Book Review: "Good and Beautiful" Hits it Just About Right For All Readers

With a fair degree of regularity (and it is important to be regular these days after all) the Christian publishing world cranks out books that attempt to re-tell the foundations of the Christian story with freshness and clarity.

Usually, these attempts fail miserably--they slouch into cliche or lose their energy at some point or another. Often they fail to strike the balance of engaging in some degree of nuanced thinking while at the same time not getting bogged down into the details of more weighty theological matters or debates.

But it gives me great pleasure to report that The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith manages to mostly avoid these traps. And in doing so, Smith offers a compelling and grace-filled picture of the good and beautiful God that invites us to come further up and further in.

Smith manages to cover the character of God in his grace, love, holiness, justice, generosity and power in ways that are refreshing for those of us who have been around for a long time and accessible for those who might be in process with engaging the Christian story.

After I finished it, I ordered a couple more copies as give-aways for people who I know who are "on the journey" towards Christ. I loved it for where I am, and I think that it would aid them as well--an impressive feat for any author covering such far-ranging topics.

If Smith falters anywhere, it's in his assumption that most people have "angry God" baggage that they need to work through. He spends much of the early chapters of the book trying to do faith-rehab with people who have come from church experiences where God was portrayed as perpetually ticked off.

He eventually engages with people coming from the other end of the spectrum ("if there is a God, I'm sure he loves me and is alright with me doing whatever") several chapters in. And when he does so, he employs the same thoughtful, gracious approach without compromising any of God's character.

Perhaps the most insightful part of the book for me over the past several weeks has been his proposal that since Jesus has already paid the price for our sin, sin no longer separates us from God.

If we are separated from God post the cross and resurrection, it is because of our self-righteousness--that is, our stubborn refusal to accept God's forgiveness and grace that is coming toward us in Christ. Only our self-righteousness can keep us from God now that the sin problem has been dealt with once and for all.

This is good news for those of us who struggle still with guilt and shame. To remain in guilt and shame after Christ is to live in stubborn refusal to accept the sacrifice of Jesus. It is to demand that we somehow be dealt with based on our own performance rather than Jesus'.

But that whole system has been done away with--thanks be to God. And the invitation is to live according to grace rather than performance.

This is the first book of a three-part series from InterVarsity Press (wait a minute, isn't there another really, really incredible book from IVP by some guy that I know?) riffing off of the same title: The Good and Beautiful Life and The Good and Beautiful Community.

After reading this offering, I've got the other two shipped and on the way.