Gracious Christianity: Living the Love We Profess

"[The authors] wrote this short book trying to answer the question of 'how Christians could be more embracing of those different from themselves, but remain people of strong faith and conviction.' They succeeded.... This book could become a classic, the Mere Christianity of the first quarter of the 21st century."--Terry C. Muck, Asbury Journal
In today's postmodernist and relativistic culture, Christians must contend with being perceived as argumentative, vindictive, and petty--along with the criticism that religion, in general, is a source of violence and destruction. These pejorative labels and connotations do not resonate with the fruit of the Spirit or with Christ's mandate to love God and neighbor.
But graciousness is a nonnegotiable dimension of Christian faith. It goes to the very core of the gospel. It is what makes the gospel good news. Without grace and graciousness, Christianity loses its message. In this book, Douglas Jacobsen and Rodney Sawatsky offer a succinct proposal to recover Gracious Christianity. It is a concise but relatively comprehensive overview of Christian beliefs showing how historic Christianity supports graciousness in faith and life. The eight chapters cover God and creation, humankind, hearing God's voice, the fullness of salvation, the Spirit and life, being church, the Bible, and the future.
Gracious Christianity will be used in undergraduate and graduate religion and theology classes, and it will serve as either an introduction to or a reminder of the "living faith" for believers from various traditions. Its broad-minded and ecumenical spirit will grant it a comfortable home in the academy and the church.