Description
With theological integrity and open-hearted compassion, Brad Jersak creates a beautiful space for Jesus to challenge our views of God. A breath of clean and clarifying air. - WILLIAM PAUL YOUNG Author of The Shack The centerpiece of Christian theology is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. The Scriptures as a whole and the witness of Jesus himself, corroborated by those who knew him best, is unrelenting in insisting on this. So why is there so much hate, so much contentiousness, so much ill feeling among those who claim to be his followers? Brad Jersak has spent his life among Evangelicals as a pastor, evangelist and writer. Mostly he has immersed himself in the company of the poor, the addicted, the outsiders. He is determined to recover the essence of the "beautiful" gospel for all of us. The conspicuous mark that characterizes every page of this winsome witness is that this is a "lived theology." He has given attentive detail to what is in the theological libraries, but is not content with that. He has worked it out on the streets and in the lives of those with whom he has chosen to share his life and Christlike God witness, a convincingly beautiful Gospel. - EUGENE H. PETERSON, PhD Emeritus Professor of Spiritual Theology Regent College, Vancouver, BC This excellent and much-needed book confronts with both open heart and very good mind the major obstacles that we have created for people in their journey toward God! "Why didn't people teach us this many years ago?" so many of us are saying. I am so very grateful that Brad Jersak is re-opening the door that Jesus had already opened 2000 years ago. It is so terribly sad that it was ever closed. - Fr. RICHARD ROHR, O.F.M. Center for Action and Contemplation Albuquerque, New Mexico 'Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they now believe of God.' This prophecy of George MacDonald has found its fulfillment in Brad Jersak's journey from the 'volatile moral monster' to the face of Jesus' Father. A More Christlike God is a priceless treasure, worthy of serious reflection. Here the ancient song of light sings us new eyes: "Behold the Lamb, just like his Father." Here we are invited to take sides with Jesus against the way we see, expanding our minds, as St. Hilary said, until they are worthy of the theme, that we may live in Jesus' world. - C. BAXTER KRUGER, PhD Author of The Shack Revisited and Patmos I sometimes hear Christians express their faith and think, "The God you are talking about needs to accept Jesus into his heart!" This book is an altar call to all our images of God that fall short of the beauty of the Risen Jesus. Let these pages invite you to contemplate again the Creator who hears the cries of the oppressed-who was in Christ, on a cross, reconciling the world to himself. As the beauty of ancient Christianity rearticulates orthodoxy for tomorrow, we have yet to know what shape it must take, but like this book, you can be assured it will be more like the beauty of Jesus." - JARROD McKENNA Co-Founder of First Home Project National Director
Features & Highlights
- What is God like? A punishing judge? A doting grandfather? A deadbeat dad? A vengeful warrior? 'Believers' and atheists alike typically carry and finally reject the toxic images of God in their own hearts and minds. Even the Christian gospel has repeatedly lapsed into a vision of God where the wrathful King must be appeased by his victim Son. How do such 'good cop/bad cop' distortions of the divine arise and come to dominate churches and cultures? Whether our notions of 'god' are personal projections or inherited traditions, author and theologian Brad Jersak proposes a radical reassessment, arguing for A More Christlike God: a More Beautiful Gospel. If Christ is "the image of the invisible God, the radiance of God's glory and exact representation of God's likeness," what if we conceived of God as completely Christlike--the perfect Incarnation of self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love? What if God has always been and forever will be 'cruciform' (cross-shaped) in his character and actions? A More Christlike God suggests that such a God would be very good news indeed--a God who Jesus "unwrathed" from dead religion, a Love that is always toward us, and a Grace that pours into this suffering world through willing, human partners.
