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Deconstruction: Trendy brand name for falling away from belief in God? Or a process essential to authentic faith? Liberation or trauma? Prison break or exile?

In Out of the Embers, Bradley Jersak explores the necessity, perils, and possibilities of the Great Deconstruction. Will it sabotage our communion with God or infuse it with the breath of life, the light and life of Christ himself?
In seeking the answer, he employs the wisdom of the great deconstructionists: Christianity’s ancient influences (Moses, Plato, Paul, and the Patristics), “beloved frenemies” (from Voltaire to Nietzsche), and the masters of deconstruction (Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, and Weil)—to double down and deconstruct deconstruction itself.
Jersak’s heart is to engage and empathize with the bereft and disoriented, stoking the brittle ashes for live embers. In this quest into the resilient gospel of the martyrs, the marginalized, and those outside the threshold…inexplicably, life stirs. A Light shines through the ashes. We find, often for the first time, that living connection Jersak calls “presence in communion.”

OUT OF THE EMBERS

Bradley Jersak explores the necessity, perils, and possibilities of the Great Deconstruction—people’s widespread questioning of and/or falling away from faith—how it has the potential to either sabotage our communion with God or infuse it with the breath of life, the light and life of Christ himself.

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Felicia Murrell

Author, Truth Encounters

In a day when the answer to personal doubts and societal ills seems to be “Burn it all down,” Bradley Jersak calls to us from the ashes of ruin with the attentiveness and compassion of the Good Samaritan tending to and providing for a stranger in need. Out of the Embers reassures us that deconstruction is not merely for the purpose of destruction, but, unlike many Christian texts of old, it does not attempt to fill in all the blanks or flood us with certitude. In this seminal work, Brad comes to us as a fellow wayfarer, a sojourner who is questioning and seeking but anchored. And from that deeply rooted place, which includes the voices of sages from eras past, he has written Out of the Embers as a companion for his fellow seekers and as a guide for the questioners. He calls us once again to the One who loves, the One who leads, the One who makes all things new. What will we be after the coal of the Refiner’s fire has touched our lips? Out of the Embers leaves us hopeful.

Dr. Chris Green

Professor of Public Theology, Southeastern University, Lakeland, FL

This is a wise and creative book. And despite the fact that Brad Jersak’s wisdom was clearly hard-won, he has not been hardened by the gaining of it. Tender and personal, he is nonetheless also often fierce, never shying away into shibboleths or truisms or abstractions. His is a faith of fever and tears, a faith in a God with wounds. So, he writes with a consummate “touch” about the pains of believing and doubting, finding and losing the way. Just so, he fulfills his calling and helps us to answer our own callings, renewing our confidence in old wisdom, proven true over time, and reminding us that the Spirit is creating a fresh wisdom in and for us here and now—a wisdom, believe it or not, formed in our wrestlings with God.

Wm. Paul Young

Author, The Shack and Lies We Believe About God

Revelation is Deconstruction, not the revelation of that which lacks but that which is True. Like the burning bush, the deadwood is being destroyed, allowing for the emergence of that which has always been present but hidden, now visible and attractive by its nature. This is the journey that Brad Jersak escorts us through, where the intent of love is never wanton havoc but the tender Doula’s work, the Holy Spirit overseeing the birthing of true life. After all, only the ashes make it through the flames, and from the ashes, beauty.

David Hayward

aka “NakedPastor”

Finally, someone has written what I think will be the textbook on the deconstruction of belief—and it’s Brad Jersak. I appreciate Jersak’s thorough and caring contribution to this important discussion and urgent reality.

Dr. Cherith Fee Nordling

Faculty, Masters in Leadership, Theology and Society, Regent College, Vancouver, BC

When we experience the inevitable widening of our understanding of and identity in God, of the Scriptures, and of our way of being in God’s beloved, broken world, sometimes it feels more like an exploding grenade than an expansive invitation. Yet we need love’s widening, especially when we religious folks think we don’t. (Note who disliked Jesus and his message enough to make sure he died instead of their old beliefs.) We also need wise, pastoral, knowledgeable, hope-oriented guides who can help clear the smoke, remove the rubble, bind the wounds, and redirect our gaze on Jesus, who hides our lives with his own in God amid the shakeup. With his insights and the historical companions he has chosen to help us, Bradley Jersak—who also brings experience in compassionate triage—is that transparent, trustworthy guide who can help us examine the unexamined “knowledge” to which we cling so that it might be released and surpassed by God’s love.

Steve Bell

Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter-musician

According to Bradley Jersak, “The Great Deconstruction is not just a two-year lockdown or four-year election cycle.” He sees it as “a great historic tradition.” However, the author insists we are bereft of neither reliable guides nor real agency. From Moses to Jesus to modern prophets like Simone Weil, Out of the Embers mercifully recollects for us the sages and seers who have “charted the way…[and] left us memos of their work.” Out of the Embers is a most wise, kind, and timely gift for those of us whose very faith has been traumatized by the tumult of our age.

About the Author

Bradley Jersak is the Dean of Theology & Culture, a modular graduate studies program at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick, Canada. He is also the editor-in-chief of Clarion-Journal.com. Bradley and his wife, Eden, have lived in the Abbotsford area of British Columbia since 1988, where they served as pastors and church planters for twenty years. Bradley is the author of a number of nonfiction and fiction books, including A More Christlike God, A More Christlike Way, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut, Can You Hear Me? Tuning in to the God Who Speaks, and The Pastor: A Crisis. He has an M.A. in biblical studies from Briercrest Bible College and Seminary, an M.Div. in biblical studies from Trinity Western University/ACTS Seminary, and a Ph.D. in theology from Bangor University, Wales. He was also a Visiting Scholar at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, for post-doctoral research in Patristic Christology.  

OUT OF THE EMBERS

Bradley Jersak explores the necessity, perils, and possibilities of the Great Deconstruction—people’s widespread questioning of and/or falling away from faith—how it has the potential to either sabotage our communion with God or infuse it with the breath of life, the light and life of Christ himself.

Only: $19.992 - Order Yours Today

Order Now