Book Details
- Author: Jarrett Stevens
- Publisher: Zondervan (2006)
- Category: Christian Living
Discerning Reader Editorial Review
Reviewed 05/13/2009 by Chad Vandervalk.
Recommended. A decent update of J.B. Phillips' classic book on our views of who God is.
God created people in his image on the sixth day, and every day since, people have returned the favor.
Jarrett Stevens opens his book The Deity Formerly Known as God (ostensibly an update of J.B. Phillips' classic Your God is Too Small) with this provocative quote from Blaise Pascal because he wants to help smash some of the negative images we have created of God and replace them with constructive ones.
Stevens organises the book into two parts. In the first he attempts to smash bad images of God, and in the second he attempts to help create some good ones. The destructive images he identifies are: the cop around the corner, the sweet old man, the cosmic clot machine, the talent show judge, the all-you-can-eat buffet, and your parents, only supersized.
With a background in junior high ministries, Stevens mixes his theological concepts with much humour and many practical insights. His writing is warm and relates to a wide audience (it is not just for the young). He identifies some very negative images of God, and shows how they can be very harmful to our faith. A poor or wrong understanding of who God is and how he relates to us is very damaging to our relationship with him.
After identifying the negative imagery, Stevens moves on to help us develop some positive imagery. Drawing on the parables of Jesus, he shows us God as the late-night neighbour, the lord of the boardroom, the green-thumbed gardener, the single minded shepherd, the tired-eyed father, and the equal opportunity employer.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. It is a very simple (yet at times profound) help to understanding who God is and how he relates to us. One of the negatives of this book's printing job is some insufficiently marked breaks in the text which are designed to illuminate the narrative. You suddenly turn a page and the sequence of thought that you were just reading does not continue on the next page. It took a while for me to even understand what was going on. This, however, is not a criticism of the book, but of the layout of the publication.
For all of us who want to understand how some of our imagery of God is causing us to become spiritually derailed, I heartily recommend this book.
