Vulnerable God: How Jesus Upends Our Assumptions About God―and Shows Us How to Be Human

by Kenneth Tanner

Discover the God Who Became Fully Human--and What That Means for Your Faith

The mystery of God made flesh isn't just doctrine. It's an invitation to reimagine both God and ourselves.

In Vulnerable God, pastor and theologian Kenneth Tanner offers a rich meditation on the incarnation. Tracing the events of Jesus's life as told in the Bible and the rhythms of the church year, Tanner invites us to recapture our wonder that God has become human--to discover what Christ's vulnerability reveals about the heart of God and how the full humanity of Jesus transforms our lives. This book explores

● how vulnerability is not a flaw but the very glory of divine love;
● what it means to be fully human the way God is human; and
● how Jesus shows us God's true character through service and surrender.

Full of poetic depth and pastoral warmth, Vulnerable God is for those looking to recapture a gentler, more human faith rooted in humility and wonder. Including a foreword by Brian Zahnd, this thoughtful companion is ideal for seasons of reflection and rediscovery.

Genres: Theology, Faith

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 29, 2026

Reviews

[Celina Sourbeer]

I proofread this.

[Cameron Brooks · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

Funny how you can (nearly) forget Christianity is all about... Jesus Christ. I don't always agree with Tanner theologically, but this book moved me.

[David Tade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very simply, this is an incredibly beautiful book. Being familiar with Father Kenneth Tanner's writings through Facebook, sub stack and other places, I was prepared for this the be a wonderful book to read. However, I was not prepared for how the Vulnerable God would affect me, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
To do justice to this book, to allow it to truly allow you see and experience The Vulnerable God, I came to believe during my reading that it is best read in small doses, as one would read a daily devotional, to allow Tanner's words to sink deeply into your soul. The Vulnerable God, is insightful and powerful. I, when reading most books, just plow right through them, with finishing it being the goal, as I did with this one. But I feel as if I did not do it, or myself justice by doing so. I believe, the depth, and beauty of The Vulnerable God requires moments of contemplation, meditation and prayer to fully absorb the breadth, depth and message of this beautiful book.
I plan on reading The Vulnerable God again, this time much slower and contemplative than my first reading.
This is a wonderful book and quite possibly the best book I have read this year. Put this book on your to read list.
Much thanks into net galley for allowing me to read and review this book

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

It may have started with Constantine, but I think it goes back further than him, since Christians have often prized an "omnipotent" God, who can control everything. The problem with this common vision of an all-powerful deity is that Christianity has also proposed that we should view God in light of the incarnation. That is, when Christians envision the invisible God, they should look to Jesus, the visible manifestation of the invisible God. Where did Jesus reveal this God, whom he called Father? It was on the cross. Although we may turn the cross into jewelry, it was in reality the cruelest and most humiliating form of execution the Romans could come up with. Thus, what we find in Jesus is a vision of the vulnerable God.

Kenneth Tanner, the pastor of Church of the Holy Redeemer in Rochester Hills, Michigan, invites us to encounter God in the person of Jesus in his new book "Vulnerable God: How Jesus Upends Our Assumptions about God ---and shows us How to be Human" (Brazos, 2026). Ken is a friend and colleague of many years, so I have enjoyed many conversations about the Christian faith. I have appreciated how he draws on a wide variety of sources in his theological reflections.

The central theological thread running through Tanner's "Vulnerable God" is his affirmation that Jesus is God, just as the creeds declare. At the same time, also following the creeds, he affirms Jesus' full humanity. It is in his existence as the God-Man that Jesus reveals to us God's true nature, while helping us better understand our identity as humans. In his foreword to the book, Brian Zand points out that Tanner loves icons and is himself an iconographer in the sense that he uses words to help us envision God's nature, such that we might be transformed by our encounter with this icon of Jesus.

Tanner divides "Vulnerable God" into four sections, each of which emphasizes the ways Jesus helps us understand God's nature through Jesus' humanity, even as he invites us to participate in Christ's divinity such that we might be transformed by that encounter. Along the way, he walks us through Scripture, while drawing on a variety of sources, including his own Pentecostal background and his engagement with Orthodox theologians such as Sergius Bulgakov, David Bentley Hart and John Behr. He also draws on early Christian writers including Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius, Origen, and others. In fact, I know from my conversations with him that he finds significant insight from his study of the early Christians.

The four sections are titled "A Human God," "A Human Life", "A Human Death," and "A Human Future." As we move from the mystery that is the incarnation through birth, life, death, and the eschaton, Tanner writes with an exquisite sensibility. Although he is well read and draws on his own theological training, he doesn't get sidetracked by debates over critical issues. That is not what this book is about. It is, in reality, a spiritual reflection on God's identity as reflected in Jesus' human life. In the course of this reflection, Tanner also brings into the conversation his own experiences with life, especially his pastoral experiences in the church and as a chaplain for first responders. What we discover here is a revelation of God that, as the subtitle suggests, upends our understanding of God.

I offer my thanks to Ken because he writes in a contemplative way, even as it is informative, without becoming overly caught up in the kinds of details that distract us from encountering the God who loves the world and shows that love through the person of Jesus. So we move through the life of Jesus and on to the eschaton, stopping along the way to contemplate the Gospel's portrayal of Jesus. Because this is a contemplative vision, Tanner draws considerably from the Gospel of John, though not exclusively. However, we do encounter the raising of Lazarus and Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman, who carries the name of Photini, according to tradition. When it comes to the resurrection, he focuses on Mary's encounter with the risen Christ.

If you are looking for a resource that will draw you into the person of Jesus, "Vulnerable God" does that and more. For as we contemplate Christ, who revealed God's true identity on the cross, we discover the vulnerable God who loves the world. Again, Ken Tanner has written a beautiful icon of the vulnerable God.

