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God Is Not Nice: Rejecting Pop Culture Theology and Discovering the God Worth Living For
Ulrich L. Lehner reintroduces Christians to the true God—not the polite, easygoing, divine therapist who doesn’t ask much of us, but the Almighty God who is unpredictable, awe-inspiring, and demands our entire lives. Stripping away the niceties with a sling blade, Lehner shows that God is more strange and beautiful than we imagine, and wants to know and transform us in the most intimate way.
With his iconoclastic new book God Is Not Nice , Lehner, one of the most promising young Catholic theologians in America, challenges the God of popular culture and many of our churches and reintroduces the God of the Bible and traditional Christianity. As Lehner writes in the book’s introduction, "We all need the vaccine of the true transforming and mysterious character of The God who shows up in burning bushes, speaks through donkeys, drives demons into pigs, throws Saul from his horse, and appears to St. Francis. It’s only this God who has the power to challenge us, change us, and make our lives dangerous. He sweeps us into a great adventure that will make us into different people."
This book is not safe. It may startle and annoy many people—including those who purport to teach and preach the Gospel, but are missing it, according to Lehner. God Is Not Nice intends to overthrow all of our popular misconceptions about God, inviting us to ask deeper questions about the nature of our lives and our relationship with him.
When you're finished with God Is Not Nice , you may find the idols you constructed in God’s name smashed, replaced with a God who will ask you to live an entirely different life full of hope and transformation.
God Is Not Nice has been translated into several foreign languages.
With his iconoclastic new book God Is Not Nice , Lehner, one of the most promising young Catholic theologians in America, challenges the God of popular culture and many of our churches and reintroduces the God of the Bible and traditional Christianity. As Lehner writes in the book’s introduction, "We all need the vaccine of the true transforming and mysterious character of The God who shows up in burning bushes, speaks through donkeys, drives demons into pigs, throws Saul from his horse, and appears to St. Francis. It’s only this God who has the power to challenge us, change us, and make our lives dangerous. He sweeps us into a great adventure that will make us into different people."
This book is not safe. It may startle and annoy many people—including those who purport to teach and preach the Gospel, but are missing it, according to Lehner. God Is Not Nice intends to overthrow all of our popular misconceptions about God, inviting us to ask deeper questions about the nature of our lives and our relationship with him.
When you're finished with God Is Not Nice , you may find the idols you constructed in God’s name smashed, replaced with a God who will ask you to live an entirely different life full of hope and transformation.
God Is Not Nice has been translated into several foreign languages.
160 pages, Paperback
Published October 20, 2017
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March 1, 2018
As I so often complain, the quality of modern discourse is atrocious. Probably this is due to everyone being told for decades that his opinion always matters, along with a belief that democracy means all opinions are equally valid regardless of reasoning, capped off by modern avenues of communication that allow easy, free broadcasting of stupidity, when in the past dumb people had very limited ability to force the rest of us listen. Worthless discourse exists across the political spectrum, of course, although that the Left dominates popular media means the average person probably has to suffer more from being bathed in drivel from that side of the spectrum. A subset of this general problem is that religious discourse is of equally low level, though rather (in most cases) being vicious irrationality, it is vacuous irrationality. It is this vacuous irrationality, at its core the idea that God is “nice,” that Roman Catholic theologian Ulrich Lehner is here to dismantle, in this brief and accessible book.
Lehner’s point is that the usual modern American view of God, that he is “nice” in the same way as an avuncular grandfather, is a pernicious innovation. God is not here to make us feel good, nor is he here to dispense treats if we ask in the correct way. Rather, he has created us to make us, Lehner says, “partakers of the divine nature” (quoting 2 Pt 1:4). In short chapters, Lehner outlines certain characteristics of what Christians believe that divine nature to be: one of thunder, terror, surrender, intimacy, consolation, incarnation, rebirth, and adventure. The author, a professor at Marquette, begins by talking about what his students usually believe about God—namely, they have uninformed, sentimentalist, egocentric thoughts about God, when they have any concrete thoughts at all. Most of all, they deny, implicitly or explicitly, both that there are truths to be had, that those truths exclude contradictory falsehoods, and that those truths are difficult, especially in the demands they necessarily make of us. Lehner then briefly covers older (though better thought-out) tendencies similar in content, such as Pelagianism and deism, all as background to explaining the real Christian view of God.
