Book Review: The Christian President: What Jesus Would Have Done by Tom Lombardo
We have never reviewed a “self published” book in this magazine. Nor have we ever reviewed fiction before. A book has to be very good indeed to make us break with both policies. We are taking the unusual step of reviewing a self-published novel because Tom Lombardo’s The Christian President: What Jesus Would Have Done is an unusual book that deserves to be noticed. We accepted the review copy because we were intrigued by the clarity and originality of the author’s two web sites. But once we picked up the slim paperback we could not put it down. It is genuinely thought provoking. We could see, however, why its uniqueness would make many commercial publishers leery.
It is essentially a fable or a parable. It combines elements of a Victorian Sunday School storybook with its stark moral lessons and a well-written episode of The West Wing in which intelligent, sincere, statesmen — not venial politicians — endeavor to stake out the high moral ground and “do the right thing.”.
The premise is simple. The author posits a president responding to the 9/11 attacks by rejecting belligerence and revenge and turning to the Sermon on the Mount and standing squarely on the moral high ground. This is a fable, so do not expect either the complex character development or the plot of a conventional novel. The reader also knows that any president who followed such a course of action would in all likelihood be assassinated. In fact, it was an unsettling coincidence that The Christian President arrived the same week that we received our pre-publication copy of James W. Douglass’ JFK and the Unspeakable. Douglass uses nearly 500 thoroughly-footnoted pages to build the detailed and convincing argument that Kennedy was assassinated for making the real world decision to seek peace rather than greater belligerence at the height of the Cold War. The parallels between the detailed history and the brief fable are eerie.
Lombardo’s book raises intriguing questions about the powers and principalities of our day. What might happen if the public discussion of faith and morality could be used by true statesmen to inspire vast numbers of people of good will to work cooperatively towards the goal of bringing peace and security to the entire world? What if public expressions of morality and faith really did contribute to bridge building and progress rather than being manipulated by cynical political operatives simply to frighten and divide voters over narrowly polarizing issues.
Lombardo’s book earned our attention not as a great novel, but as an intriguing discussion provoker for adult discussion groups, men’s groups, and confirmation classes. In any group of readers, there will be those who will disagree with the premise, but it is a unique springboard for engaging in a debate about how do we apply gospel principles to real world situations. Where do we take the message of Jesus to heart and where do we relegate it to the felt board in the Sunday School classroom? Now that we have all seen what the reaction of our politicians and televangelists was to 9/11, Lombardo challenges us to ask what should the radical Christian response have been? Most importantly of all, what should it be for the next crisis.
We are not about to see The Christian President come to video any time soon. And with the tiny budget of a self-published book, it is all too likely to slip into oblivion. But that would be a shame because it is one of the most genuinely thought-provoking books I have read in quite some time. Since reading the book I now find myself evaluating each day’s news stories in light of the possibilities suggested in the book.
It is self-published, readily available from Amazon, and inexpensive. Get a copy for your men’s fellowship, your young adult discussion group, your bored post-confirmation class, or even for a one-time after-service discussion group.
BookSurge, 2007, Paperback, 104 pages
$10.99, ISBN: 978-1419670473
