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by Bradley Jersak (Author), Brian Zahnd (Foreword by)
Deconstruction: Trendy brand name for falling away from belief in God? Or a process essential to authentic faith?
Liberation or trauma? Prison break or exile? It's complicated. Just like you. Christian history records a Great Reformation and a Great Awakening. But today's "Great Deconstruction" will surely leave an equally profound impact. In Out of the Embers, Bradley Jersak explores the necessity, perils, and possibilities of the Great Deconstruction--how it has the potential to either sabotage our communion with God or infuse it with the breath of life, the light and life of Christ himself. In this collection of vulnerable memoirs, philosophical memos, and candid provocations, Jersak resists both the hand-wringing urge to corral stray sheep and the exultant desire to play the happy-clappy Ex-vangelical cheerleader. He employs the wisdom and expertise of the great deconstructionists--Christianity's ancient influences (Moses, Plato, Paul, and the Patristics), "beloved frenemies" (from Voltaire to Nietzsche), and the masters of deconstruction (Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, and Weil)--to double down and deconstruct deconstruction itself. Where is faith after deconstruction? The author's heart is to engage and empathize with the bereft and disoriented, stoking the brittle ashes for live embers. In this quest for the resilient gospel of the martyrs, the marginal, and those outside the threshold...inexplicably, in this liminal space, life stirs. A Light shines through the ashes. We find, often for the first time, that living connection Jersak calls "presence in communion." There is a sea change occurring across the Western church and civilization. Whether we're watching a radical course correction or a complete collapse remains to be seen, and how it pans out will likely depend on how we see what's happening, who we are becoming, how we live in response--and, most important, where we find Christ situated in this storm.Author Biography
Bradley Jersak is the Dean of Theology & Culture, a graduate studies program at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick, Canada. He also serves as an editor at CWRmagazine and Clarion-Journal.com. Bradley and his wife, Eden, have lived in the Abbotsford area of British Columbia since 1988, where they served as pastors and church planters for twenty years. Bradley is the author of a number of nonfiction and fiction books, including A More Christlike Word, A More Christlike God, A More Christlike Way, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut, Can You Hear Me?: Tuning in to the God Who Speaks, and The Pastor: A Crisis. He has an MA in biblical studies from Briercrest Bible College and Seminary, an MDiv in biblical studies from Trinity Western University/ACTS Seminary, and a PhD in theology from Bangor University, Wales. He was also a visiting scholar at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, for postdoctoral research in patristic Christology.