Each subsequent chapter is short and to the point, and written to a general audience, not to theologians. When Lehner says God is a God of thunder, he means that the simpering emotivism that characterizes most discussion about God not only fails to capture, but is antithetical to, God’s real nature. Such emotivism is also used to undermine religious discourse, with facile phrases about “forgiveness and love” being used as the sole rationale for the claim that God does not require anything substantive of us, and also for the necessarily related defensive claim that anyone who says otherwise hates both forgiveness and love, each more than the other. But, “As a theologian, I ask why God is love and what forgiveness entails and whether it can be bestowed on someone who does not ask for forgiveness. I look for reasons, not opinions.” We are to search for objective moral standards, not, as is the usual pattern today, to claim that they do not exist, because love. (As the atrocious slogan goes that is used to justify whatever dubious activity wants justification today, “Love is love is love is love.”) If we fail to appreciate that God demands certain things from us, we end up with the usual modern situation, where “The God of Abraham, Isaac, has become the god of Walmart,” a pleasant greeter saying hello and helping you to find what you want, not what he wants.
It’s not just demands, though—God is actually a God of terror, not in the sense of panicked fear, but of awe, “trembling and enchanting.” Here, Lehner takes on the task of reconciling the Old and New Testaments, a challenge early taken up by Christian theologians, responding to attacks by pagans centered on the apparent contradictions in the description of God’s nature between the two Testaments. He outlines (it can’t be more than that in a short chapter) the standard response, that apparently un-Christian actions and directives of God in the Old Testament are to be understood allegorically. To his credit, he leads with one of the most difficult passages, Psalm 137, verse 9, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” In that verse, “thy” refers to the Edomites (Lehner says it refers to the Amalekites, but that is wrong). As Lehner says, “the [Church] Fathers interpreted such passages as metaphorical and thus made them consistent with their belief system. The babes were not innocent humans but an image of the evil offspring we produce—our sins—and the stone against which they should be smashed was the ‘rock’ whom the master builders had rejected, Jesus Christ.” In the Enlightenment, such allegorical readings were rejected as irrational and unsupportable, leading Christians to increasingly wholly reject the strict and demanding moral requirements of the Old Testament as embarrassing (and to reject the miracles of the New Testament, including the Resurrection, as well). Lehner thinks we should restore those allegorical readings (which have never actually been abandoned), and understand that the writers of the Old Testament tried to communicate the “awe-inspiring experience of the divine” with the “nearest analogy they had at hand—the ‘irrational,’ unpredictable, unreasonable, odd behavior of fellow humans!”
Next Lehner covers the utter surrender God demands; he liberates us because he loves us, but that implies nothing less than a total commitment in response. What this should do for us is make us understand that sin is not a stain we can simply brush off, but a rupture with God, that needs substantive repair. And God’s liberation of us also implies a total commitment to loving our neighbor, a “thou,” not the general category of neighbors (as is common in these days of virtue signaling and substitution of political activity for concrete actions toward concrete people). Love does not mean absolving yourself or others of guilt, though—quite the opposite. Finally, Lehner covers the intimacy, the self-exposure, being open to God requires; the question of the consolations offered in this life by God; incarnation and rebirth (in which he treats original sin, freedom and redemption); and the adventurous, enchanting nature of God, who offers us an adventure as well.
