You would think someone who has experienced so much would walk away from anything that looks remotely like the very place he came from. But there is hope. Jay is an ardent grace-junkie. He drinks it. Shoots it up. Sniffs it. Loves it. And he encourages everyone to do the same. Read more
There is a lot of talk about Jay’s book. On a personal note there is something that many will pass over that I want to thank my brother Jay for. This book is a hidden victory. Jay goes public on what many of us work our whole lives to hide in the shadow of the shame that we were schooled in daily from the time the bell went for our first class. Read more
I'm tempted to give people Jay's book when they want to know what distinguishes a Lutheran theological position from that of other forms of Christianity. The difference of course is that we are all about grace. And not a dry dusty doctrine of grace. Big wet juicy grace. The kind that runs down your chin like a peach you have to eat over the kitchen sink. Read more
What I love most about Jay and his new book is that he recovers the word "grace" for those of us who heartily believe that the church is and should be open to all. He doesn't do this by tap dancing around the Bible, nor does he do theological gymnastics to avoid the ugliness in our sacred text. Jay goes head first into the Bible, wrestles it with Jacobian tenacity, and comes out with a message about grace that stands as a challenge to both liberal and conservative Christians. Read more
What is your experience of grace? That's the question we'll be considering over the next two weeks here at the Patheos Book Club blog. In his new book, Fall To Grace, author Jay Bakker, son of once popular televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, explores the true nature of grace and what it means in everyday life (and how it changed his spiritual life). For the next couple of weeks here at the Book Club blog, we'll host a conversation on grace with some of Jay's friends and followers. Stay tuned for posts by Tony Jones, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Tripp Fuller, George Elerick and Jarrod McKenna. We'll also be posting an interview with Bakker by Managing Editor Tim Dalrymple early next week. You're invited to share your own stories of grace after each post; we hope you'll join our discussion on "revolutionizing grace!" Read more
When our faith is rocked, we don’t need answers. We need friends. In Kent Annan I have found a kindred spirit. After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken describes in poignant detail Annan’s struggle to make sense of his faith in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Read more
Author Brent Landau gives the reader something she or he hasn’t had before in Revelation of the Magi; a first person account of God appearing in all sorts of ways to all sorts of people. This is a far more inclusive God than Christians might be accustomed to, a God who is incarnate and not choosey about where, when, and to whom God appears, a God who is incarnate in “unspeakable forms.” Editor-in-Chief of the Spiritual Book Club, Susan Baller-Shepard, joins the blogger roundtable on Revelation of the Magi. Read more
"What does it mean for one to never walk in darkness, but have the light of life? Even now, fathoming a light brighter than the sun is difficult but not impossible if we have trust and faith, like that of the Magi." Guest blogger Angelica Nohemi Quinonez joins our roundtable on the new book, Revelation of the Magi. Read more
In recommending Brent Landau’s Revelation of the Magi (excerpted here) to others, I have referred to it as “a fast read that makes the heart soar,” and the book is certainly that; the illustrations are fascinating and enlightening, and the prose-voice praising God is not just lyrical, it is hypnotically joyful. Elizabeth Scalia of The Anchoress blog joins the blogger roundtable on this month's featured book. Read more
I was delighted to read Scot McKnight’s review of my book on the Revelation of the Magi; it is one of the first genuinely scholarly responses to this project, and I am very grateful for the feedback of such a respected scholar in the field of New Testament and early Christian studies. I would like to use this opportunity to reply to McKnight’s main criticisms of my arguments concerning the text. Read more
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