It has been said that all of us are theologians. We all have a picture of God in our heads. But is your picture of God correct? Keep listening to find out.
Hi, my name is Terence and I’m your host for Reading and Readers, a podcast where I review Christian books for you. Today I review “Portrait of God: Rediscovering the Attributes of God through the Stories of His People” by Jack Mooring. 224 pages, published by David C. Cook Publishing in August 2024. Available in Amazon Kindle for USD9.99 and in Logos for USD10.79. I received a free review copy but the publisher has no input to my review.
Table of Contents
Systematic Theology Through Biography
Today’s book promises to explain the Attributes of God through the lives of Christians.
But wait, someone says, “If you really want to know the Attributes of God, you should get a good book on Systematic Theology. The bigger the better.” So grunts the theological egghead.
Nope. If the size doesn’t scare people off, the title “Systematic Theology” would.
Then someone says, “Just get J.I. Packer’s ‘Knowing God’.”
That’s a great book. A classic.
But today’s book gives us a different way to know God’s attributes and that is through stories. Bible stories have helped children know God. Much of the Bible consists of stories of God and His People. So we could say that today’s book is not inventing a new approach but rather adapts the biblical way of knowing God: through the stories of him interacting with his people.
Art Class with a Divine Subject
In this book, Jack Mooring wants us to paint a portrait of God. If this sounds a bit artsy-fartsy to you, maybe it’s because Mooring was an artist. More, accurately, a musician. If his name sounds familiar, it’s because he is the former band member with the Grammy Award-nominated group Leeland.
Mooring is also the founding pastor of a church, Celebration of Life Church in Nashville. So he is not the typical professional theologian who writes a book on the attributes of God. He is just a passionate Christian who wants everyone to know God. And he takes hold of artistic license to separate himself from the professional theologians.
We will do a portrait of God. Using the lives of God’s people as the brushstrokes.
A Brushstroke of Joy
Consider this: Whose life do you think best reveals God’s joy? Think of all the great men and women who have served God through the ages. Who would best demonstrate the joy of the Lord?
Mooring chooses C.S. Lewis.
The chapter starts with Lewis as a young man arriving at Oxford University. But then, the Great War happened.
I quote:
The war was a brief but horrific interlude in his life. He saw unbearable things. His closest friend in his company was killed. While raised in a Christian home in Ireland, he’d been brought up on the teachings of the church, but early on he had decided God couldn’t be real. His mother had died when he was only nine years old. He remembered praying that God would save her life, but his desperate request seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.
His childhood angst at God had turned into full-blown atheism as a young man. And if his journey away from God needed any more help, his traumatic experiences in the war had seared his mind.
Later, Mooring writes:
There were cracks in Lewis’s armor. For all his resistance against God, he had a weak spot for joy. Deep joy. The joy that aches in your belly when you see something truly beautiful. You reach for it but can’t grasp it. You try to recreate the same feeling the next day, only to find it missing. This haunted Lewis.
He began to do what he always did to find answers: He read books and talked deeply with his friends.
Famously, one of his friends was J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien and others encouraged Lewis in his search for answers.
I quote:
Lewis raised a challenge to his friends: “What separates Christianity from any other myth? After all, there are other stories about a god ‘saving’ his people.”
His friends responded with an idea that changed his life. “Yes, Christianity is a myth,” they said. “But it is the only true myth.”
Suddenly, he realized that the Norse mythology he loved was never the real source of the joy he felt. It was God. Every good and beautiful myth was simply pointing to the one true “myth”.
The chapter interleaves episodes of Lewis’ life with Mooring’s own comments and reflections. A YouTube video about a ten-million-dollar mountain chalet sends Mooring through a whirlwind of emotions from curiosity, awe, desire and lust, to disappointment, jealousy, embarrassment and resignation. Everybody who has watched an influencer boasting of cars, food or travel knows what Mooring felt.
Mooring shows us YouTube-addicts that our desire is a reminder that God is our true desire. Just like C.S. Lewis, we are searching for the real source of joy: God.
And that’s how every chapter goes. He shares a story then a reflection to bridge the story to you, the reader today.
On top of that, every chapter in the book ends with “Final Brushstrokes”. Let me quote:
C.S. Lewis’s life teaches us that the greatest joys in life are simply signposts pointing us to the ultimate joy that is God. And that when we find Him, we find peace even in deep pain and suffering.
So our portrait of God gets another color: the vibrant hues of joy! We learn that God is not on a mission to stop people from having fun. Actually, the fun begins with Him. We think that worldly pleasures will fulfill us, but they let us down every time. God Himself is the author of everything good, true, and beautiful! And when we find Him, we can truly enjoy the world He made and find an unfading joy that comes from His nature.
