Jim & Casper Go to Church – Book Review

Ever thought to hire someone to go to church with you? No, this isn’t desperation-evangelism. Far from it. A former pastor and executive director of Off the Map, Jim Henderson hires an atheist acquaintance, Matt Casper, to visit churches across the country because he wants to learn from his observations and experiences.

Jim and Casper fascinated and refreshed me. You’ve probably heard the saying, “things are clearer from the outside looking in.” The experiences of Jim and Casper illustrate the cliche well. Casper’s point of view is provoking and intelligent. His ability to hone in on aspects of church culture that I gloss over from familiarity was stimulating. I respect Casper for approaching the project (visiting house churches, mega-churches, and everything in between) with an open mind and quickly giving credit and praise where it was due. Yet with nothing to lose and honesty as his guiding principle, Casper says things I’ve rarely heard about church let alone said within church, and thus consistently and effectively also fells herds of sacred cows. Perhaps most challenging was Casper repeatedly returning to the question, “Is this what Jesus told you guys to do?”

Besides keeping me laughing at Jim & Casper’s humor, this book had me wondering, “Yeah, why do churches do that / say that? Where does that come from? How are we perpetuating empty practices?”

The tagline for this book is “A believer, an atheist, an unlikely friendship…” Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the book was eavesdropping on the relationship develop between Jim & Casper. They show that relationships between atheists and believers don’t have to be unlikely at all.

This book was well worthwhile and to the church’s benefit to read.