All posts tagged Brad Jersak

  • January 25, 2018

    Water To Wine Gathering

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    Two years ago I published Water To Wine — a memoir of my spiritual journey out of Americanized pop Christianity into a deeper, richer, more substantive Christian faith. This journey was both the best and most difficult thing I’ve done in over forty years of following Jesus. I describe it as being “born again again” and use the metaphor of water turning to wine. (You can read more about my water to wine journey in this blog post: Twenty-Two Days.)

    I’ve honestly been surprised at how much interest there’s been in the story of my spiritual/theological transition. I think part of the interest is that I did it as a pastor while attempting to bring my congregation with me — a risky endeavor that I more or less succeeded in doing (though not without considerable cost and pain).

    Since the publication of Water To Wine I’ve received messages from hundreds of pastors and Christian leaders from across America and from a dozen or more countries who personally resonate with my story. I find that so gratifying. These days I typically receive three or four of messages a week from pastors who are on what I call “the journey.” Many ask to come visit me and I always say yes, even though it can be a challenge to find the time. A few have even moved to St. Joseph to be a part of Word of Life. I find that so amazing!

    Last fall after meeting with a pastor from Texas, I began thinking about hosting a gathering for people who are on their own “water to wine” journey; I want to tell these seekers what I wish someone had told me fourteen years ago. This will also be a great opportunity for people on the water to wine journey to connect with one another. When I floated the idea on social media, it generated an enthusiastic response.
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    No Comments / Christianity, Church, Water To Wine /

  • April 10, 2015

    A More Christlike God

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    A More Christlike God
    Brian Zahnd

    What is God like? What an enormous question. For those of us who believe that God is somehow at the foundation of existence, meaning, and self-understanding, it’s an all-important question. So how shall we answer? Our options are endless. Human inquiry into the divine has produced a vast pantheon of gods — from Ares to Zeus. Of course, the Christian will have an instinct to look to the Bible for the definition of God. I understand this instinct and in one sense it is correct; but it may not yield as clear an answer as we think. Even while speaking of the “God of the Bible” we can cobble together whatever vision of God we choose from its disparate images. That we do this mostly unconsciously doesn’t help matters. Even if we restrict our inquiry into the nature of God to the Bible, we are likely to find just the kind of God that we want to find. If we want a God of peace, he’s there. If we want a God of war, he’s there. If we want a compassionate God, he’s there. If we want a vindictive God, he’s there. If we want an egalitarian God, he’s there. If we want an ethnocentric God, he’s there. If we want a God demanding blood sacrifice, he’s there. If we want a God abolishing blood sacrifice, he’s there. Sometimes the Bible is like a Rorschach test — it reveals more about the reader than the eternal I AM.
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    11 Comments / Books, Jesus, Theology, Uncategorized /

  • September 29, 2014

    Beyond Elementary School Christianity

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    Beyond Elementary School Christianity
    Brian Zahnd

    In his groundbreaking book, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, James W. Fowler describes spiritual development in a series of stages from zero to six. Fowler describes stage two as the faith of school children. This is a stage where metaphors are often literalized and a strong belief in the just reciprocity of the universe is held dear. At this stage of faith the idea that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people is a controlling axiom. I won’t summarize all the stages here, but Fowler describes stage five as the capacity to acknowledge paradox and experience transcendence.

    Fowler’s final stage is characterized by compassion and the view that all people belong to a universal community. This is the mature stage where the spiritual journey breaks out of the paradigm of “us versus them” that dominates so much religious thought and controls so many religious institutions.

    In his forthcoming book, A More Christlike God, Canadian theologian Brad Jersak comments on Fowler’s stages of faith and the current plight of evangelicalism making this stinging observation: “Entire streams of Christendom are not only stuck at stage-two faith, but actually train and require their ministers to interpret the Bible through the mythic-literal eyes of school children. Growing up and moving forward is rebranded as backsliding; maturing is perceived as falling away.”
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    34 Comments / Christianity, Faith, Prayer /

  • March 3, 2014

    The Crucified God

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    The Crucified God
    Brian Zahnd

    “When the crucified Jesus is called ‘the image of the invisible God,’
    the meaning is that this is God and God is like this.”
    –Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God

    “Being disguised under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion and death,
    the Christform is paradoxically the clearest revelation of who God is.”
    –John R. Cihak, Love Alone Is Believable: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Apologetics

    “Jesus is the only perfect theology.”
    –Brad Jersak

    God is like Jesus.
    God has always been like Jesus.
    There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
    We haven’t always known this.
    But now we do.
    –Brian Zahnd

    I want to know who God is. I want to know what God is like. So what should I do? Read the Bible? Yes…but. The Bible is a big and complicated book and subject to what Christian Smith wryly calls “pervasive interpretive pluralism.” Smith is referring to the embarrassing plethora of contradictory interpretations from equally qualified and well-intentioned interpreters.

    So what do we do? Where do we stand within Scripture in order to interpret the rest of the text? Genesis? Leviticus? Joshua? Revelation? What we need is a way to center our reading of Scripture – a vantage point from which to interpret the whole of Scripture. My humble suggestion is that this place is the cross. Not only do I advocate a Christocentric reading of the Bible, I contend that the cross is the most Christ-revealing moment in the Bible.

    If we want to know what God is like, the best thing we can do is look at Jesus upon the cross. God is like that!
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    3 Comments / Cross, Jesus, Theology /

  • March 28, 2013

    How Did Jesus Understand His Death?

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    How Did Jesus Understand His Own Death?
    Brian Zahnd

    A question for Good Friday:

    How did Jesus understand his own death?
    What meaning did Jesus give to his crucifixion?
    Did Jesus have a “theology of the cross”?

    Jesus repeatedly predicted his own death by crucifixion to his inner-circle of disciples, but did Jesus ever speak about what it meant?

    Yes.

    In Jerusalem a few days before Good Friday Jesus said this in reference to his impending crucifixion:

    Now is the judgment of the world.
    Now will the ruler of the world be cast out.
    And when I am lifted up from the earth—
    I will draw all people to myself.
    –John 12:31, 32

    Jesus says his crucifixion (seen in the light of resurrection) does three things…

    1. Judges the world.
    2. Reorganizes humanity.
    3. Drives out the satan.
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    6 Comments / Christianity, Death, Jesus, Theology, Violence /

  • July 9, 2010

    “Your moralism is killing you”

    I’ll never forget the time I was sitting at the Starbucks in downtown Estes Park, Colorado with my friend Brad Jersak and his relating to me how Archbishop Lazar Puhalo of the Orthodox Church of Canada had replied upon being asked, “What message would you have for the evangelical church?” The Archbishop’s reply was this:

    “Your moralism is killing you.”

    Wow! That hit me like a ton of bricks. And the line has stuck with me ever since. “Your moralism is killing you.” Sometimes it takes the perspective of an outsider to get to the heart of the matter. Orthodoxy has its own issues to contend with, but as far as I’m concerned Archbishop Lazar’s diagnosis of the chief malady within evangelicalism is right on target. Our moralism is killing us. But Jesus wants to save us!

    Here is another quote from Archbishop Lazar which expounds upon the topic. Read more

    No Comments / Christianity /