This book challenges commonly held faulty premises about God and the Bible that can bring bondage to a personâs soul. Whereas religion may be used to manipulate and abuse, God calls us to love in a way that gives life. Through life experiences and research, the author shows how the Bible, when understood as God intended, challenges manâs faulty thinking as Godâs enduring love, and continually breathes new life.
This book challenges commonly held faulty premises about God and the Bible that can bring bondage to a personâs soul. Whereas religion may be used to manipulate and abuse, God calls us to love in a way that gives life. Through life experiences and research, the author shows how the Bible, when understood as God intended, challenges manâs faulty thinking as Godâs enduring love, and continually breathes new life.
âGod made heaven and earth; he created the sea and everything else. God always keeps his wordâ (Psalms 146:6 CEV).
âIf God is real, and I believe he is, he is outside nature. He is, therefore, not limited by the laws of nature in the way that we areâ â Francis Collins.
The first memory I have from childhood is being in church. I spent many weekdays in the church prayer room while my mother prayed. On Sunday mornings, I attended childrenâs church and competed with other kids memorizing scripture hoping to win fantastic prizes. On Sunday evenings, my family attended congregational singing and prayer services in which people cried, danced, and laid all on the floor in trance-like states. Those were engaging times for me as a child. It felt like a night at the Improv, like anything could happen. We referred to it as a supernatural move of the Spirit, though I did not know what that meant at my age. I just knew our pastor had a way of keeping every service eclectic.
As a toddler, I was sickly, spending much time in the hospital with chronic mastoiditis.[1] When that ended, my mother referred to me as her miracle child because she said I was healed through peopleâs prayers. As the âmiracle child,â my mother encouraged me to become very religious. I was told God healed me for something great. Church people called me a mighty prayer warrior because I was always in prayer meetings with my mom. At age 6, I prayed the sinnerâs prayer; at age 7, I was filled with the Holy Spirit, which meant I spoke in tongues in Pentecostal circles. By age 9, I announced God wanted me to be a missionary. By our standards, I had accrued all the spiritual acumen for a bright future.
Suddenly, around age 10, everything changed. The church board fired our pastor. Families who supported him were kicked out of the church, and we kids were bewildered, not knowing what was happening. The eclectic meetings went away, as people became very somber. All I knew was that my parents were involved in secret meetings, and within a few weeks, we were attending church in an old building called the Odd Fellows Hall. It would be several years before my parents told us what had happened.
At first, the new church was small, and we knew everyone. The eclectic services returned. However, as more people joined the church, the service format became more predictable as new members joined from ritualistic church traditions. New leaders advocated for rituals they had found meaningful in their respective heritages, and people who valued the eclectic environment resisted. The changes eroded the excitement that once characterized the service, it all ended, and we were again without a church home.
As my family looked for a new church, we visited churches from many traditions, including Baptist, Nazarene, Church of God, Lutheran, and Salvation Army, before settling into a Christian Missionary Alliance church. The Alliance church became home until a new pastor demanded conformity. Having come from a tradition that valued free expression, that requirement didnât sit well with my parents, and we made our way back to the Assembly of God church we had initially attended. Slowly, we became regular attenders, but gossip always seemed to taint our involvement; since some people considered us as outcasts who shouldnât have returned.
I eventually lost interest in church as I watched how ugly religious people could be. It didnât help that my fifth-grade teacher, who abused me in class, attended the same church. She exemplified the cruelness I witnessed at church. I was convinced those people were only interested in looking good in church, not being good. They were shallow and did not care about people. They focused on religious performance to prove their goodness. They crushed others to elevate themselves. I determined that if this behavior reflected the God they represented; I wanted nothing to do with it.
I questioned, for the first time, whether God even existed. Would life be better without the concept of God? If God exists, might he differ from what religious people represented him as being? Mostly, I wondered, if he was loving and sovereign, wouldnât he be capable of revealing himself to me in a way that I could recognize? So, I challenged God to show himself to me.
Soon after, an evangelist held a city-wide gospel meeting and preached like he was reading my thoughts. I was convinced that day my challenge had been met, and I began recalibrating my faith to reflect a personal, loving God.
As the years went by, I sought to live a genuine faith. I wanted nothing to do with hypocrisy. I learned to empathize with people I met and allow myself to be challenged by what they could teach me. I studied the Bible to understand God and his purpose for humanity. I enjoyed learning about what other faith traditions and cultures believed about him. I wanted to embrace the whole of Godâs creation.
EXPLORING RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS
I read widely to understand how different perceptions of God came into the Christian tradition and how ideas of God shifted through the years. I contemplated a diversity of popular teachings, including Dispensationalism[2] and Christian Zionism.[3]
I became a foreign missionary at age 19, partly to broaden my understanding of God. When I returned, I discovered several new traditions like the Messianic movement,[4] the Shepherding Movement,[5] the Prophetic Movement,[6] Inner Healing,[7] Signs, and Wonders,[8] âname it and claim it,â and the seeker-friendly movement.[9] The teachings of all these movements started as exciting developments of faith, but eventually I realized they involved putting God in a box of their own making. Their leaders seemed more attracted to these novel movements' financial perks and celebrity status. Faith seemed a crutch that empowered us to go after what we wanted.