As far as the consolation of God; Lehner touches on theodicy, but he does not touch on the most common “Nice God” response to that problem, which is to recite in a talismanic fashion, “I believe everything happens for a reason,” by which is meant that God has a hidden purpose behind the most hideous events, which will be revealed to us in the fullness of time. I have been blessed with, so far, no immediate tragedy in my life, so perhaps this is easy for me to say, but as David Bentley Hart has pointed out, what God promises us is not the unveiling of such a grand synthesis, but the wiping away of tears, and the remaking of all things: “Behold, I make all things new.” Lehner does point out that part of Christian theology is the ultimate revelation of the downstream effects of our sins, but that is, if you think about it, the opposite of showing how those sins were part of God’s plan. Related to theodicy is Lehner’s criticism of the modern tendency to see health as the highest good. This is also a product of the Enlightenment—I am currently reading Paul Rahe’s "New Modes and Orders in Early Modern Political Thought," which exhaustively catalogues the philosophical turn to human comfort as the highest good during the Enlightenment (something Rahe appears to endorses, as a Straussian, but I will discuss that in my review of that book, not this one). Of course, those who worship a (factually inaccurate) picture of the Enlightenment, like Steven Pinker, also agree that this change to the effective worship of health is an improvement, which it is—if, and only if, God is merely, or at all, nice. I want good health for myself and my family, and for everyone, as much as the next person. I am greatly blessed in that regard, but I will not always be, and Lehner informs us it is not the highest good. In fact, we should not be heard to complain when God fails to deliver us perfect health, or even good health.
In an interview about this book, Lehner tellingly cites, from Luke 17, the story of the ten lepers that Jesus healed, only one of whom returned to thank him. It’s that view of God that Lehner realizes is a timeless temptation, because it’s easy. You might call that version of Christ “turnkey Jesus.” God Is Not Nice is only a gateway to thinking about this problem; the book touches on many of the most tangled and troubled theological issues of Christianity, which it cannot possibly cover in detail, and therefore I think its main value is in exposing to the interested reader the basic concepts of Christianity that are alien to the beliefs of most Christians today. They won’t know all the details after reading this book, but at least they’ll have good reason to question the unexamined beliefs they hold, and to explore further.
Lehner’s point is that the usual modern American view of God, that he is “nice” in the same way as an avuncular grandfather, is a pernicious innovation. God is not here to make us feel good, nor is he here to dispense treats if we ask in the correct way. Rather, he has created us to make us, Lehner says, “partakers of the divine nature” (quoting 2 Pt 1:4). In short chapters, Lehner outlines certain characteristics of what Christians believe that divine nature to be: one of thunder, terror, surrender, intimacy, consolation, incarnation, rebirth, and adventure. The author, a professor at Marquette, begins by talking about what his students usually believe about God—namely, they have uninformed, sentimentalist, egocentric thoughts about God, when they have any concrete thoughts at all. Most of all, they deny, implicitly or explicitly, both that there are truths to be had, that those truths exclude contradictory falsehoods, and that those truths are difficult, especially in the demands they necessarily make of us. Lehner then briefly covers older (though better thought-out) tendencies similar in content, such as Pelagianism and deism, all as background to explaining the real Christian view of God.
Each subsequent chapter is short and to the point, and written to a general audience, not to theologians. When Lehner says God is a God of thunder, he means that the simpering emotivism that characterizes most discussion about God not only fails to capture, but is antithetical to, God’s real nature. Such emotivism is also used to undermine religious discourse, with facile phrases about “forgiveness and love” being used as the sole rationale for the claim that God does not require anything substantive of us, and also for the necessarily related defensive claim that anyone who says otherwise hates both forgiveness and love, each more than the other. But, “As a theologian, I ask why God is love and what forgiveness entails and whether it can be bestowed on someone who does not ask for forgiveness. I look for reasons, not opinions.” We are to search for objective moral standards, not, as is the usual pattern today, to claim that they do not exist, because love. (As the atrocious slogan goes that is used to justify whatever dubious activity wants justification today, “Love is love is love is love.”) If we fail to appreciate that God demands certain things from us, we end up with the usual modern situation, where “The God of Abraham, Isaac, has become the god of Walmart,” a pleasant greeter saying hello and helping you to find what you want, not what he wants.
