Melissa Cooper provides a fabulous review of Discovering The God Imagination. I couldn’t have asked for a better review.
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Have you ever wondered how God came up with … well, everything?
During my two days at Big Tent Christianity, I picked up a review copy of Jonathan Brink‘s Discovering the God Imagination. I’m glad I did.
Many of the books I review here are from publishing houses that don’t necessarily cater to my type of Christianity, but I fully believe in trying to understand all sides of an issue, and I believe many of them inform why I believe what I believe.
This book, however, spoke to me in a way that few books have. I have wrestled for a long time with issues of theology. Even before I knew what it meant to wrestle with issues of theology, I questioned and wondered and asked. (Far too few people wonder nowadays, don’t you think?)
There are so many things about “popular” Christianity that just don’t line up. Beyond Biblical contradictions, beyond conservative vs. liberal, beyond the sexuality question — some things don’t line up about God.
In this book, Brink addresses many of the questions I’ve been struggling with for years. And he does it in a new way! I have found many theologians, colleagues, classmates, professors, who have the same struggles and questions that I do, but their resolutions are unfinished and at times unsettling.
If God is love, if God is peace, if God is the great Parent, then why does God intend God’s only son Jesus to die a violent, horrific death on the cross? How does that act forgive sins? And why does that only come around thousands of years after the first “sin” is committed?
Those are the questions I have struggled with for many years, and the kinds of questions that turn people away from God and religion. The God of penal substitutionary atonement really appears to be a masochistic, fear-mongering,vengeful tyrant. (Harsh, but an honest perception.)
For years now I’ve known that was no theology I cared to be a part of. That God is frightening and does not seem to match the God represented by Christ. Something just doesn’t match up.
But although I had encountered numerous colleagues with the same concerns, their sole focus on liberation theology or disregard for Scripture was unsettling to say the least.
Brink, however, answers these questions. He addresses them head-on, and not in a way that disregards Scripture or in a way that evades the questions themselves.
Brink provides a Scriptural — and reasonable — answer to those questions without resorting to the violence and irrationality of a theory like substitutionary atonement. Refreshing, to say the least.
Brink finds the underlying problem of human separation from God in the exact place I’ve always found it: within us.
The answer to the big question, “How does God love us?” is answered in the first chapter of Genesis. And somehow, we miss it. We ignore the answer to our problems, the answer to our sinfulness, the answer to our separation from God.
God calls us good.
Nay, very good.
How do we miss such a glaring contradiction to all that is taught in many churches today? Yes, I know in the next chapter we find the source of the doctrine of original sin, etc, etc. But first, the way God made us is good.
How can we possibly do anything to change God’s goodness? Because sins are committed, does that change God’s relationship to us? No! It changes our relationship to God!
It’s a subtle distinction in writing, but an enormous difference in life.
Brink sums up the message of his book within the first 20 pages:
“Love addresses the question of ‘the exception.’ Is there something we can do to change God’s perspective of us? Could humanity actually do something to permanently remove itself from the Kingdom of God? Jesus reveals that even when we attempt to kill the God image, the answer is no. There is, in essence, no exception.”
But Brink admits it is much easier to cast the problem with humanity outward rather than inward, which is why every popular theory of Christology and Christian theology does so.
By looking inward, we find that God is not in need of a sacrifice, we are. God loves us so much that God is willing to sacrifice everything if it will help us see our own goodness and the unconditional, unchangeable love God has for each of us individually and for us as God’s children.
When we follow Jesus, we are living into something that is already true — we are good. We are capable of doing amazing things, because God believes we are good. And from Day 1 (or Day 6, if you want to be literal), God tells us that we are good.
Brink follows the storyline of the Bible, addressing every major turning point to show that God was at work in the world in a way that intends to show us our worth as God’s children, and to show us God’s unconditional love for us in all we do.
Do I think Jonathan Brink has it all figured out? Absolutely not. But I do believe he has presented a reconciled view of the arc of Christian history that is, at least for me, unprecedented. Read it. It will move you.
