Swimming Against the Current: Living for the God You Love

Billed as a sequel to Searching for a God to Love, Swimming Against the Current could be a disappointment. But read in it's own right, as a broad collection of the writings of an energetic and generous thinker and writer, Swimming Against the Current is a visionary, rambling, entertaining, encouraging and challenging book. Built around the themes of "doing justice," "loving mercy" and "walking humbly," Blake describes and urges the kind of church that can and should make a difference in the world--and that one cannot help wanting to be part of.

INSIGHTFUL, THOUGHT PROVOKING, A CHALLENGE TO LIVE ON THE "HIGH" ROAD. HE ADDRESS A VARIETY OF TOPICS AND GIVES THE READER A BUFFET OF CHALLENGES TO USE AND APPLY. A MUST READ.

For Chris Blake, spirituality isn't some abstract thing that just floats around in the clouds or in your "heart" or someplace. It's something that impacts where you live. The author outlines where many of today's "currents"--injustice, lack of mercy, pride, mediocrity, consumerism, competition, selfishness etc--are taking us and our families. Read the book and you'll want to join him in the swim of a lifetime. Too often books with a "religious" bent either put you to sleep, have you searching for a dictionary, or leave you wondering, "What's the point?" This book is fast-paced, fresh, uplifting--and funny. It usually takes Bill Bryson to make me laugh out loud. This book had me doing it pretty regularly, too.

Read this book if you're Blake's intended audience--someone looking to connect the God you love and the religion you practice. Read it if you're a family--"even a family of one," as Blake puts it--just for the chapter titled "Family Values." And finally, read it especially if you're a church leader, pastor, or theologian. The theology in this book is daring but grounded, principled but pragmatic, and at its core, compassionate. Blake is serious about topics like activism, spiritual bullying, prejudice, and valuing the church's youth, but the tone of the book is never preachy or heavy. The reader encounters, instead, openness, warmth, and a generous dose of humor in assorted anecdotes that lead to refreshing insights on spirituality. Blake doesn't set out to thrill everyone on every single page. Reactions to this book will be as individual as its readers and as various as its chapter lengths, tones, and topics. Some chapters may elicit a shrug; others, fierce dissent. But I posit that at least one of the chapters will leave you awestruck by the God you love.