Out of the Question...Into the Mystery: Getting Lost in the Godlife Relationship

by Leonard Sweet and Dashka Slater

How did we get the point, but miss the Person? Christianity wasn't founded on a proposition. God sent Jesus to deliver a proposal: "Will you love me? Will you let me love you?" In fact, Jesus not only... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1578566479
• ISBN13: 9781578566471
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Waterbrook Press
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

excellent book

This book is an excellent addition to Leonard Sweet's already outstanding work. working its way through the 'God-life relationship,' it makes for a fascinating read.

It's Relational!

I met and visited with Leonard Sweet in New Mexico about 10 years ago and was impressed with his take on things then. I have since read much of what he has written and always gained insight. Out of the Question... Into the Mystery is a deliciously Jesus-centered maxim on relationships for the emerging Christian. I say "emerging Christian" rather than "emerging Church" because this book is written on a personal level. How do I think and relate to God, God's story, my faith community, those outside my faith community, and God's creation? This book could also be used as a good introduction for older paradigm believers to the relational and dialogical thinking that is so important to emergents. Written in a friendly and approachable fashion (as are all of Len Sweet's books), Out of the Question opens doors to paradoxes and insights that we consciously or unconsciously bypass. Sweet's penetrating observations on the Abraham - Isaac story are disturbing and yet eye-opening. We get a whole new view on Abraham's success and his failure. As is common in all Sweet's books, Out of the Question is interspersed with great quotations from various thinkers (such as John Howard Yoder, Brian McLaren, Emily Dickinson, Charles Spurgeon, and even William S. Burroughs) that add wisdom and understanding to the text. Allow me to conclude with a quote from Sweet himself. "God is present, and God is relational. This means that truth is relational, found in the give-and-take of honest engagement with God. Faith and obedience are not reflex actions, or blind and mindless conformity to rules and regulations. Faith and obedience are instead played out in a life in full pursuit of God, knowing that at the same time we are being fully pursued by God. Faith and obedience are found in listening to God, questioning God, being challenged by God, and challenging God."

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I could not put this book down!! Buy this book, Ponder this book in your heart, soul, you will be closer to Christ as a result. Awesome!

going beyond the gimmicks... into God

Len Sweet has written a good book here. He's known for creative thinking about future ways of doing and being church... and here he doesn't disappoint. But this is different than his other books... more personal and confessional. In "Out of the Question" Sweet challenges us to get back to what really matters- not powerpoint and multimedia, not propositions and mission statements... but relationships; with God and with each other. Sweet challenges how we look at everything from treasured Bible characters to our own ideas of faith and belief. It's a wild ride, but worth it. If you have any of his other books (or even if you don't) pick this one up too. It represents an important contribution to the emergent conversation and a subtle refocusing away from methodologies and propositional belief and back to relationship.

The Primer to Relational Theology

I have come to respect Dr. Leonard I. Sweet as something of a "postmodern Tertullian," in the sense that Len offers his readers fresh and clarifying language for the complex challenges of the day. The language Len offers in this text enables the "relationality conversation" to make a quantum leap. By looking at the central relationships of life, he subtly crafts a relational hermeneutic. This is book which dares its readers to make the main thing, the main thing. It dares us to see relationship as more than the means of fulfilling the gospel but as the gospel. When the history of relational theology is written, this book may be seen as the movement's Primer. I highly recommend it.