Joshua Ryan Butler - The Pursuing God: A Reckless, Irrational, Obsessed Love Thats Dying to Bring Us Home

Praise for The Pursuing God

I commend this book front, left, and center because it thinks deeply and cares immensely for the moral vision of the Christian faith. Challenges to the Christian faith by the current generation are not your fathers or grandfathers pushbacks. This generation questions, probes, and walks away from the Bible and the Christian faith for moral reasons, and the challenges to the faith are profoundly moral. Joshua Ryan Butler is in tune with both this generation and with deep Christian thinking, and offers to those who question the faith not answers to your questions, but deeper questions about those questions.

Scot McKnight, Julius R. Mantey Professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary

Every now and again someone writes a book that breaks your heart in all the right ways. Among those books, once in a blue moon, there is birthed a volume that gently gathers the scattered shards of your heart and patiently, artfully puts it back together anew, piece by piece. This is one of those volumes. In The Pursuing God, Joshua Ryan Butler holds up a king-sized mirror to the heart of God and invites everyone to look inside. Its beautiful in there. Breathtakingly beautiful.

Evan Wickham, Worship Pastor of A Jesus Church: Westside

The Pursuing God is a fiery prophetic worda flaming arrow shot across the dark landscape of dead religion; piercing our moral codes and feeble attempts to find our way to God. Our work is not to find him, but to stop and be found.

John Sowers, President of The Mentoring Project

I just cant do it. I cant slug my way through yet another Christian book talking about the same old stuff in the same old predictable verbiage. This is why Joshua Ryan Butler is quickly becoming one of my favorite Christian writers. His lively prose nurtures thick theological reflection, creating a profound and profoundly accessible book. Joshuas first gem, The Skeletons in Gods Closet, messed with my mindin a good way. The Pursuing God messed with my heartin a redemptive wayby reintroducing me to a scandalous God who aggressively pursues us with stubborn delight. Hands down: this is THE book to read for 2016! For everything thats good and holy, please read this book alone are worth its price in gold.

Preston Sprinkle, Professor, Speaker, and Author of People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue and Charis: Gods Scandalous Grace for Us

Joshua Ryan Butler may well be the most spiritually perceptive writer of his generation. In spite of centuries of misunderstandings, clichs, distortions, and false caricatures that surround the story of Jesus, Butler sees the gospel clearly for what it has always beenwhat it was always meant to be. With singing prose and profound perception, Butler helps readers see and encounter the God who so generously gives, who so desperately pursues, who so dearly loves the world.

Sarah Thebarge, Author of The Invisible Girls

Joshua Ryan Butler heralds a God of extraordinary love who takes us by surprise in the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In vibrant prose, The Pursuing God paints a dramatic, textured, and beautiful portrait of the God who we constantly underestimate. Butler presents Christian doctrine in color and in motion, testifying to a good news that is so much greater than we could have invented ourselves.

J. Todd Billings, Girod Research Professor of Theology, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, MI

Artfully, beautifully, and emotionally written. Joshua deconstructs some of the most powerfully embedded caricatures we have around God and replaces them with gospel truth. The more I read this book, the more magnificent God became to me, and it left me feeling more free to be human, mess and all.

David Lomas, Pastor of Reality San Francisco, Author of The Truest Thing About You

It takes a brilliant mind to understand the most difficult questions about God and the gospel. But it takes a prophetic voice to communicate those truths to the masses. Joshua Ryan Butler is that mind and voice. In his book, The Pursuing God, Butler tells us the truth about Godthat he absolutely, recklessly loves us to deathwhile not shying away from the difficult passages of Scripture that, at first glance, can seem to tell us otherwise. His work here is deeply theological, but so uniquely accessible, Id recommend it to anyone. Its a monumental book and an instant favorite.

Nish Weiseth, Author of Speak: How Your Story Can Change the World

Joshua Ryan Butler is enthralled by the vision of a beautiful God whose goodness goes down deep into his bones and he wants us to share it. Unlike so many today, though, his way of inviting us into that vision is not to paper over the dark stains that mar our popular pictures of God, but to face them head-on. In The Pursuing God, Butler sets out to restore a portrait of the biblical gospel of Gods incarnate, crucified, and risen Son, correcting our worst caricatures of sacrifice and atonement, and revealing the glory of the triune God who has been relentlessly seeking to restore us to himself.

Derek Rishmawy, Theologian and Blogger at derekzrishmawy.com

How in this broken world are we to live out a pure, gospel-driven compassion, taking Jesus love into the darkest places of the world, without a wise, gentle shepherds hand? Joshua Ryan Butler is a twenty-first century thinker who straddles opposing worlds: those of the artist, the dreamer, the skeptic, the academic, the clinician, the idealist and the theologianas a sure-footed guide he walks with us; turning old, worn-out theological concepts on their head, startling the reader with unforgettable paradigms of Gods goodness and generosity and love. Its only upon this foundation that one can effectively enter into the happiness of God and thus, being transformed by Gods pursuing love, love.

Celestia G. Tracy, Cofounder and Director of Mending the Soul Ministries

Joshua has an uncanny ability to take deep theological concepts and not only make them accessible, but beautiful. In a day and age when it is normal for orthodox Christian views to be caricatured in the most unflattering of terms, The Pursuing God recovers the grace of orthodoxy by flipping those caricatures on their heads so that we might see just how astounding Gods love is for us.

Nate Pyle, Pastor of Christs Community Church, Indiana; Author of Man Enough: How Jesus Redefines Manhood

The Pursuing God bridges the gap between pastoral concerns and rich theological study, asking the right questions and offering excellent and accessible answers. Joshua Ryan Butler digests a mountain of research and thought into a warm and approachable book, speaking clearly to the questions we find welling up within ourselves as members of Christs church.

Adam J. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Theology, Biola University; Author of Atonement: A Guide for the Perplexed

I found myself smiling and thinking my way through The Pursuing God. Joshuas captivating gift of storytelling makes potentially thorny spiritual concepts wonderfully accessible. His newest offering invites readers to take another look at God and risk comparing our culture-crafted caricatures to the Original.

Dr. Alicia Britt Chole, Author of 40 Days of Decrease and Anonymous: Jesus Hidden Years and Yours

Every generation needs new theologians standing on the shoulders of those who have preceded them. We need these new theologians to exemplify the humility that traverses across traditions, cultures, and generations so that they may speak winsomely and wisely to our present times. Joshua Ryan Butler is this kind of theologian. He embodies what he writes and passes on the faith with soulful prose. This book is astounding and will spur you on to greater love. I highly recommend a slow and applied read of