It’s not just demands, though—God is actually a God of terror, not in the sense of panicked fear, but of awe, “trembling and enchanting.” Here, Lehner takes on the task of reconciling the Old and New Testaments, a challenge early taken up by Christian theologians, responding to attacks by pagans centered on the apparent contradictions in the description of God’s nature between the two Testaments. He outlines (it can’t be more than that in a short chapter) the standard response, that apparently un-Christian actions and directives of God in the Old Testament are to be understood allegorically. To his credit, he leads with one of the most difficult passages, Psalm 137, verse 9, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” In that verse, “thy” refers to the Edomites (Lehner says it refers to the Amalekites, but that is wrong). As Lehner says, “the [Church] Fathers interpreted such passages as metaphorical and thus made them consistent with their belief system. The babes were not innocent humans but an image of the evil offspring we produce—our sins—and the stone against which they should be smashed was the ‘rock’ whom the master builders had rejected, Jesus Christ.” In the Enlightenment, such allegorical readings were rejected as irrational and unsupportable, leading Christians to increasingly wholly reject the strict and demanding moral requirements of the Old Testament as embarrassing (and to reject the miracles of the New Testament, including the Resurrection, as well). Lehner thinks we should restore those allegorical readings (which have never actually been abandoned), and understand that the writers of the Old Testament tried to communicate the “awe-inspiring experience of the divine” with the “nearest analogy they had at hand—the ‘irrational,’ unpredictable, unreasonable, odd behavior of fellow humans!”
Next Lehner covers the utter surrender God demands; he liberates us because he loves us, but that implies nothing less than a total commitment in response. What this should do for us is make us understand that sin is not a stain we can simply brush off, but a rupture with God, that needs substantive repair. And God’s liberation of us also implies a total commitment to loving our neighbor, a “thou,” not the general category of neighbors (as is common in these days of virtue signaling and substitution of political activity for concrete actions toward concrete people). Love does not mean absolving yourself or others of guilt, though—quite the opposite. Finally, Lehner covers the intimacy, the self-exposure, being open to God requires; the question of the consolations offered in this life by God; incarnation and rebirth (in which he treats original sin, freedom and redemption); and the adventurous, enchanting nature of God, who offers us an adventure as well.
As far as the consolation of God; Lehner touches on theodicy, but he does not touch on the most common “Nice God” response to that problem, which is to recite in a talismanic fashion, “I believe everything happens for a reason,” by which is meant that God has a hidden purpose behind the most hideous events, which will be revealed to us in the fullness of time. I have been blessed with, so far, no immediate tragedy in my life, so perhaps this is easy for me to say, but as David Bentley Hart has pointed out, what God promises us is not the unveiling of such a grand synthesis, but the wiping away of tears, and the remaking of all things: “Behold, I make all things new.” Lehner does point out that part of Christian theology is the ultimate revelation of the downstream effects of our sins, but that is, if you think about it, the opposite of showing how those sins were part of God’s plan. Related to theodicy is Lehner’s criticism of the modern tendency to see health as the highest good. This is also a product of the Enlightenment—I am currently reading Paul Rahe’s "New Modes and Orders in Early Modern Political Thought," which exhaustively catalogues the philosophical turn to human comfort as the highest good during the Enlightenment (something Rahe appears to endorses, as a Straussian, but I will discuss that in my review of that book, not this one). Of course, those who worship a (factually inaccurate) picture of the Enlightenment, like Steven Pinker, also agree that this change to the effective worship of health is an improvement, which it is—if, and only if, God is merely, or at all, nice. I want good health for myself and my family, and for everyone, as much as the next person. I am greatly blessed in that regard, but I will not always be, and Lehner informs us it is not the highest good. In fact, we should not be heard to complain when God fails to deliver us perfect health, or even good health.
