I just received Bradley Jersak new book A More Christlike God. I went to the jail today and preached about looking at God who is Christ like. God is bigger and greater than all our conceptions of God. I love how Jersak says, "Jesus alone is perfect theology" (p.9). God overcomes us by love and not by force and manipulation. Unfortunately there are so many people today who have a toxic view of God. God hates or God is violent or we buy into the myth of redemptive violence.
Jersak is a recent convert to Eastern Orthodoxy speaks about negative theology or apophatic theology. This is speaking of what God is not. God is not shallow. God is not an idol of our making. God is not the Devil. We may not know or understand all that God is but we can know His divine energies. God's revelation to us. God's actions and activity in us and the world around us. We may not know God's essence fully but we can be filled with the Spirit of God whose positive energy touches and penetrates all of our life.
There have been ten million people who have left churches in America in the last fifteen years. This great exodus is by people who have had their minds and hearts broken usually by other people who make up God's church. It's not the living God that is driving them away but our toxic faith and our toxic theology of God. Its the many slogans and shallow ways we talk about God as we silence others who have questions we would rather not deal with at the moment. Jersak suggests not only do we need a more Christ like God but we also need a more Christ like church (p.21).
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