I repeat, “the story of C.S. Lewis gives our portrait of God another colour, the vibrant hues of joy.” And so every story in this book gives another brushstroke, giving us a better, more complete look of God each time.
Or does it? The thing about brushstrokes is that it can either reveal or distort the subject it portrays.
God Still Heals Today
Chapter 5 is titled, “The Healer” — God of Power. It is the story of Kathryn Kuhlman.
I quote:
I chose the story of Kathryn Kuhlman because her life is an irrefutable example that God heals today. He can even work through people who, like her, were imperfect and in need of God’s grace. Because those are, in fact, the only people He can use.
And Mooring needs an irrefutable example because some people do refute it. Those pesky cessationist who believe the spiritual gifts have ceased.
Mooring writes:
I believe this [cessationism] is one of the most damaging ideas the church has ever adopted. It has caused so many to miss out on one of the things Jesus died to give them.
I don’t have the space in this chapter to make a complete argument refuting cessationism. I point to you to Jack Deere’s superb book Surprised by the Power of the Spirit.
He is right. He doesn’t have the space to make that argument but he goes for it anyways. Let me summarise the three problems I see with this chapter.
Healing and Gift of Healing Are Different
First, Mooring assumes that cessationists do not believe God heals today.
In the conclusion to the chapter, he writes:
People like Kathryn Kuhlman showed the world that God is still active in healing the sick.
There is a problem here because cessationists also believe God is still active in healing the sick.
John MacArthur, the poster child for cessationists, writes in his book Strange Fire:
While the Lord still answers prayer and works in providential ways to heal people according to his will, there is no evidence that miraculous healings are occurring today as they did during the apostolic age.
Mooring should have written, “People like Kathryn Kuhlman showed the world that God is still active in giving individuals healing power today.”
When Mooring conflates “God heals today” with “God gives individuals healing power today”, as if one means the same as the other, it causes misunderstandings. Readers walk away thinking, “Those Reformed fellows don’t believe God heals! And they call themselves Bible believing Christians?”
Now that I have clarified the cessationist position, does Mooring’s point on healing still stand?
The purpose of the chapter is to highlight the Power of God.
I ask: “Is the Power of God only demonstrated through healing rallies?” No.
Would the Power of God also be demonstrated if I prayed for someone, and that someone got healed? Yes.
Should the church teach Christians that God heals today? Yes.
That is what Mooring is getting at.
But he could have made that point more powerfully, getting more agreement if he told the readers about God’s power through healing instead of God’s power in giving some individuals the power of healing.
Character of the Healer and the Healed.
My second criticism: Mooring makes a big push for healing but over-promises the impact.
He writes:
Praying for the sick is an act of divine love, and love never fails! So no matter what happens, the compassionate act of believing for someone’s healing is itself a success.
What if we lived this way? Thought this way? A dying world would be shocked back to a God reality that has been gone for decades. We would see millions saved! Millions coming into direct contact with the God who loves them and sent His only Son for them!
Would we really see millions saved?
Jesus healed ten lepers, only one came back to give thanks to Jesus.
In Matthew 11:21, Jesus says, ““Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
In Matthew 12:39, Jesus answered those seeking a sign from him, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
So if Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had a ‘bad’ conversion rate from healing, I’m not confident that all those who were healed by Kathryn Kuhlman and her fellow healers came to saving faith.
You say, “Even if it’s 10%, that’s still a good reason to promote healing rallies.”
But Jesus rejected those who called for signs. Isn’t that a clear sign for us on the place of miracles today?
Consider this: when Paul wrote his final letter to Timothy, he charged Timothy to do many miracles, teach other faithful men how to receive the gifts and how to promote these gifts so that people will come to Jesus through healing and miracles.
No, Paul did not.
This is what Paul wrote. 2 Timothy 2:2.
and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
Keeping the main thing the main thing is to keep the Gospel central. In the climax of the letter. 2 Timothy 4:1-2.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the Word…
From my criticisms on this chapter, you would think that I am a cessationist. Actually I am not. From my own study, I don’t see a biblical reason to conclude that the gifts have ceased. I have no problems with the spiritual gifts being in operation today.
So I am sympathetic to his position. I just disagree with how he frames it, which brings me to my last point on this chapter.
Bill Johnson and Not Sam Storms
My third criticism: Mooring lost me at Bill Johnson. He would have had me if he said Sam Storm. I have read Bill Johnson’s “When Heaven Invades Earth” and am familiar with the practices of his church, Bethel Redding. I compared Johnson’s own words and his church’s practice against Scripture, and I conclude that Bill Johnson distorts Scripture to fit his theology and practice. So when I read a quote from Bill Johnson, all the alarm bells in my head just rang out.
Mooring might protest and say that in the whole book, he just makes one mention of Bill Johnson. It’s just a side remark, a throwaway quote, and it shouldn’t put the whole chapter into doubt.
