I don’t know why, but my niece Gabi is interested in religion, thus she and I are visiting a different church every Sunday (well, almost every Sunday). We had only been to two or three churches when a friend brought Jim & Casper to my attention and it’s been the perfect book to accompany Gabi’s and my own little project.
The introduction is by far the richest part of the book, where Henderson explains his growth from a Three B’s pastor (buildings, budgets, and butts in the seats) to an evangelist trying to “help convert Christians, to provide [Christians] with the information we need in order to …truly connect with the people Jesus misses most.”
He eventually hires Casper to attend a wide cross-section of churches in different parts of the country and to provide his impressions of these churches from an atheistic perspective. I share many of Casper’s sentiments. For instance, at Willow Creek he says “Did I just hear him say that he landed an interview with Bono because people were praying for it?... it seems like a gaudy use of the power of prayer. An interview with Bono?” Again, at Saddleback, Rick Warren’s mega-church (or what Jim calls the Super-Bowl of churches) Casper asks “Where is the call to action? The challenge to make this world a better place? Even when Tom told the story of his father coming to Christ, it was not about what his father did or how he emulated Jesus’ example. The message was that you don’t have to do anything. Just say a prayer, use the magic words and you’re in.”
Casper isn’t “saved” in the end, but he does help Jim formulate a plan to “make the church a more welcoming place to the people Jesus misses the most.” And even though Casper remains “lost”, he has forced Jim to consider the pestering question of “is this what Jesus told you guys to do?”