In an interview about this book, Lehner tellingly cites, from Luke 17, the story of the ten lepers that Jesus healed, only one of whom returned to thank him. It’s that view of God that Lehner realizes is a timeless temptation, because it’s easy. You might call that version of Christ “turnkey Jesus.” God Is Not Nice is only a gateway to thinking about this problem; the book touches on many of the most tangled and troubled theological issues of Christianity, which it cannot possibly cover in detail, and therefore I think its main value is in exposing to the interested reader the basic concepts of Christianity that are alien to the beliefs of most Christians today. They won’t know all the details after reading this book, but at least they’ll have good reason to question the unexamined beliefs they hold, and to explore further.
January 24, 2018
God is not mean. But He's certainly not nice, and we shouldn't want Him to be.
Because a "nice," harmless duffer of an "Old Man Upstairs," who doesn't hold us accountable or demand that we change our lives, not only wouldn't bother saving and transforming us, but wouldn't be powerful enough to. Lehner astutely notes that nice people wouldn't walk with us in our despair or share our pain; a nice god wouldn't, either. Indeed, the word "nice," seemingly akin to virtuous these days, meant quite the opposite at one time: it meant something more along the lines of "stupid." Best stick with the real God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That God loves us. That God wants us. That God became man so that we might participate and share in His divine life.
Lehner doesn't disappoint: God is Not Nice is very accessible but with nary a pop-theology platitude in sight. And what is more, most books of this kind for less specialized audiences tend to concern themselves with Scripture, theology, and philosophy, but not the historical record. Lehner is a professor of historical theology at Marquette University. He deftly plies his intellectual historian's expertise here, in that he not only understands the paradigm shifts in thinking over time, but the logical consequences of how and what people think. The result is a solid basis for spiritual renewal, showing the disciple where correction is needed and where and how to begin again, but also therefore comes with a roadmap with contours in the development of Western thought that remains relevant. Deo gratias.
Because a "nice," harmless duffer of an "Old Man Upstairs," who doesn't hold us accountable or demand that we change our lives, not only wouldn't bother saving and transforming us, but wouldn't be powerful enough to. Lehner astutely notes that nice people wouldn't walk with us in our despair or share our pain; a nice god wouldn't, either. Indeed, the word "nice," seemingly akin to virtuous these days, meant quite the opposite at one time: it meant something more along the lines of "stupid." Best stick with the real God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That God loves us. That God wants us. That God became man so that we might participate and share in His divine life.
Lehner doesn't disappoint: God is Not Nice is very accessible but with nary a pop-theology platitude in sight. And what is more, most books of this kind for less specialized audiences tend to concern themselves with Scripture, theology, and philosophy, but not the historical record. Lehner is a professor of historical theology at Marquette University. He deftly plies his intellectual historian's expertise here, in that he not only understands the paradigm shifts in thinking over time, but the logical consequences of how and what people think. The result is a solid basis for spiritual renewal, showing the disciple where correction is needed and where and how to begin again, but also therefore comes with a roadmap with contours in the development of Western thought that remains relevant. Deo gratias.
December 31, 2017
Powerful book
In recent years we have often seen God being depicted as a gentle mush. The modern world steers clear of any view of God that even remotely challenges us to change. The modern God is seen as someone who loves you just the way you are and would never say no to you. This book reminds us that God loves us far too much to leave us in mediocrity, and that it is precisely because he loves us that he challenges us to radically change our lives and become the best version of ourselves that we can be. God is not nice. Instead he loves us enough to want more for us than we want for ourselves.
In recent years we have often seen God being depicted as a gentle mush. The modern world steers clear of any view of God that even remotely challenges us to change. The modern God is seen as someone who loves you just the way you are and would never say no to you. This book reminds us that God loves us far too much to leave us in mediocrity, and that it is precisely because he loves us that he challenges us to radically change our lives and become the best version of ourselves that we can be. God is not nice. Instead he loves us enough to want more for us than we want for ourselves.
October 9, 2019
I wanted to like this book. The idea that the “pop culture” idea of God, as nothing more than a mix of therapist and Valium, should be argued against seems important. This kind of God of convenience, in which people think of God sort of like an emotional support dog, is certainly far more troubling than any atheism could be.
