A gospel of hope, inclusion, and defiance Ā
If God gets everything God wants, and if what God wants is you, can anything stand in God's way?Ā
Too many Christians have been taught that core aspects of who they areātheir gender, their sexual orientation, their politics, their skepticismāprevent God from loving them fully. For these individuals, church has been a painful experience of exclusion, despite the reality that Jesus was the embodiment of God's radicalĀ inclusion.Ā
Katie Hays invites weary Christians, former Christians, and the Christ-curious to take another look at God through the testimony of our biblical ancestors and to reimagine the church as a community of beautiful, broken, and burdened people doing their best to grow into their baptisms together. Hays insists that yes, GodĀ doesĀ get everything God wants, andāeven betterāwe're invited to want what God wants, too, and want it "more and more and more, until life feels abundant and eternal and delicious and drunken with possibility."Ā
This is a message of stouthearted faith anchored in wonderānot false certainty. Atheists are welcome. Those who feel uneasy inside a church are welcome. Those still angry at other Christians are welcome. Because no matter what we've experienced, the God who still adores this world is the God of hope, inclusion, and defiance of the powers that be. And for those who are willing to collaborate in "the painstaking work of examining our Christian faith and sorting it outāthe good stuff from the harmful stuff, the stuff with integrity from the stuff we simply inherited from family or church or . . . the cultural air we're breathing"āthere await life-giving possibilities found nowhere else.