Raised Right: How I Untangled My Faith from Politics (Review)

When I ordered this book to review, I had pretty big expectations. I had read reviews on Raised Right before ordering it, and, to me, the story Alisa Harris had to tell sounded quite similar to my own. Alisa's memoir begins with the riveting remembrance of a childhood dominated by abortion clinic picketing and Republican campaigning followed by a young-adulthood of questions. Questions we all should ask:
If war involves killing, how can it be moral?
Is an economy based on self-reliance or community-dependence more biblical?
Is Women's Rights possible within a Pro-Life society?
What should a Christian's response be toward the Gay-Rights movement?

Though still surrounded by an overwhelmingly conservative setting, she refused to seek answers in traditions or politics. Rather, Alisa writes of how she searched Scripture and experience from human relationships for her answers. She doesn't impose her conclusions on the reader; however, she does write in the attitude of a cry for a biblical response toward these questions. She cries for Christians to quit buying into the worldly proposal that answers are found in politics.

"Our primary job as Christians is to love people, and we can't love from behind a barricade. But we have other God-given responsibilities too--to fight against those who make unjust decrees, rob the needy, and deprive the poor of their rights. . . . Sin and pain are spiritual--we treat them in a spiritual way. Pray for the sinner. Speak to the sinner. . . . But when injustice, robbery, and inequity are not just individual but institutional, it's time to take a political stand. The government can't sure sin or heal pain; it can stop robbery and create laws that treat the poor justly. And it's our to demand that our leaders do so." (p.210)

This book is convicting. It's real. It's raw. It's refreshing. And it's a much needed cry for revolution in Christianity's response toward the heavy-hitting questions of today's American culture.

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I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.