If the Church is to rise up full of people who don't give a damn about the fleeting pleasures of this life and who care only for the glory of Jesus and his kingdom, we must once again grasp what made Jesus so eminently killable. If Jesus had been born in our day, the council that condemned him would have included a couple of well-known evangelical pastors, a few outspoken pro-life leaders, a conservative-libertarian-leaning politician, and at least one Bible-thumping fundamentalist. Jesus was murdered by church people, for churchy reasons.

In Blood-Bought World, Toby J. Sumpter pinpoints the raw spots where modern-day Christians have allowed respectability, comfort, fear, love, fitness, authenticity, or other idols to become "fig leaves" to shield us from the persons of the trinity. We have relegated God to Sunday-school presentations instead of following Jesus on the path to real authority and power: the cross.

God's undiluted sovereignty demolishes every false human claim of autonomy. Men and women who know Jesus have no patience for a polite social club with religious jargon. The real Christian faith, delivered to God's people and driven by the Holy Spirit, is a wild, rambunctious, healing force set on the redemption of the world. That is what "being Christian" means: Hello, world! Jesus bought this place with his blood. Deal with it.