Tanner closes the book with a chapter titled "One," in which he focuses on the hymn found in the letter to the Colossians, which describes Christ as the visible manifestation of the invisible God, who creates all things and holds all things together. He writes of the Colossian hymn: "The hymn says that everything of God was present in Christ, who we've learned is human without losing anything divine and divine without losing anything human. The song says that Christ, as the creator and sustainer of all things, is the first in creation to live beyond death so that he can bring everything in creation --- all things! --- back into union with God" (p. 211). That reference to "all things" is a key to Tanner's vision of the vulnerable God who has been revealed to us in the person of Jesus.

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[Richard Propes · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a tremendous vulnerability and emotional resonance within the pages of Kenneth Tanner's "Vulnerable God: How Jesus Upends Our Assumptions About God - and Shows Us How to Be Human."

Pastor of Rochester Hills, Michigan's Church of the Holy Redeemer, Tanner's "Vulnerable God" is an invitation toward a sense of wonder in our relationship with a God that has become human.

Think about that for a moment. Better yet, feel that for a moment. As someone who has lived with lifelong disabilities, I'm used to a life of vulnerability. I'm used to people knowing all about my body. I'm used to people assisting in the most intimate of ways. I'm used to frailties and illnesses, body fluids that go chaotic and living every aching moment with full on humanity.

But God? God choosing that?

Tanner says "Yep."

In "Vulnerable God," Tanner serves up a rich and remarkable meditation on the incarnation and connects it very directly to the heart of God. For Tanner, vulnerability is not a flaw to be fixed nor does it require a mask to be worn. Instead, Tanner invites us into a journey toward greater vulnerability and humanity in a way that mirrors God as human.

While many theological books attempt to sort of teach prayerful meditation, "Vulnerable God" really leans into it and immerses us in a way that is rare and meaningful. Tanner calls us into a quieter and more meaningful place with God, devoid of the usual attention-seeking, power-driven and status-motivated ways we so often find today.

I will confess that it took me a bit to really surrender myself to "Vulnerable God," though once I did I found myself enchanted by its language, rhythms, and tone-setting.

So too, we seem to be in a time when so many literary efforts are angry. The word that keeps coming to mind with "Vulnerable God" is "hope," a hard-earned hope birthed out of open eyes and a sense of wonder.

Tanner plants forth the basic idea that God really does love us. It's not just a catchy phrase or a hymn or a slogan. It's divine truth.

Again, as someone with disabilities who so often experiences the opposite it feels almost like a divine bath to contemplate that God truly does love me. Right now as icons of love.

I will confess that I occasionally found "Vulnerable God" to be a tad repetitive, however, even that repetition began to feel meditative in rhythm and spirit.

Vulnerability. Sometimes, I'll admit I become tired of being vulnerable. I long for something resembling a more typical masculinity yet I think ask myself "Is that what I really want?"

After reading "Vulnerable God," I lean toward believing I am exactly the man I was born to be.

And for that I give thanks.

[Kelley Mathews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tanner writes lyrically, thoughtfully, and profoundly, offering reflections on how Jesus helps us define ourselves as human even more accurately. He will surprise and possibly shock you with some of his ideas of God's humility and love. The vast majority of what I've read so far is a beautiful series of truths that will reveal to readers the heart of the Father through the life of the Son.
At times he seems to go beyond Scripture or perhaps gloss over the details, e.g., saying Anna and Simeon "dwell in the courts of the Lord always" (32) when the Gospel of Luke says Anna dwelt there but Simeon "moved by the Spirit ... went into the temple courts." Minor, I know. But "The Son of God is human from eternity" (19) is a theologically contradictory phrase, since the Son of God became human forevermore, but not previously, at the Incarnation. Keep an eye out for phrases that challenge your theology—not all are problematic, just a different way of seeing the same biblical truth. Overall, this book seems like a love letter to Jesus shared with the church so we might know him better and worship him more fully.


I received this copy from the publisher and was not required to leave a positive review.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vulnerable God is not an argument for a theological position but a long meditation. Or, as Brian Zahnd called it in the foreword, Kenneth Tanner has painted an icon with words. This book refuses being rushed through, and it took me a long time to read it, very slowly.

Other books wrestle with theological terms, asking, Is God impassive? Jesus has emotions. Does God change? What is the way of Jesus? This book explores those questions by meditating on the life of Jesus, who is God. How do we see God in the face of Jesus Christ?

At the beginning, Tanner mentioned that the book’s structure follows the Church calendar (the “Sacred year”), but I think it makes more sense to say it follows the life of Jesus. The four parts ponder “A Human God,” “A Human Life,” “A Human Death,” and “A Human Future.” Throughout the book, Tanner quotes primarily the Church Fathers to orient ourselves within a tradition that has pondered Jesus.

Tanner warns against speaking “of the cross in ways we can and should forget, a cross that is a brief stop of surrender and selflessness on a violent crusade toward a ‘greatness.’” I have been much encouraged by the interpretation of Philippians 2 as a “J-Curve” (see Paul Miller’s book of the same title), and here Tanner is arguing that the downward line of the “J” is not temporary until the upward line, but that in the way of Jesus, the way of greatness is the way down.

[Nicholas Renaud · Rating 5 out of 5]

Towards the very end of this book the author says “every attempt to speak or write about the mystery of Jesus Christ falls short” and perhaps that is true. If Jesus is who he claims to be, then, in his infinite perfection, any finite human attempting to describe God will be necessarily incomplete.

But I believe this book does the best job humanly possible showing us the character of God.

A brilliant book.