Paradoxology: Why Christianity Was Never Meant to Be Simple

"Being able to live within the creative tensions created by paradox is one of the most essential capacities for true spiritual deepening and growth. So to have an entire book devoted to reflecting on the reality that the life of faith is full of paradox, to acknowledge some of the most confounding ones, and then learn how to be with God in the midst of them&mdashwow! What a gift! I am most grateful for this offering that clearly emerges from Krish Kandiah's honest wrestling with the great paradoxes of life."--Ruth Haley Barton, founder and CEO, Transforming Center, author of Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership and Life Together in Christ

"With theological wisdom, a storyteller's craft, and, most importantly, a pastoral hand, Krish Kandiah shows the reader that Christianity's paradoxes do not refute faith. Rather, when cherished and contemplated, they lead us into the ever-deepening mystery of God's love."--Mark Sayers, senior pastor, Red Church, Melbourne, Australia, author of Disappearing Church

"Read this book, and you'll be concerned and comforted. You'll question and doubt and believe more deeply than ever. You'll despair at times . . . and hope like never before. In short, you'll be doing the best Christian theology, which takes you to places dark and mysterious and to vistas bursting with light and beauty, often both at the same time. That's what it means to live by paradox, where the deepest truths lie."--Mark Galli, editor, Christianity Today"

"We have always believed that all our greatest truths (the Trinity, the Incarnation, predestination and free will, good and evil) are in the end paradoxical and invite us into mystery and propel us to worship. Here is highly readable book from a very credible voice in British Christianity about engaging paradox. What's not to like?"--Alan Hirsch, author, founder of Forge Mission Training Network

"This is a book that dares to ask the questions we seldom voice, even to ourselves. We believe in a loving God yet see suffering on a global scale. We believe in a powerful God yet see unfettered injustice everywhere. Krish dares to bring all we see and all we believe together. It's a powerful work of unshakable faith."--Sheila Walsh, author, cohost of LIFE Today

"Being able to live within the tensions created by paradox is one of the most essential capacities for true spiritual deepening and growth. So to have an entire book devoted to reflecting on the reality that the life of faith is full of paradox, to acknowledge some of the most confounding ones, and then learn how to be with God in the midst of them wow! What a gift! I am most grateful for this offering that clearly emerges from Krish Kandiah's honest wrestling with the great paradoxes of life."--Ruth Haley Barton, founder and CEO, Transforming Center, author of Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership and Life Together in Christ"

It seems that the God of the Christian faith is full of paradoxes:a compassionate God who sanctions genocidean all-powerful God who allows horrific sufferinga God who owns everything yet demands so much from his followersa God who is distant and yet present at the same timeMany of us have big questions about God that the Christian faith seems to leave unanswered, so we push them to the back of our minds for fear of destabilizing our beliefs. But leaving these questions unexamined is neither healthy for us nor honoring to God. Rather than shying away from the difficult questions, we need to face them head on.What if the tension between apparently opposing doctrines is exactly where faith comes alive? What if this ancient faith has survived so long not in spite of but precisely because of these apparent contradictions? What if it is in the difficult parts of the Bible that God is most clearly revealed? Paradoxology makes a bold new claim: that the paradoxes that seem like they ought to undermine belief are actually the heart of our vibrant faith, and it is only by continually wrestling with them—rather than trying to pin them down or push them away—that we can really move forward, individually and together.