After originally losing this book on a flight from Indianapolis to Miami on route to Haiti, I had the opportunity to pick up a new copy of it and finished reading it just this afternoon.
I met the author of this book at a Student Ministries conference at Willow Creek where he was on staff and happened to be leading one of the discussion-groups that I signed up for. I was impressed with him then and at the completion of reading this book!
The book is a “re-make” of a book he found on his shelf one afternoon by J.B. Phillips entitled, “Your God is Too Small”. He read it and ventured to re-write it in his own way for today’s readership. I’m glad he did.
The book points out some false-images of God that we (humans) have created to fit the molds WE have thought up and created for ourselves in order to “know” God for ourselves. The first half of the book includes six of these “characters” that we have built our God into being.
The second half of the book points back to Biblical examples of God’s character and seeks to abolish the false-images previously mentioned in the first-half.
The book reads like a post-modern sermon-series, which is partially because Stevens wrote it after compiling a series of sermons entitled, “The Deity Formerly Known as God”. Anyways – it’s great stuff and I highly recommend it.
I’m sure some of the examples and illustrations will find their ways into Stevan’s messages in the future.
