I’ve gotten to meet many of the greater heart minds of my generation, especially those integrating art and faith in an imaginative unique engaging way, without throwing the Baby out with the bathwater, so to speak- here is another…if you think christian thought and imagination has gotten boring or too flat, read this book, and re-consider!

Many of you know this kind gentleman scholar and great artist who i had the privilege of spending time in Prague back in the day. This book like George Macdonald’s work integrates imagination, theology and historical context in a enlightening way, which will leave you changed, if you read it deeply or with your whole self, as they say. Some books are worth, what Martin Buber would call, “I-thou-ing”! That is engaging your whole self to know more of the other. Engaging your thou to know the thou of another. Both the books I am currently reviewing are this type and level of one artist to another, one thou to another’s thou. It’s like devotional reading, and it transforms the reader who engages fully.

And this book as well as all of Macdonald’s work, requires your imagination as well as intellect to dive in, in order to know. Appreciating this level of discourse which is extremely relevant to our times.

Like George Macdonald, John de Long has some bones to pick with modern faces of religion, but he picks them with Grace, wisdom and kindness in a way which has become rarer in our days or polemical argumentative discourse.

If you haven’t read Macdonald’s amazing body of work, do! It will change you too! And even when you don’t agree, you find your imagination enriched and engaged in knowing more and loving more of God. Great read. Read it!

Both men, are great artist, thinkers and theologians, and will and do have a lasting legacy of inviting us into “the More” around us, which was always present to those who could see well, in each generation. Thanks for this gem John, and may are imaginations and hearts and minds continue to stay awake, alive, and baptized daily into more of Him as we go! When people give this much of themselves into a book, it is a gift to show up fully and be changed by even a single book. For that we are grateful.