Well, if he is frustrated so am I.
I share many of his positions and outlook on healing and gifts of healing. He could have elevated his argument by quoting Sam Storm. Or Craig Keener. But not Bill Johnson. I don’t like it when someone twists Scripture for their own ends.
Other Brushstrokes
Let’s step out of this healing chapter and consider the rest of the book. So far, we have a story of C.S. Lewis and Kathryn Kuhlman. Their lives are brushstrokes that describe God’s joy and power.
There are others: Augustine, William and Catherine Booth, Thomas Chalmers, Fanny Crosby and Athanasius that in their lives describe God’s holiness, compassion, good news, faithfulness and truth.
The last two chapters of the book bring out the story of you. Who are you? How do you relate to God? In his conclusion, Mooring writes that we are:
to use our gifts to ‘paint God’ for a world that is desperate to know what He is really like.
Overall Thoughts
And yes, the world is desperate to know what God is really like. Does this book tell us?
The book aims to tell us the attributes of God through the stories of his people. In that sense, it is a success. Mooring has picked, for the most part, individuals that Christians would agree are exemplary. And in whose lives we can see a portrait of God.
But after finishing this book, it has also made me realise the big flaw in using other believers’ stories to know God.
Let’s imagine an evil version of Jack Mooring, who also wants to tell the attributes of God through God’s people. But instead of choosing a blind hymnwriter, he picks a pastor convicted for sexual assault. He picks murderous crusaders, child molesters, embezzlers, a villains gallery of self-professing Christians. Then this evil version of Jack Mooring concludes the book to say, “These are Christians, and so God.”
Christians will rightly argue that those crooks pervert the true portrait of God. As God himself has put it, “My name is blasphemed among the nations because of evil doers.”
When we pick individuals that best fits our idea of God, our choice reveals more about what we think God is like and not necessarily how God is really like. We could have a situation where we are supposed to have a painting of the Mona Lisa but instead get a Lisa Simpson.
“Does that mean reading biographies of Christian men and women is a useless enterprise?”
No! The reading principle behind that is Paul’s call, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” We follow Paul knowing that he is the imperfect following the perfect. So we read the biographies to know imperfect creatures.
But when it comes to knowing the Perfect Creator, the attributes of God, we risk adopting the principle behind Philip’s request, “Jesus, show us the Father,” which Jesus replied, “When you see me, you see the Father.” This is something that only Jesus can say. When you see me, Terence, you don’t see the Father.
You think that’s obvious? It should be. But if it was then why do so many people lose faith in God when the people they admire fall from grace.
I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I am not knocking on Jack Mooring’s book. I just want to point out how reading Mooring’s book reminded me again how wonderful is our Bible. We can actually know God because the Perfect has revealed himself to us.
To know the attributes of God, to know God, absent the Bible is a speculative and confusing mess. But with the Bible, we can know God and know how well his people reflect who he is.
Would I recommend it?
Would I recommend this book?
For Christians who like Bill Johnson and the type of Christianity he represents, they would not give someone like me a chance to question their beliefs. For them I would definitely recommend this book. Mooring’s chapter on Kathryn Kuhlman will affirm everything they believe in. They will consider Mooring as “one of us.”
Then two chapters later, they will read Fanny Crosby, the blind hymnwriter, and read:
It is far easier to say that God doesn’t heal anymore. It is also easy to say the opposite, that God always heals and that something is wrong with you if you are still sick. The truth is that both statements are wrong.
God does still heal, and we should actively pursue His healing. But God also sits with us in our suffering and promises to be our reward, even when it seems like our prayers are not being answered.
If you are a Christian who does not know Bill Johnson and the type of Christianity he represents, I would still be happy to recommend you this book. It is a light and easy way to learn about the attributes of God and introduce you to good books down the road.
But I would warn you. I would tell you the three points I have against chapter 5.
Conclusion
So in conclusion, does the book give us a portrait of God through the stories of his people? Yes. It is a portrait of God from a selected palette of colours that reveals Jack Mooring’s concept of God, which would be recognisable as the God Christians worship.
I think that when it comes to the details, for certain brushstrokes, some correction is needed. But that’s art. And we all have an imperfect portrait of God in our heads.
The important thing is as we study the Bible, we trust that God will reveal more of who he is.
And just as looking at beautiful portraits inspire artists to paint better, so pondering at the portrait of God Mooring has given us inspires us to know God better and to live better for him.
This is a Reading and Readers review of “Portrait of God” by Jack Mooring. 224 pages, published by David C. Cook Publishing in August 2024. Available in Amazon Kindle for USD9.99 and in Logos for USD10.79. I received a free review copy but the publisher has no input to my review. Thank you and bye bye.