Unexpected Jesus - Paperback

by Craig Hovey (Author)

How can Christians live with a surprising God? How can we know and trust God without taming God or reducing God to an idol? Is knowing God the same thing as being open to God? Is God's freedom to act independently of our knowing him actually how we know him most genuinely and deeply? In Unexpected Jesus, Craig Hovey explores in depth the idea that the Christian gospel is a surprising encounter that calls for people to risk living with a God who shows up in unexpected ways. The Gospels often portray Jesus Christ as elusive and difficult to grasp. Hovey helps the reader to "un-expect" Jesus--to preserve Jesus's reality as a surprise rooted in the resurrection. As living and free, the joyous presence of Christ in the world is also unfathomable and uncontainable. Jesus's being free and surprising--unexpected--strengthens Christians' trust in God and helps them to live in God's world.

Author Biography

Craig Hovey (PhD, University of Cambridge) is Associate Professor of Religion at Ashland University in Ashland, OH and is executive director of the Ashland Center for Nonviolence. He is the author of numerous books including Bearing True Witness: Truthfulness in Christian Practice (2011), Nietzsche and Theology (2008), To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today's Church (2008), Speak Thus: Christian Language in Church and World (2008), and co-editor of An Eerdmans Reader in Contemporary Political Theology (2011).