoddy editing made it hard to take seriously.I still love Mike and Jud and what POTSC is all about. I'm not about to chisel the "People of the Second Chance" sticker off the back of my Jeep just yet, or change out my POTSC desktop on my laptop any time soon. There is some irony here as I write out a stinging critique of a book all about GRACE. And yet, we are also called to speak the truth in love. I just have to be honest about "Gracenomics."It was shallow. It seems like it was rushed to print. Frankly... It just wasn't very good.
