Can you do something to make God stop loving you?
In this sweeping new interpretation of the narrative of Christianity, Jonathan Brink explores the remarkable dissonance between our historical understanding of Gospel and what the story in Scripture actually reveals. It offers a compelling possibility for those looking to reconstruct their faith in a whole new way.
Honestly, reading this book gave me a headache. But in a good way. Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity by Jonathan Brink is one of those books that you can’t just plow through on your way to the next book. Rather, this is a book you have to read with care, taking time to digest the information being presented. As such, I’ve been chewing on this book since last summer. A classic story comes to mind when thinking about how to describe this book…
A young woman was preparing a ham dinner. After she cut off the end of the ham, she placed it in a pan for baking. Her friend asked her, “Why did you cut off the end of the ham?” And she replied, “I really don’t know but my mother always did, so I thought you were supposed to.”
Later when talking to her mother she asked her why she cut off the end of the ham before baking it, and her mother replied, “I really don’t know, but that’s the way my mom always did it.”
A few weeks later while visiting her grandmother, the young woman asked, “Grandma, why is it that you cut off the end of a ham before you bake it?” Her grandmother replied, “Well dear, otherwise it would never fit into my baking pan.”
Much like the story above, Jonathan isn’t willing to simply take what he’s been told throughout the years without some deeper digging. In Discovering The God Imagination, Jonathan presents a new framing story with which to read God’s history with mankind. In this fresh new take, we find great comfort in the knowledge that at the heart of everything, God really does find us not only good, but very good.
I appreciate Jonathan’s heart, and his perspectives. I may not agree with every single assumption he makes throughout the book (although I’d be hard-pressed to make you a list of where we differ), but we both agree with one thing in the end—love will always prevail. Thanks for blazing a bold new trail Jonathan!
4 out of 5 stars
You can follow Jonathan on his blog here,
or downland a sample chapter of his book here.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received an advanced copy of this book free from Jonathan Brink to review on this blog.
Thanks brother.