Only Love: How Everything Was Is and Will Be

Niq Ruud lied saying he couldnt smell for nearly a decade. He lived in his car during college to afford tuition. He got lost in a blizzard during his first mountaineering trip then learned to ski a few months later while climbing Mount Rainier. He saved his little sister from a kidnapper by leaping from a plum tree with a Nerf toy while they were children. And it is with wit and a scholars touch that he uses these and many other stories to wrestle with the question: What if the deity you grew up learning about in church doesnt exist?For while the God of the Christian tradition is often said to be good that same God doesnt seem to shy away from endorsing genocide homophobia racism sexism or eternal damnation; leading many persons of faith to justify violence and oppressive behaviors for thousands of years. But in this book Ruud works readers into the supposition that God desires none of those things. And on the contrary with a theology that pushes the boundaries of God much larger than we might ever imagine he argues that the only god who can truly be good is a God of other-centered self-sacrificial love. The implications as to what a God of only love means for everything are vast-because everything changes when we see God as nothing more and nothing less than love.