Timothy Stoner

The God Who Smokes

Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by Tim Stoner in Books, Synopsis

If everything is shaking how can we be still and know that He is God? This book is primarily for the X-Gen and Millenials who are being encouraged to build their lives on shifting sand. It is an (autobiographical) theological primer, of sorts. It is meant to provide a stable place to stand and evaluate the perilous currents of postmodernity. It is not a how to book, nor a instruction manual, it is filled with stories of my life growing up as a fundamentalist missionary kid.

My childhood struggle with stuttering and my discovery of the holy, unsentimental love of God kicks starts the narrative. This leads to Velvet Rembrandts: why we don’t get to repaint every theological painting in the attic, then winds around to the nature of God: He is Good, but not so Nice or Safe; and the problem of evil: The God Who Lets You Drop. These find their way to chapters on Jesus—who is both the Way and in the way; warrior for justice and righteousness; and a conversation about the exclusive love of our passionate Bridegroom. Chapters on sex, and my friendship with a homosexual colleague dying of AIDS lead to pondering the role of art and beauty. The book concludes with essays on the inevitability of final judgment, and our inconsolable, not so secret, longing for Home.

Woven throughout is a critique of the basic assumptions and core values of Emergent theology. This is not a diatribe. My goal is to offer a biblical and cultural-current evaluation of its dangerous drift while also celebrating where it gets it right. Since I believe that much of its negativity is rooted in reaction against hurtful authorities I close each chapter with a prayer. These are intended as a father´s blessing.

I trust you find this book helpful. I would be delighted to dialogue with you on any of these issues. My desire is that in my writing I can at least approximate what C.S. Lewis so loved about his mentor George MacDonald, a “Christlike union of tenderness and severity” which weaves together what are usually antitheses: “terror and comfort”. My prayer for my readers is that they would be led to the base of that mountain whose smoke veils the Consuming Fire, and lost in wonder, worship and obey.

Tags: art, beauty, Brian McLaren, christianity, church, emergent theology, final judgment, God's wrath, heaven, homosexuality, mars hill, rob bell, sex