God Is Stranger - by Krish Kandiah (Paperback)

About the Book

Krish Kandiah offers us a fresh look at some of the difficult, awkward, and even troubling Bible passages, challenging us to replace our sanitized concept of God with a more awe-inspiring, true-to-the-Bible God.

Book Synopsis

Have we missed the Bible's consistent teaching that God is other, higher, stranger? Krish Kandiah offers us a fresh look at some of the difficult, awkward, and even troubling Bible passages, challenging us to replace our sanitized concept of God with a more awe-inspiring, true-to-the-Bible God. Allow yourself to be surprised by God as you find him in unexpected places doing the unexpected.

Review Quotes

"God Is Stranger will help readers better know a gospel that is truly good news. Krish Kandiah is someone with theological depth and experience living out his faith in the real world. Krish has been an encouragement to me as a friend and exemplar, and I believe he will inspire a generation of Christians to serve a God who loves each person-including the stranger."

"For many years, Christians have felt at home in the world. The result of that way of life was the presumption that we knew what we meant when we said 'God.' Drawing on often-ignored passages in the Bible, Kandiah helps us recover how odd the God we worship as Christians turns out to be. It seems God shows up even as a Jewish peasant. Such a God can scare the hell out of us, but I guess that's the point. So read this book as a challenge to our domesticated imaginations."

"Has God become as familiar and forgettable as a fridge magnet? That's the danger Krish Kandiah faces up to in this wonderfully readable and very challenging book. Bible stories come to life as Krish tells them afresh, richly illustrated with personal experience and social relevance, and in each case the living God turns up-strange, dangerous, and, like Aslan, not safe but good. Read it and be prepared, as he says, to 'replace a simplistic, domesticated, anemic, fridge magnet understanding of God with a more fierce, awe-inspiring, and majestic God that is true to the Bible and big enough for the whole of our lives.'"

"If there's ever such a thing as a timely book, God Is Stranger is it. In a world and culture today where fear is the dominant currency, Krish Kandiah invites us back to the Scriptures to tell us about a God who invites his people to choose faith, hope, and love over fear. Because of who God is, the church is called to seek justice, love kindness, walk humbly, feed the poor, cloth the naked, speak up for the voiceless, welcome the refugee, embrace the orphans, fight for the rights of vulnerable, and welcome the stranger. This is an important discipleship book!"

"In God Is Stranger, Krish Kandiah asks us to lean in to the passages of Scripture that challenge our perception of what it looks like when God shows up. As the global refugee crisis marches on, it is imperative for the church to embrace God's heart for the aliens, outcasts, and exiles. This is a profoundly important book for such a time as this."

"In this profound and challenging book, Krish Kandiah calls us to think again about how we view strangers, reminding us of the many times that God appears in the Bible as a stranger in such a way that turns the world upside down. Be warned, this book could seriously affect your view of yourself, the world, and God-and I highly recommend it to you!"

"In this xenophobic age of open vilification toward outsiders, Krish Kandiah presents us with the provocative idea that God often comes to us as a stranger. This is such an important book, reminding us that xenophobia is not only irrational, it is sinful. God's concern is for the least, the lost, and the left out, and so should ours."

"Krish Kandiah reminds us of a simple truth with as many consequences as there are stars in the night sky: God keeps showing up where we least expect him. To know that is to live."

"My friend Krish Kandiah's new book is not only needed 'for such a time as this, ' it's one that will help reshape some of our thoughts and feelings toward others and allow us to see strangers more with the eyes of God. Many thanks to Krish for this encouraging book!"

"You have no accidental people in your life. Whether family, friends, or total strangers, everyone in your story is there by the providence of God. Christians, then, should be the last people crippled by fear of unexpected people or places. This book will help equip you to love the strangers around you as Jesus does."

"God Is Stranger will help readers better know a gospel that is truly good news. Krish Kandiah is someone with theological depth and experience living out his faith in the real world. Krish has been an encouragement to me as a friend and exemplar, and I believe he will inspire a generation of Christians to serve a God who loves each person--including the stranger."

"If there's ever such a thing as a timely book, God Is Stranger is it. In a world and culture today where fear is the dominant currency, Krish Kandiah invites us back to the Scriptures to tell us about a God who invites his people to choose faith, hope, and love over fear. Because of who God is, the church is called to seek justice, love kindness, walk humbly, feed the poor, cloth the naked, speak up for the voiceless, welcome the refugee, embrace the orphans, fight for the rights of vulnerable, and welcome the stranger. This is an important discipleship book!"

"In God Is Stranger, Krish Kandiah asks us to lean in to the passages of Scripture that challenge our perception of what it looks like when God shows up. As the global refugee crisis marches on, it is imperative for the church to embrace God's heart for the aliens, outcasts, and exiles. This is a profoundly important book for such a time as this."

About the Author

Krish Kandiah (PhD, Kings College London) is the founder and director of Home for Good, a UK charity finding homes for foster children and young refugees. An international speaker, he teaches regularly at Regent College and Portland Seminary and is the author of several books, including Paradoxology and Home for Good.

Andy Crouch (MDiv, Boston University School of Theology) is senior strategist for at the John Templeton Foundation. For more than ten years he was an editor and producer at Christianity Today, including serving as executive editor from 2012 to 2016. He serves on the governing boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Andy is the author of books such as Strong and Weak, Culture Making, and Playing God. His writing has appeared in Time, the Wall Street Journal and several editions of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing.From 1998 to 2003, Andy was the editor-in-chief of re: generation quarterly, a magazine for an emerging generation of culturally creative Christians. For ten years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard University. He studied classics at Cornell University and received an MDiv from Boston University School of Theology. A classically trained musician who draws on pop, folk, rock, jazz, and gospel, he has led musical worship for congregations of 5 to 20,000. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania.