Bøker av Bradley Jersak

"Deconstruction: Trendy brand name for falling away from belief in God? Or a process essential to authentic faith?Liberation or trauma? Prison break or exile?It's complicated. Just like you. Christian history records a Great Reformation and a Great Awakening. But today's "Great Deconstruction" will surely leave an equally profound impact. In Out of the Embers, Bradley Jersak explores the necessity, perils, and possibilities of the Great Deconstruction-how it has the potential to either sabotage our communion with God or infuse it with the breath of life, the light and life of Christ himself. In this collection of vulnerable memoirs, philosophical memos, and candid provocations, Jersak resists both the hand-wringing urge to corral stray sheep and the exultant desire to play the happy-clappy Ex-vangelical cheerleader. He employs the wisdom and expertise of the great deconstructionists-Christianity's ancient influences (Moses, Plato, Paul, and the Patristics), "beloved frenemies" (from Voltaire to Nietzsche), and the masters of deconstruction (Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, and Weil)-to double down and deconstruct deconstruction itself. Where is faith after deconstruction? The author's heart is to engage and empathize with the bereft and disoriented, stoking the brittle ashes for live embers. In this quest for the resilient gospel of the martyrs, the marginal, and those outside the threshold...inexplicably, in this liminal space, life stirs. A Light shines through the ashes. We find, often for the first time, that living connection Jersak calls "presence in communion."There is a sea change occurring across the Western church and civilization. Whether we're watching a radical course correction or a complete collapse remains to be seen, and how it pans out will likely depend on how we see what's happening, who we are becoming, how we live in response-and, most important, where we find Christ situated in this storm"--

This sequel to a "More Christlike God", is a book about Jesus Christ. In "A More Christlike Way", Jersak lays out how Jesus Christ of Nazareth, in his fully human nature, forged the path for a new and true humanity. We'll call it the Jesus Way.This is literally crucial. When referring to the Jesus Way, we're describing the life and faith of a man-the Jesus of the four Gospels-whose earthly sojourn embodied complete surrender to and trust in the God he called his Abba (Papa).Knowing that our subject matter is "the man Christ Jesus" matters greatly because herein, we'll make no grandiose claims for any church or any individual disciple, alive or departed. Christianity's infamy is that our way and our faith have not been very Christlike.Observers attempting to retrace the Jesus Way from the path walked by those who identify as Christian would become hopelessly lost. They would stumble over all manner of obstacles to our beautiful faith. Jesus alone created the Jesus Way and walked it perfectly.

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.