I begin a summary and review of this book.

Full title:

A More Christlike God
A More Beautiful Gospel

By Bradley Jersak

Published in 2015 by Plain Truth Ministries

Preface

The author’s stated purpose is

‘to introduce in simple terms a more Christlike image of God.’

This is developed in two ways.  Negatively, Brad Jersak seeks to sweep away the many sub-biblical and sub-Christian notions of God that ‘we’ have been taught.  Positively, he seeks to replace these false notions with a doctrine of God who is revealed exclusively in and through Christ.

The general approach of the book is similar to that of Greg Boyd’s Cross Vision.

Already, in Brian Zahnd’s foreward, we are told that the

‘“Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God” Christianity [is] repellent and in need of being jettisoned.’

Jersak reports a ‘wall of resistance’ from those for whom:

‘The possibility that God is that good—as kind and loving and gracious as Jesus—may create panic because that God is unfamiliar to us. Through their own fears or stiff resistance from their peers or leaders, the very folks asking for hope may retreat back to the oppressive god they’ve known for many years. Perhaps they imagine their old certitude gives them a measure of control.’

These folks are wedded to certitude, resistant to questioning, fearful, and ‘mean’.  They confine God in their ‘doctrinal kennels’.  They are the ‘neo-Sanhedrin’ who ‘bare their teeth as they did in Jesus’ day’.  In their hands, ‘the Spirit of Jesus is being slandered rather badly’, and it is time to set the record straight.

It quickly becomes rather obvious (although it is not stated overtly) that the ‘we’ whose ideas Jersak finds so repugnant are the conservative evangelicals (especially of the North American variety).