Chris Brauns’s Bound Together: How We Are Tied to Others in Good and Bad Choices is an excellent little book that speaks directly and powerfully to one of the most critical needs of the church today. In clear and accessible prose, Brauns, pastor of Red Brick Church in Stillman Valley, Illinois, describes an amazing spiritual truth—that human beings are social as well as individual creatures—and explains the radical implications for individual piety, church life, family life, and civic life. Christian theologians and social thinkers already widely agree that this issue will be one of our key challenges in the coming generation, and Brauns’s book invites ordinary Christians into this critical conversation.
The modern world has greatly expanded the scope of individual freedom and choice, and on the whole this has been an enormous blessing. Before modern times you were required to worship in the state church, do the job your father did, marry the person your parents picked, and obey whatever rulers came to the throne. The modern world has thrown off these dehumanizing constraints, choosing instead to honor the dignity of the human person by allowing us to attend the churches we really believe in, do the jobs we’re called to do, marry the person right for us, and vote for rulers who will be accountable to us.
However, every good thing in this world can be made into an idol. Just as the medieval world idolized its scepters and sacraments, the modern world idolizes individual choice. Most of the dysfunctions in our society—from the collapse of the family to the economic crisis to the inability of political leaders to solve simple problems—ultimately reflect this one problem.
We must rediscover the ancient truth that human beings are not just individuals. Our personhood is bound up with the personhood of others. Brauns describes this as “the principle of the rope”:
Bound Together: How We Are Tied to Others in Good and Bad Choices
Chris Brauns
Bound Together: How We Are Tied to Others in Good and Bad Choices
Chris Brauns
Our future and our place in this world aren’t simply the sum of our own individual choices. On varying levels, we are roped together with others. When someone we are roped to is lifted up, we are lifted up with them. When he or she jumps off a figurative cliff, we are pulled down with them. This is what I call “the principle of the rope”—the simple truth that our lives, choices, and actions are linked to the lives, choices, and actions of other people. To put it simply, as I have done in the title of this book, we are “bound together,” tied to others in our good and bad choices. (25)
Notice that Brauns says we are roped together “on varying levels.” It’s easy to get people to agree we’re roped together at the level of consequences; if my brother or coworker does something horribly destructive, I’m deeply hurt. But the principle of the rope is scarier when we apply it to moral character. Much of what I like to call “my” good and bad traits was stamped on me by parents and other influences. To what extent am I really responsible for myself? How do we maintain our sense of moral agency?
The principle of the rope becomes downright horrifying and offensive (to the natural mind) when it’s applied at the spiritual level. We’re born guilty and corrupt because we’re roped to Adam, whose sin pulls us down. How is that fair? We can only be saved by abandoning hope in our own efforts and roping ourselves to Jesus, who earns salvation and pulls us up. Doesn’t that make God arbitrary?
One of the strengths of Bound Together is the way it draws together scriptural passages, wisdom from great Christian thinkers, and the latest scholarly analyses of the issues. Brauns reads much like C. S. Lewis in that he’s widely versed in all these sources and modest enough not to have much desire to be original. He masterfully pulls together the right quotes and passages in just the right way to help others come into a knowledge of these issues.
Intelligible to Whom?
Bound Together is divided into two halves. The first half covers biblical and theological foundations; the second shows how the rope principle is applied to individual spiritual life, the church, family, and our encounter with American politics and culture.
The first half provides a sound exposition of the scriptural and theological basis for the principle of the rope, as Brauns shows its centrality to the whole biblical narrative and all the basic concepts of theology. We see this principle at work in such foundational issues as the fall, original sin, and the gospel and justification, as well as in other areas ranging from social ethics to ecclesiology. Beginners will find this an invaluable introduction, and those who have already studied this topic will surely discover new insight.
That said, Brauns doesn’t do much to flesh out this principle with language and concepts that might make the book intelligible to non-Christians. He rightly emphasizes it’s critical for Christians to help our unbelieving neighbors understand the principle of the rope; he should have done more, then, to translate it out of pure “Christianese.” Particularly disappointing is Brauns’s treatment of the problem of suffering; he dramatically raises the question of pain and death inflicted on “innocent children,” then totally fails to answer it. He gestures obliquely in the direction of the correct answer—that there is, in fact, no such thing as an innocent child—but doesn’t seem willing to come out and say it. Instead, he falls back on the Christianese answer that if we disallow God from imposing the curse on all people, we also disallow the gospel. That’s true, but insufficient. Speaking as one who lost an infant child, I know it seems cruel to say babies are evil. In the long run, however, it’s crueler not to say it.
Bound Together really shines brilliantly in its second half, where Brauns applies the principle of the rope to real-world problems. The chapter on joy is by itself worth double the price of the book. Brauns shows how the joy we’re promised—and even commanded to seek—in the New Testament is deeply connected in all kinds of surprising ways to our fellowship with other believers and the community life of the church. I learned a lot about an area I thought I already knew well.
There are also two insightful chapters on family life: one on the fear of death, and one on the challenges of American politics and culture. In each, Brauns’s experience as a pastor shines through with counsel on helping people find meaning and hope in the midst of raw and aching problems. His congregants must be blessed by his pastoral care; his book certainly shows how the principle of the rope can be a firm foundation for struggling people. The chapter on politics and culture will be of particular interest to those frustrated with simplistic approaches that have prevailed in the church on those issues in the past generation. Brauns makes an important contribution to the ongoing intellectual rebuilding effort in that area.
Bound Together is relatively short and easy to read but delivers real depth and insight on a desperately needed issue. Don’t miss it.
