Jason Byassee

Family physician Raymond Downing offers a bold critique of western medicine and sees medical care as one of the fallen "principalities and powers" in need of redemption. But Downing's hope lies beyond biomedicine--in biblical healing, especially the healing miracles of Jesus. In conversation with the Bible, Ivan Illich, William Strongfellow, Susan Sontag, and others, Downing revisits how Westerners approach medicine. He sees suffering and healing as essentially spiritual experiences at the roots of death and life.

Is God changing the face of the church in North America today? The secularization thesis makes it appear that churches are inevitably declining in membership and influence. Too often, however, this assumption of decline is based on only watching the denominations that were "church plants of Western Christendom" in North America. Christianity: An Asian Religion in Vancouver focuses on the context of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and notes through a mixed-methods study including interviews and participant observation that many churches in Vancouver with predominantly Asian composition are growing both in size and influence. What might we learn about God's transforming power by looking to Asia rather than Europe to predict the future of Christian witness in the Pacific Northwest of North America?

Untangled takes the reader on a swirling tour of some of the most beautiful places in the Caribbean but also of the region's gruesome history. The eye of love searches the landscape in the wake of colonialism and the grim traffic of bodies and souls across the Middle Passage. Evoking everything from birdcalls to colorful festivals, missionaries' blunders to tasty traditional feasts, Joy Rudder is intimately knowledgeable of her home, which spans the entire Caribbean. She voices heartbreaking questions that most do not venture to ask. But her pain is transformed into poetry, her outrage into prayer. She finds that Christ has preceded her and is very present in her multi-ethnic, multi-religious native Trinidad. Christ is also present in her adopted home, politically correct and trendy Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada. She discovers love in unusual places, delights in friendships with strangers, and kneels to worship in a frat house bathroom. She muses on the grandeur of natural places she has been privileged to see in North America and the Caribbean, yet she unearths disturbing visions. In the end, she finds peace at the last, beyond her troubled quests, in the lived reality of hope.

"[An] insightful exploration of Christian discipleship in the digital age."--Publishers WeeklyThis book offers theological perspectives on the challenges of discipleship in a digital age, showing how new technologies and the rise of social media affect the way we interact with each other, ourselves, and the world. Written by a Gen X digital immigrant and a Millennial digital native, the book explores a faithful response to today's technology as we celebrate our embodied roles as followers of Christ in a disembodied time.

This book offers theological perspectives on the challenges of discipleship in a digital age, showing how new technologies and the rise of social media affect the way we interact with each other, ourselves, and the world. Written by a Gen X digital immigrant and a millennial digital native, the book explores a faithful response to today's technology as we celebrate our embodied roles as followers of Christ in a disembodied time.

Leading ethicist and pastoral theologian Brian Brock reflects on the challenge of disability, refuting widely held misconceptions and helping readers respond well to the pastoral implications of disability. Brock, the father of a child with special needs, weaves together theological commentary with narrative reflection, offering rich theological wisdom for shepherding people with disabilities. He shows pastors and ministers-in-training that thinking more closely and theologically about disability is a doorway into a more vibrant and welcoming church life for all Christians.

The Centre for Missional Leadership at St. Andrew's Hall, Vancouver, has curated a dynamic collection of essays from missional thinkers in church and academy. Together, they explore both the pitfalls and possibilities of Christian witness in the post-Christendom soil of the Pacific Northwest. What does it mean to till, plant, and nurture Christian community while awaiting growth in the rocky soil of secularity, in this West Coast land better known for its hipsters, baristas, and outdoor lifestyle? Each chapter is an attempt to dust for divine fingerprints at work within the church and wider culture, giving evidence of God's activity in our midst. Within this book you will encounter women and men who are finding hopeful ways to proclaim and live the gospel that are bearing fruit and growing hope within Christian communities and the neighborhoods they call home.

What could be better than brunch on a Sunday morning? For most people in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, the answer of gathering to worship the Triune God and be sent as witnesses would not be top of mind. And yet, across the Pacific Northwest the authors discovered deeply rooted missional communities worshipping God and serving their neighborhoods, offering evidence of unexpected Cascadian treasure in clay jars. Join the authors on a treasure hunt throughout the region as they identify new patterns of post-Christendom Christianity that will inspire and challenge your understanding of church.

What could be better than brunch on a Sunday morning? For most people in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, the answer of gathering to worship the Triune God and be sent as witnesses would not be top of mind. And yet, across the Pacific Northwest the authors discovered deeply rooted missional communities worshipping God and serving their neighborhoods, offering evidence of unexpected Cascadian treasure in clay jars. Join the authors on a treasure hunt throughout the region as they identify new patterns of post-Christendom Christianity that will inspire and challenge your understanding of church.

You may have heard that churches in Europe are vanishing. Yet church growth in London has been steady for decades, fueled by such innovations as Alpha and Fresh Expressions. What about outside the capital? Some, both inside and outside the church, say churches "cannot grow." But here they are--growing churches--in the north of England of all places. This is not only a story about England. It is about growing churches wherever you've heard they "can't" grow. God is always up to something precisely where (we think) God shouldn't be.

This book provides a theologically rich commentary on the challenge of addiction and the long road to recovery. Written by a minister with extensive experience working with people who struggle with addictions, this book helps pastors understand the roots and realities of our universal human struggle with addictions and attachments while showing that together we have great hope for freedom, wholeness, and recovery. Readers will learn how to create and foster a Beatitude Community, the kind of environment Jesus prescribed for his people, to help addicts and those who love them heal from brokenness. Foreword by Bob Ekblad.About the SeriesPastors are called to help people navigate the profound mysteries of being human, from birth to death and everything in between. This series, edited by leading pastoral theologian Jason Byassee, provides pastors and pastors-in-training with rich theological reflection on the various seasons that make up a human life, helping them minister with greater wisdom and joy.

"A rare and wonderful theological book that turns something ordinary--being a friend--into an expression of God's greatness."--Jeremiah Rood, Foreword (starred review)In this vibrant theological reflection on the meaning of friendship, experienced pastor and leading Christian ethicist Victor Lee Austin argues that friendship is the medium through which God shares grace with his creatures. Mixing personal reflection and theological commentary, Austin provides a fresh reading of classical writers and biblical texts; shows how a robust theology of friendship addresses contemporary controversies in the areas of marriage, celibacy, and homosexuality; and draws on cultural examples of the desire for true friendship. Ultimately, Austin helps readers understand the strange yet real possibility of friendship with God.About the SeriesPastors are called to help people navigate the profound mysteries of being human, from birth to death and everything in between. This series, edited by leading pastoral theologian Jason Byassee, provides pastors and pastors-in-training with rich theological reflection on the various seasons that make up a human life, helping them minister with greater wisdom and joy.

A bold, historical, robust approach to reading Scripture and encountering Jesus anewNo one expects to be surprised. Yet biblical interpretation can do exactly that. Christians expect to see Jesus as they read the Bible, but when and how Jesus actually speaks through Scripture can still surprise us Drawing on the early church's theological giants--Origen, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and more from the historical cloud of witnesses--author Jason Byassee models how we can recover ancient Christians' multiple ways of reading the Bible to our benefit. As Byassee says, God himself is Jewish, Catholic, and Pentecostal--so much larger than our own little corner on the truth--and this book offers readers a refreshingly enhanced vision of the Bible and of Jesus himself.