Unfortunately, Lehner doesn’t do much of a job of making the argument. He says we need to use our reason to engage in a better understanding of God, but mostly he relies on facile rhetoric. For instance, he grossly misrepresents what Nietzsche says, in order to dismiss him in a sentence. This is not different than what Dawkins does with Aquinas—setting up an idiot straw-man to make the opponent seem ridiculous, rather than making a solid argument for your own position. Surely it is entirely possible to produce a serious critique of what Nietzsche actually does say—and to go through the work of making that critique would likely lead to a better, more solid, understanding of what we might mean by God.
He offers many specious arguments, like the claim that “a tame and predictable god” would be “infinitely boring.” Sure...but what does that prove? Many things are “boring” not because they are wrong, but because we don’t fully understand them. The greatest motivation for calling something “boring” is usually that it challenges us. So to really on “boredom” as proof something is false is not a good strategy. On the other hand, to assume that what “makes be tremble and enchants me at the same time”(65) must be the true God is a specious and dangerous claim. Often what “enchants” us is completely false.
Ultimately, the book becomes tedious, with far too many claims that we need to abandon the convenient puppy-dog God of pop culture for “a faith with content, truth claims, and commitment”(55), but he never does get around to what that truth content or those commitments are. The book is a good example of what Lehrer claims to be arguing against—heavy on facile rhetoric, with little substantial argument.
I’d love to see a book that does what the back cover blurb suggests this one wants to do: “invite us to ask deeper questions about the nature of our lives and our relationship with God.” This one is just too superficial to really be worth recommending.
Unfortunately, Lehner doesn’t do much of a job of making the argument. He says we need to use our reason to engage in a better understanding of God, but mostly he relies on facile rhetoric. For instance, he grossly misrepresents what Nietzsche says, in order to dismiss him in a sentence. This is not different than what Dawkins does with Aquinas—setting up an idiot straw-man to make the opponent seem ridiculous, rather than making a solid argument for your own position. Surely it is entirely possible to produce a serious critique of what Nietzsche actually does say—and to go through the work of making that critique would likely lead to a better, more solid, understanding of what we might mean by God.
He offers many specious arguments, like the claim that “a tame and predictable god” would be “infinitely boring.” Sure...but what does that prove? Many things are “boring” not because they are wrong, but because we don’t fully understand them. The greatest motivation for calling something “boring” is usually that it challenges us. So to really on “boredom” as proof something is false is not a good strategy. On the other hand, to assume that what “makes be tremble and enchants me at the same time”(65) must be the true God is a specious and dangerous claim. Often what “enchants” us is completely false.
Ultimately, the book becomes tedious, with far too many claims that we need to abandon the convenient puppy-dog God of pop culture for “a faith with content, truth claims, and commitment”(55), but he never does get around to what that truth content or those commitments are. The book is a good example of what Lehrer claims to be arguing against—heavy on facile rhetoric, with little substantial argument.
I’d love to see a book that does what the back cover blurb suggests this one wants to do: “invite us to ask deeper questions about the nature of our lives and our relationship with God.” This one is just too superficial to really be worth recommending.
September 10, 2019
Bazofia.
November 3, 2023
Very very very very very very very depressing. Not much hope. Dark and severe. If only God, the Bible and church doctrine could get an update. If only God wouldn’t be so cryptic and austere. No new insights for 2000 years. Wish God would revise his communications strategy.
August 24, 2024
‘God wanted not only to expiate our sins and to teach us about himself but also to know what it feels like to be human. There is no greater act of solidarity that he would have made with us than to walk in our shoes, not just for a day but for thirty-three years.’
These sentences stick to my mind and will be what I remember from this good book. It is a very gentle introduction to theology, which makes it all the more fascinating really. From the arguments against faith of Nietzsche (and why they are is biased), the Pelagian error, to the very meaning of Christ’s incarnation and mercy. I was amazed to realise how little I knew about the mystery of God, how much awe this complexity in itself can inspire. The point of the book is to explain why the mysterious, demanding and unpredictable God from the Old Testament is actually not a different God from the gentle grandpa some modern theologians might advocate. Why and how he is still so mighty, strict and not nice really, yet he still wants us to be saved.
