A Glorious Dark

Finding Hope in the Tension between Belief and Experience

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Pub Date 03 Feb 2015 | Archive Date 01 May 2015

Description

On Thursday as they ate the Passover meal with Jesus, the disciples believed that the kingdom was coming and they were on the front end of a revolution. Then came the tragedy of Friday and, somehow even worse, the silence of Saturday. They ran. They doubted. They despaired. Yet, within the grave, God's power was still flowing like a mighty river beneath the ice of winter. And then there was Sunday morning.

Real, raw, and achingly honest, A Glorious Dark meets readers in the ambiguity, doubt, and uncertainty we feel when our beliefs about the world don't match up to reality. Tackling tough questions like Why is faith so hard? Why do I doubt? Why does God allow me to suffer? and Is God really with me in the midst of my pain? A. J. Swoboda puts into sharp focus a faith that is greater than our personal comfort or fulfilment. He invites readers to develop a faith that embraces the tension between what we believe and what we experience, showing that the very tension we seek to eliminate is where God meets us.

On Thursday as they ate the Passover meal with Jesus, the disciples believed that the kingdom was coming and they were on the front end of a revolution. Then came the tragedy of Friday and, somehow...


Advance Praise

"Life, like the moon, has a shadow side. Yet too often Western Christian churches focus only on the sunny side of life. Why? Because it takes far more courage to walk into the darkness. Lucky for us, A. J. Swoboda has the guts to pierce the darkness and search for God there. A Glorious Darktouches a nerve by bravely wrestling with all the things that go bump in the night. But more importantly, it leads us into the presence of the One who once told a shadow-soaked prophet, 'I form the light and the dark.'"

Jonathan Merritt, author of Jesus Is Better Than You Imagined; senior columnist for Religion News Service

"A. J. writes with the passion of a genuine seeker and with the reflective insight of a true mystic. Here he turns his attention to the meaning of Jesus's death and resurrection. We find ourselves drawn into the momentous events of cross and resurrection yet again."

Alan Hirsch, author, activist, dreamer; www.alanhirsch.org

"Once upon a time, there was a man who saw the breadth of God's strange redemption in just three days of Holy Week. That man is A. J. Swoboda and this is his book. It is funny, honest, literary, outward looking, inward looking, and upward looking. 'Stars are only seen when it's dark,' Swoboda writes. Indeed, and it is rare to find both stars and their darkness so beautifully charted in ink. A glorious read."

Paul Pastor, associate editor for Christianity Today's Leadership Journal and PARSE

"Life, like the moon, has a shadow side. Yet too often Western Christian churches focus only on the sunny side of life. Why? Because it takes far more courage to walk into the darkness. Lucky for us...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780801016967
PRICE $15.00 (USD)

Average rating from 4 members


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