The God Who Rejoices

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Description: How does one deal with despair? Are joy and despair irreconcilable? How does the joy and despair of Jesus Christ relate to our joy and despair? Continuing to explore the implications of the vicarious humanity of Christ as he did in The God Who Believes, Christian Kettler investigates the christological implications of the all too human phenomenon of despair. All people experience the pain of personal loss and lack, of the meaninglessness of existence. We also desire and covet joy, as difficult as it is often to define or maintain. Jesus was both "the man of sorrows" and one who "for the joy set before him endured the cross" (Heb 12:2). Can we think of the despair of Christ and the joy of Christ as both being vicarious, in our place and on our behalf, and thus have a theological way to possess joy in the midst of despair as well as to have a more robust theology of the atonement? Drawing on wide-ranging resources from Augustine, Calvin, Karl Barth, and T. F. Torrance to Bob Dylan, the fantasy writer Ray Bradbury, and Ed Wood, the director of Plan Nine from Outer Space, Kettler seeks to bring Trinitarian and incarnational theology deep into our flesh, filled with real despair and joy, and find that Jesus is there, with his own despair, there to lift us up with his own joy. Endorsements: "Chris Kettler's The God Who Rejoices, joins his fine book, The God Who Believes, as two indispensible texts for connecting Christology to the Christian life. Kettler has learned the most important lessons from his teachers and now imparts them to his readers. These books are soon to be in the category of Christian classics. I certainly hope that we will be treated to a few more by this seasoned theologian and master teacher, but for now we have a second text fit for use by theologians and pastors alike, either for the classroom or a bible study. Wherever despair reigns, this book offers a timely intervention." --Willie James Jennings Duke Divinity School "In this book Christian Kettler offers a profound diagnosis of the despair that resides just underneath the surface of so much of modern life. However, the value of this book rests less on its perceptive diagnosis than on the surprising gift of joy Kettler espies in the gospel of Jesus Christ, a gift that is rooted in the cross (Heb.12:2!) and encompasses suffering and loss as well as beauty and delight. Here one finds ample witness to what the modern world, and perhaps the church most of all, least expects: joy in the life of the triune God." --Thomas W. Currie Union-PSCE at Charlotte "Chris advances the trajectory set forth by T. F. Torrance and Ray Anderson, offering a poignant, comprehensive exposition of both despair and joy in order to show how only the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ provides a genuine answer to despair and joy . . . His approach will puzzle some and disturb others, but should in all cases provoke clarifying self-examination of inherited assumptions that won't bear the weight of experience. I've been waiting for this book and did not even know it. Now I cannot wait to recommend it to my friends!" --Don Payne Denver Seminary About the Contributor(s): Christian D. Kettler is Professor of Theology and Philosophy, at Friends University and Theologian in Residence at the Church of the Savior in Wichita, Kansas. He is the author of The God Who Believes: Faith, Doubt, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ (Cascade Books, 2005).