Description: How does one deal with despair? Are joy and despair irreconcilable? How does the joy and despair of Jesus Christ relate to our joy and despair? Continuing to explore the implications of the vicarious humanity of Christ as he did in The God Who Believes, Christian Kettler investigates the christological implications of the all too human phenomenon of despair. All people experience the pain of personal loss and lack, of the meaninglessness of existence. We also desire and covet joy, as difficult as it is often to define or maintain. Jesus was both ""the man of sorrows"" and one who ""for the joy set before him endured the cross"" (Heb 12:2). Can we think of the despair of Christ and the joy of Christ as both being vicarious, in our place and on our behalf, and thus have a theological way to possess joy in the midst of despair as well as to have a more robust theology of the atonement? Drawing on wide-ranging resources from Augustine, Calvin, Karl Barth, and T. F. Torrance to Bob Dylan, the fantasy writer Ray Bradbury, and Ed Wood, the director of Plan Nine from Outer Space, Kettler seeks to bring Trinitarian and incarnational theology deep into our flesh, filled with real despair and joy, and find that Jesus is there, with his own despair, there to lift us up with his own joy. Endorsements: ""Chris Kettler's The God Who Rejoices, joins his fine book, The God Who Believes, as two indispensible texts for connecting Christology to the Christian life. Kettler has learned the most important lessons from his teachers and now imparts them to his readers. These books are soon to be in the category of Christian classics. I certainly hope that we will be treated to a few more by this seasoned theologian and master teacher, but for now we have a second text fit for use by theologians and pastors alike, either for the classroom or a bible study. Wherever despair reigns, this book offers a timely intervention."" --Willie James Jennings Duke Divinity School ""In this book Christian Kettler offers a profound diagnosis of the despair that resides just underneath the surface of so much of modern life. However, the value of this book rests less on its perceptive diagnosis than on the surprising gift of joy Kettler espies in the gospel of Jesus Christ, a gift that is rooted in the cross (Heb.12:2 ) and encompasses suffering and loss as well as beauty and delight. Here one finds ample witness to what the modern world, and perhaps the church most of all, least expects: joy in the life of the triune God."" --Thomas W. Currie Union-PSCE at Charlotte ""Chris advances the trajectory set forth by T. F. Torrance and Ray Anderson, offering a poignant, comprehensive exposition of both despair and joy in order to show how only the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ provides a genuine answer to despair and joy . . . His approach will puzzle some and disturb others, but should in all cases provoke clarifying self-examination of inherited assumptions that won't bear the weight of experience. I've been waiting for this book and did not even know it. Now I cannot wait to recommend it to my friends "" --Don Payne Denver Seminary About the Contributor(s): Christian D. Kettler is Professor of Theology and Philosophy, at Friends University and Theologian in Residence at the Church of the Savior in Wichita, Kansas. He is the author of The God Who Believes: Faith, Doubt, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ (Cascade Books, 2005).

Why is theology often divorced from ministry? Why is ministry left bereft of a robust theology? Ray S. Anderson, a professor of Fuller Theological Seminary for over thirty years, has left a legacy of provocative reflections on these questions. In this book, Kettler provides a sure guide to major themes in the work of one of the most creative theological minds to have sought to integrate theology and ministry. Ray Anderson's radical incarnational theology of the "kenotic community" provides a new basis for a broader, risk-taking ecclesiology. He also brings theological anthropology to the front of the agenda, and therefore into ministry to actual hurting human persons. Each chapter ends with a case study from an actual life situation, to "test out" and work through the implications of Anderson's theology.

Description: How does one deal with doubt? Are faith and doubt irreconcilable? Does one's understanding of God affect the answers to these questions? Christian Kettler investigates these questions from a christological perspective, drawing implications from the Scottish theologian T. F. Torrance and his doctrine of ""the vicarious humanity of Christ."" If we take the humanity of Christ seriously, should we not speak of the faith of Jesus as a vicarious faith, believing for us and in our place when it is difficult if not impossible to believe? How Christians know God (""Jesus Knows God for Us and in Our Place""), who God is (""Who is the God Whom Jesus Knows?""), and how to believe in God in a world of suffering and evil (""Providence, Evil, Suffering, and the God Who Believes"") receive new insight in light of this christological exploration. Wendell Berry's poignant novel of a humble country barber, 'Jayber Crow, ' adds an incarnational context to a discussion with important pastoral and existential dimensions. In the vicarious faith of Christ we are not left, as James Torrance cautions us, to be thrown back upon ourselves, but called to participate by the Spirit in the faith of Jesus. Endorsements: ""This relentlessly honest encounter with evil, which refuses to take comfort in the traditional theological bromides, finds no answers anywhere except in Jesus Christ. Written in an engagingly personal style, Kettler's heartfelt book shows how the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ can function as an effective theodicy."" --Dale Allison author of Jesus of Nazareth ""Kettler has a keen eye for the quest for faith in contemporary literature and a profound grasp of the mediating power of the vicarious humanity of Christ as the One who assumed doubting humanity in order to create faithful humanity in his own person. This is a book that fills the emotional void left untouched by most evangelical theology and provides a muscular Christology to cover the bare bones of post-liberal theology."" Ray S. Anderson author of The Soul of God: A Theological Memoir ""Christians and non-Christians alike will find many of their theological convictions challenged, overturned, and even corrected when the light of the vicarious humanity of Christ is focused upon those convictions. A must read "" Charles Hughes Associate Professor of Religious Studies Chapman University ""Especially well-suited for college and seminary professors, as well as for church pastors, who wish to benefit from a trinitarian-incarnational and pastorally-oriented theology, written by one who has deeply felt what he has creatively conceived."" Todd H. Speidell, author of Confessions of a Lapsed Skeptic ""Most of us live our lives between faith and doubt. Chris Kettler is a theologian that dares to enter that world in his book, ""The God Who Believes."" More importantly, Dr. Kettler reminds us that God enters that world for us and with us in Jesus Christ. This is a must read for anyone who is tired of the pat answers and yearns for a robust and Reformed approach to faith and life."" --Rev. Dr, Rob Erickson, Pastor, Covenant Presbyterian Church About the Contributor(s): CHRISTIAN D. KETTLER is Professor of Theology and Philosophy, Director of the Master of Arts in Christian Ministry program at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is the author of The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation, and co-editor (with Todd H. Speidell) of Incarnational Ministry: The Presence of Christ in Church, Society, and Family: Essays in Honor of Ray S. Anderson.

In this book, the problem of the reality of salvation is addressed by T.F. Torrance's doctrine of "the vicarious humanity of Christ". Through this approach, salvation as humanization is affirmed, yet without the problems of anthropocentric theologies. This book offers both a survey of contemporary Christian thinking on salvation as well as a constructive alternative based on Torrance's doctrine, a significant yet neglected contribution to modern theology.