How to Start a Riot (by Rob Touchstone)

Review of Jonathan Storment’s How To Start A Riot, by Rob Touchstone

“…and that is why this dramatic narrative is called ACTS and not ‘Facts.’”  I like to conclude my introduction with that corny and perhaps outdated claim on the first day of my undergraduate Story of the Church class.  I know.  It must sound like the voice of a well-intentioned parent reminding their child of a timeless truth for the hundredth time.

So why do I keep saying it? Because it is indeed deeply true.

And it’s never more apparent than when reading Jonathan Storment’s, How To Start A Riot.  Storment leads us into the heart of the action refusing to settle for, “just the facts, m’am.”  And in doing so, he ignites a passionate call that invites the church today to rise up and engage.  Make no mistake, the “facts” are important to Storment.  More than important. Crucial. They lay the foundation of the action story.  And they are the nourishing ingredients to be chewed upon for the strength to act boldly.

Storment’s approach reminds me of a Hebrew word I learned several years ago that advanced my passion for Scripture to a new level.  The word is, “hagah.” Its meaning is mostly lost today because it has often been translated “meditate.”  The original word was a Hebrew onomatopoeia for the sound made by a ferociously hungry lion.  So when God implores Israel to “hagah” on His Law “day and night” (Josh. 1:8) he’s not talking about a few quiet times. He’s describing His Words as essential food for which the community of Israel must feed upon to have participatory strength to advance the empowering story.

This is what Storment’s book ferociously does for the church through the invitation to chew upon the facts of the narrative of the church and be strengthened and empowered to act.  Storment calls for a riot by creating a hunger that stirs the soul and leaves us feeling like a young orphan humbly declaring, “Please sir, I want some more.”^[1]

“The Bible is illegal in many countries. Could it be that those countries know something about the book that we have forgotten— that underneath our Precious Moments memorabilia and inside our leather-bound Bibles we hold the most revolutionary story the world has ever known?”^[2]

How to Start a Riot by Jonathan Storment calls for a subversive revolution by disturbing half-baked versions of Christianity and the church.  In doing so, his book emits an empowering aroma of hope for the present community of God.  To reveal this hope, Storment looks intently into the past story of Israel while peering hopefully into the future, all with the purpose of bringing into focus the present mission of a God at work in the church.  How To Start A Riot helps reveal a God who is authoring and entering the grand narrative of human history through the subversive story of ancient community (Israel) and 1st century/present community (the church) empowered by the future hope of resurrection.

Storment’s work is more than a commentary on the book of Acts.  This is so much the case that, before the book reaches its midpoint, Storment thinks it wise to remind his readers his book is indeed focused on the story of the church as told in Luke’s sequel. So why not just simply tell the story of the church? The answer to this question is precisely what makes this book work so well.  You can’t.  Or at least you can’t without isolating the work of God or reducing the Bible to a book of facts, something Storment passionately keeps from happening by continuously and almost simultaneously looking backward and forward.

Storment doesn’t simply interpret the text of Acts.  He pulls back the veil to show the first Christians and the early church advancing the story that God has been authoring from the beginning.  But this is not guesswork. The story has been revealed through the Old Testament narrative. For some the Old Testament has felt like nothing more than facts and figures floating around like disjointed dots in an unfinished “connect the dots” picture.  Storment comes along and examines those “dots” with the skill of a theologian.  He then invites the reader to join him in connecting them with the experience of a practitioner.  This is where Storment especially excels.

As these dots are connected, the canvas begins to masterfully reveal the bigger picture of God’s work in history. How does Storment do this? By connecting the unfolding stories in Acts to their historical and theological Jewish roots and then pointing ahead to how these ingredients ignite riotous resistance.  But this is not a typical riot. It is a subversive one rooted in the seemingly paradoxical integration of humility and power.

A good example of how Storment does this is in his focus upon the story of Stephen, an early Christian who is falsely accused and unjustly stoned to death by the religious powers of the Sanhedrin.   Storment connects this story to Naboth, who suffered the same fate at the hands of the powers of his day (the king and queen) in the Old Testament narrative.

At first glance these may seem like coincidental “facts” in the narrative. But Storment connects them to reveal a God who is greater than power structures by pointing to something beyond the unjust death both of these men suffered.  That something is resurrection.  And this is precisely why Storment can paint a picture of a God working subversively through humble riot-starters whose weaknesses display strength and who suffer what looks like defeat, all because of resurrection power.

How is this revealed in Acts?   The followers of Jesus are preaching the resurrection of Jesus.  It disturbed the powers then and it disturbs the powers today.  This leads to what Storment courageously seeks to disturb — mediocrity and inaction — two unhealthy ingredients, amongst others, that have become far too prevalent in the church of the 21st century.  Storment’s bold and hauntingly true claim perhaps captures that sentiment best in his chapter entitled Calling All Prophets:

“If the status quo works for you, if the world benefits you, you might not like the idea of a God who is turning the world upside down. “The last shall be first” sounds great for those who are at the back of the line; but if you are at the top of the food chain, it sounds a lot more like a threat.”^[3]

How To Start A Riot is not an instruction manual.  It is a call to participate.  An all-inclusive call to action.  Storment shows this invitation does not discriminate as he recounts ancient day prophets, modern day revolutionaries such as Martin Luther King, and every day women and men he sees from the pulpit any given Sunday.  “No longer does God’s Spirit rest only on a select few. Now, through this new thing God is doing through Jesus, the Spirit empowers young men and old women, seventh-grade girls and sixty-year-old truck drivers. All of us can be God’s servants. His prophets.”^[4]

May the revolution continue.

^[1] reference to the Dickens’classic Oliver Twist: The Parish Boy’s Progress

^[2] Storment, Jonathan (2014-04-27). How to Start a Riot: Support Your Local Jesus Revolution (Kindle Locations 1025-1027). Leafwood Publishers. Kindle Edition.

^[3] Storment, Kindle Locations 674-677.

^[4]Storment, Kindle Locations 828-831.