Description
The Holy Spirit, as God’s abiding presence to draw people to Christ, can cleanse wounds and bring love and hope into our hearts. Kerry Dearborn’s insightful focus on the Holy Spirit transforming our moral imagination and putting us on the path of reconciliation with Jesus Christ is both profound and encouraging. Biblical analysis, historical surveys and references to acclaimed theological authors support Dearborn’s nuanced yet practical application of imagination as a tool for awakening, recovery, and dissolving intellectual or psychological barriers that isolate us from God. She considers effectively how imagination can be connected to reality, and is able to delve deep into this vein of thought with startling clarity.
Drinking from the Wells of New Creation provides spiritual guidance for dealing with oppression in society; an issue that affects people both within and outside the Christian faith. The acknowledgement of reconciliation as a creative process provides a fresh outlook and will excite those delving into both theological and psychological studies, as well as those seeking to understand God’s unification of life, regardless of tribe, tongue and nation.
About the Author
Kerry Dearborn is Professor of Theology at Seattle Pacific University and Seattle Pacific Seminary. She is the author of Baptised Imagination: The Theology of George MacDonald (2006).
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Why Emphasize the Holy Spirit and Imagination for Reconciliation Studies?
1. The Reconciling God
2. Who Is the Holy Spirit and How Does the Spirit Effect Reconciliation?
3. Gifts from the Holy Spirit for Reconciliation
4. The Holy Spirit’s Work of Reconciliation through the Imagination
5. The Imagination’s Third Way
6. Facing the Shadows
7. Signposts and Oases of the New Creation
Bibliography
Endorsements and Reviews
Dearborn provides us with the gift of deep insight into the heart of God and the ways of the Spirit to open our eyes, our hearts, our homes and our lives to God and others. Through profound theological reflection interwoven with compelling stories, this book draws us into God’s healing love and new creation. I pray God uses this great book to release the vision of Amos to which I’ve dedicated my life.
John Perkins, Founder and President of the John M. Perkins Foundation (JVMPF.org)
For many years, Kerry Dearborn has been at the forefront of thinking theologically about the imagination and thinking imaginatively about theology. Here she invites us to move into territory sorely in need of just this kind of thinking. Gracious, lucid and hospitable, Drinking from the Wells of New Creation opens up fresh vistas for envisaging reconciliation in our time.
Jeremy Begbie, Duke University, Durham, NC
The nexus of the argument here is the way in which ‘imagination’ is a defining practice of the Spirit, the capacity to receive, visualise, invest in and enact a world other than the one we take for granted. Dearborn gives substance and passion to our ancient prayer ‘Come, Holy Spirit’.
Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA
In this groundbreaking work, Kerry Dearborn examines the rarely considered yet central role of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of reconciliation. Drinking from the Wells of New Creation is an important book for theologians, activists, students, and pastors who desire to participate in God’s transforming work of reconciliation.
Curtiss Paul DeYoung, Professor of Reconciliation Studies, Bethel University
This book deserves a wide and favorable hearing by all those interested in the ways the gospel, qua gospel, can make a lasting and genuine difference in our world today.
Daniel Castelo, Seattle Pacific University, author of Revisioning Pentecostal Ethics
This is an interesting read. Dearborn develops a novel thesis, supports it well, and is convincing in her argumentation of it. I recommend it to theology students who have interests in systematic theology.
Bradford McCall, in Theological Book Review, Vol 28, No 1