When I later went to Seminary, I studied biblical languages to better research the Bible and to ferret out claims made about the Bible. I wanted to determine the basis on which we know what we think we know about the Bible and whether it lived up to what the Bible intended to teach. I had my suspicions, but I wanted to find the truth. My drive motivated me to learn some of the most important lessons Iâve ever known.
In seminary, I realized that since biblical Hebrew was a primitive language, it expressed primitive ideas. Slowly, that awareness led me to understand that humanityâs understanding of God is ever-evolving and that scriptures document that evolution to its highest revelation through the ministry of Jesus. Learning that the Hebrew Bible recorded salvation history that led us to Christ meant it needed to be understood through the grid of Jesusâs teaching.
The Hebrew Bible starts with God revealing his heart and plan for the creation of the World. Jump forward several years, and God re-engages humanity through Abraham and his descendants and starts the slow process of reclaiming his revelation. God brought Abrahamâs descendants out of Ur in Mesopotamia using whatever religious concepts they had that he could mold toward a more accurate understanding of who the real God of Creation was. Throughout Israel and Judahâs histories, God would speak through his prophets to further clarify his revelation and slowly reveal his displeasure with religious rituals he could continue when the nation was in its infancy.
More than anything, I struggled with the idea that a God of love would let one lucky group go to heaven because they were born in the right place and time while sending others to a site of eternal torture, as I had been taught. The whole idea didnât square with the belief that God was loving. The standard explanation I always heard was that God is beyond our understanding. Even with this unreasonable answer, somehow, I knew that, regardless of what was true, a loving God would ensure all was fair, so I didnât worry about it.
LESSON FROM MISSIONS
While I was a missionary, I heard from co-workers about a man in India who had an encounter with God. He had seen a dream of a man performing and teaching truth and been given instructions to go to a specific public square in his city to speak to the man in his dream. As this man followed the instructions from his dream, he found my friendâs team doing a pantomime portrayal of the story about God creating the world and how, due to manâs rebellion, Jesus revealed Godâs unconditional love.[10] As he watched, the guy recognized the connection between his dream and the message communicated through the mime my friendâs team presented. I was impressed that God acted independently of an evangelist to prepare the manâs heart. Since then, Iâve read other stories similar to this, where God gave the divine revelation of himself to individuals.
I realized that God did not need humans to bring his redemption to the world, and to think he does is small-minded. However, he invites us to work with him, as he likes having his church participate in spreading the gospel (Mark 16:15). Also, he does not allow any who seek Him to be ignored.[11] He always provides a way.
God wants us to be part of the unfolding of his revelation. His heart is for all of his creation. Just as he broke into history in all the ways we know about, he was willing and able to break into history in ways we do not know about. Just as the Bible tells stories of God revealing himself to various characters like Melchizedek outside of his revelation to Abraham, he continues to show himself in undocumented ways throughout history.[12] The Bible says that God has people in places his followers donât know of[13] and that if anyone seeks God, that person will not be ignored.[14] At this point, I realized I had to repent of my limited view of God. The idea that God needed me was arrogant. It was my privilege to be involved.
God has not called us into an exclusive tribe with power over others. Godâs heart is for everyone in his creation. Christianity is about finding the internal witness in people, not something external like a tribal brand. True believers reflect the heart of Christ, not the use of the correct religious terms. God is not concerned with what we call him. The names of God we have in scripture are descriptive.[15] They describe the heart of God. The closest the Bible comes to using a proper name is âI am who I am.â Meaning is in the heart of people, not in words.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
We believe there is only one true God; we accept that the God we worship is the same even when our experiences differ. As we talk amongst ourselves, we discover common lessons from our experiences that define God. We acknowledge by faith that even with our differences, the God we worship is the same.
The real issue is whether or not our beliefs are simply our perceptions of a God we want to believe to be accurate, or has God revealed himself to us as such? Knowing whether or not God is real requires us to understand what we are looking for. Is our perception of God simply a manmade construct or something outside our imagination? Everyoneâs idea of God is different because we have different experiences, but that does not mean we all worship different gods.
As Christians, we express through creeds our shared beliefs. The Apostleâs Creed says:
âI believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.â [16]
Through this creed, we acknowledge that we have shared beliefs with large numbers of people even though our revelations may differ. Our response to this creed should lead us to dialogue and learn where our differences come from and what we can learn from each other.
It is time we are known as people of substance who look to the heart, not the externals. We need to be relational people who can embrace the idea that we all see and know in part. Still, when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away with (Mark 16:15). When we can learn how to put our experiences together and systematically learn the lessons they teach us, our revelation of God and reality will become more complete. Only then will we know who the real God is and recognize his imprint on the hearts of others.
