book review: Love Over Fear

Title: Love Over Fear: Facing Monsters, Befriending Enemies, and Healing Our Polarized World

Author: Dan White, Jr.

Publisher: Moody Publishers

Date: 2019

Dan White Jr., has written a great little book on living in our polarized world. I found the book a little slow getting started as the initial chapter on “The Way Fear Works” is long and maybe a little dry, but it is a helpful, and necessary framework, for the rest of the book.

As the Acknowledgements says this is a book that will “slightly irritates both conservatives and progressives.” Dan shows a better way than the “Us vs. Them” approach that cable news, social media, and our own voice often encourage. The better way is simple but not easy. It is the way of Jesus that takes genuine interest in others, for the sake of knowing them, not winning an argument.

His final chapter, “The Aikido of Forgiveness” unpacks Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:39-41, and shows us the upside down tactics of the kingdom of God. He moves us from reactive, which is often negative, to active which offers real hope.

This is a practical and important book that will challenge all who read it with an open heart to root out fear and begin to practice love and civility in a world that greatly needs both.

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book “Ethics”, helps us understand that judgmentalism
suffers from false seeing. It is a love affair with our own words, expectations and ideas.
You cannot love real and raw people with the judgmental mind, because you will always try to control them, fix them, or size them up before you give yourself in love to them.”
~Dan White Jr, “Love Over Fear”, p152 #LoveOverFear

This book was provided courtesy of Moody Press.

This is my honest review. All opinions are strictly my own.