Augsburg Fortress

A better story of faith exists, and it has the capacity to heal the world--if we only embrace, articulate, and live it more courageously.

You know what you don't believe: about the Bible, the church, and God. You don't agree with the doctrines of an exclusionary, dominant Christianity. But what if someone asked you: "What do you believe?" In this primer on progressive, expansive, generous Christianity, writer and pastor Bruce Reyes-Chow helps us reconsider--or consider for the first time--what it means to choose faith. What if we could articulate the gospel of love, kindness, humility, and justice? What if the Christian narrative both embraces contradiction and lays claim to deep, historic truths? And what if everything good about God is actually true?

With clarity, vulnerability, and wit, Reyes-Chow helps us learn a grammar of faith about God, Jesus, and the Spirit that breathes fresh meaning into old words like sin, confession, salvation, baptism, communion, and gratitude. He doesn't shy away from calling out the hateful and hurtful dogmas of many churches, but he also turns our attention toward essential questions: What if God created humans to be beautifully complex? What if the Spirit calls us to lament and repent and also beckons us toward pathways of healing, wholeness, and hope? And if Jesus equips us for lives of justice and kindness, how might our imaginations expand for what the world could be?

Reyes-Chow offers his own "faith montage" and helps individuals and groups create their own. There is a more loving, more genuine vision of God than the one we see being performed around us, and this book helps us find it.