Regarding other religions, we must ask ourselves if a loving God would shut off his revelation to anyone. Whether we can see on the surface any truth or not, we at least need to be open to the idea that God can reveal his character and heart to anyone, even those who use very different words and traditions than to understand the God we know and love. I have met people from faith traditions I never thought could know God, but as I got to know them, my heart bore witness to theirs.
We need not change our learned lessons about God to be ecumenical. However, we need to see beyond the internal revelation of Godâs heart and character. Our pride, tribalistic heritage, or narrow-mindedness keep us from allowing God to reveal who he is and what he is capable of.
Questions
What stood out to you in this chapter?
When you first embraced Christianity, what hopes did you have for how your life would change
Did you ever struggle with the concept of God? If so, what do you struggle with?
What would your spiritual family or casual acquaintances think if you were open about your struggles?
Who are you comfortable talking with about such struggles? What makes you comfortable talking openly or not?
[1] Mastoiditis is the result of an infection that extends to the air cells of the skull behind the ear. Specifically, it is an inflammation of the mucosal lining of the mastoid antrum and mastoid air cell system. Complications include hearing loss, inflammation in the inner ear causing vertigo, an ear-ringing that makes communication difficult, or if it spreads to the facial nerve, it can cause weakness or paralysis of some facial expression muscles.
[2] Dispensationalism is an analytical system for interpreting the Bible based on fundamentalist interpretation. Dispensationalism was developed by John Nelson Darby around 1830 and considers biblical history as divided into ages to which God has allotted distinct administrative principles.Â
[3] From: âThe Myth of a Christian Nationâ by Greg Boyd
[4] Messianic Judaism is a modern syncretistic movement in Fundamentalism that incorporates some elements of Judaism.
[5] The Shepherding movement was a controversial movement within charismatic churches that emerged in the 1970s and early 1980s. The movement emphasized extreme mentorship that translated into control over the mentee.
[6] The Apostolic-Prophetic Movement is the Charismatic movement that believes that they are restoring the Five-Fold Ministry. Prophecy plays a major role in this group.
[7] The Inner healing Movement is a version of Recovered Memory Therapy that attempts to recover forgotten memories.
[8] Signs and wonders refer to the belief that miraculous experiences should be normative in Christian experience in the individual and corporate church life,
[9] The seeker-friendly churches assume unchurched people are not attracted to liturgy and church music so they introduce the gospel through popular style music and culturally sensitive messages.
[10] Tribute is a pantomime Production created for the Far East Evangelism Team (FEET) evangelistic outreach of Youth With A Mission to Asian countries.
[11] See Deuteronomy 4:29; Proverbs 8:17; Jeremiah 29:13; Matthew 11:28-30 for multiple references referred to here.
[12] See Genesis 4:1-4, 12:7-8, 14:17-24, 15:8-18 26:19-25, 31:43-55, 35:1-15, 46:1; Exodus 6:3; Psalm 110:1-4; Isaiah 9:6; Romans 3:10, 17; Hebrews 5:1, 5-7, 20, 6:1, 19-20, 7:1-21, 23-28, 10:11-12; 1 Peter 1:20 for multiple references referred to here.
[13] This is a reference to Naaman and members of Caesarâs household.
[14] See Deuteronomy 4:29; Proverbs 8:17; Jeremiah 29:13; Matthew 11:28-30 for multiple references referred to here.
[15] From the chapter âThe Names of God and the Being of Namesâ by Mark Jordan in The Existence and Nature of God textbook.
[16] From:  âThe Apostlesâ Creed" by James Orr. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Reformed. Archived from the original on June 22, 2011.
Fostering a Healthy Soul by Dennis Gunnarson is a spiritual guide for practising Christians who would class themselves as spiritually disillusioned. Those who seek an informed text to help bolster their beliefs and steer them back onto the religious path.
A thoroughly researched text, applying the logic of other academic and inter-faith texts, Gunnarson's approach to writing this guide is to carefully unpick the key foundation blocks of Christianity, from broad questions including "is my God real?" to those impacting the daily lives of millions of people around the world, such as "what does God require of me?" and "what do I do with the pieces that do not fit?" In all the chapters Gunnarson tackles big and, at points, quite intense topics in his desire to present a balanced portrayal on some of Christianity's biggest contradictions. Each chapter draws to a conclusion with a subsection titled "bringing it all together" where Gunnarson presents an alternative view that gives faith-based readers a fresh take that challenges tradition without breaking religion itself.
There is a lot to commend Gunnarson and his authorship approach, the attention to detail and writing standard here is indeed very good, but for me where I chiefly struggled chiefly was in the amount of it. I spent most of the book feeling overwhelmed with information. On reaching the book's climax I was left unsure what the main takeaways were and wondering those in a more spiritually precarious position would find their faith strengthened by this book or confused further.
Fostering a Healthy Soul is the perfect recommendation for the right type of reader, someone looking for detailed analysis, eventually drawing to balanced and modernised perspective on some of Christianity's big questions. However, for the majority of readers with only a passing interest take note, much like all things faith-based, the meaning of religion is never a quick win.
AEB Reviews