11 arguments, 11 chapters, very clear. Eye-opening!
These sentences stick to my mind and will be what I remember from this good book. It is a very gentle introduction to theology, which makes it all the more fascinating really. From the arguments against faith of Nietzsche (and why they are is biased), the Pelagian error, to the very meaning of Christ’s incarnation and mercy. I was amazed to realise how little I knew about the mystery of God, how much awe this complexity in itself can inspire. The point of the book is to explain why the mysterious, demanding and unpredictable God from the Old Testament is actually not a different God from the gentle grandpa some modern theologians might advocate. Why and how he is still so mighty, strict and not nice really, yet he still wants us to be saved.
11 arguments, 11 chapters, very clear. Eye-opening!
February 15, 2023
Such an enlightening book. It is written by a Catholic theologian but I would recommend reading it even if you’re not Catholic. It really opens your eyes to the fact that God is not safe or nice but that he is Good. He’s not a nice lil grandpa giving us whatever we want but an all-powerful God who truly shows us what love is. This book reaffirmed my faith. I’m now much more aware of how I let society and culture influence me.
December 14, 2020
It's a good book, which I would recommend. Four stars only because the final chapter didn't really satisfy me.
September 8, 2018
Intelligent, compassionate, and overdue
This book addresses something that has bothered me for a long time. There is a tendency in many new churches to celebrate God as if he were our psychotherapist or doctor or all-understanding friend. The deeper I get into liturgical worship I more I understand the need to kneel before him in fear and trembling. He is the creator of the universe. I am here to serve Him, not the other way around.
This book addresses something that has bothered me for a long time. There is a tendency in many new churches to celebrate God as if he were our psychotherapist or doctor or all-understanding friend. The deeper I get into liturgical worship I more I understand the need to kneel before him in fear and trembling. He is the creator of the universe. I am here to serve Him, not the other way around.
July 26, 2018
Found myself confused about the audience for this book. It felt too cliched to be used in a professional setting. It offered some thoughtful reflections, but overall I was a bit underwhelmed.
February 9, 2018
A compelling and much-needed corrective to the popular view of God as nice, undemanding, and - for the most part - boring. Lehner interacts with Scripture and Christian tradition to paint a picture of a God who inspires awe, invites to adventure, who makes demands, and requires surrender and sacrifice - a God that does not simply offer a bandage, but offers open-heart surgery. He writes, "Love can never be just nice, and it is therefore a complete misunderstanding of God and our own faith life if we think of him or of our commitment to him as such. Love is always intimate; it touches our core and is thus much more than an emotion." This love takes us beyond sentiment into the the adventure of sacrifice - which is the only kind of faith that is really worth having. Lehner bluntly states, "If your faith is not worth sacrifices, find a nice hobby and don’t waste your time." I highly recommend this, and with a spin off an old Alice Cooper song cheerfully sing, "No More Mr. Nice God."
January 16, 2018
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It was in no way bad but, for some reason, the arguments and reasoning set forth by the author just didn't resonate with me. The theme of the book, rediscovering the mystery and majesty of God, is fabulous and I enjoyed the topics he covered. Perhaps my modern protestant brain was too far removed from the reasoning of a very traditionalist Catholic to fully engage with this book. Regardless, I think this one is worth a read for those who are interested in the topic because it is an excellent one to investigate and perhaps it will click with you more than it did with me.
March 13, 2018
This is an incredible book. It’s a blistering attack on “therapeutic deism”. Or, as the author puts it, replacing the Father in heaven with a grandfather in heaven - a sort of senile benevolence.
The author does a fantastic job at describing how far we have strayed from the true God - the God described in the Old Testament, the God who seeks to transform us.
The only reason that I’ve given this book 4 stars instead of 5 is that it is quite short. This author no doubt has quite a bit to say, as he feels quite passionately about this topic. However, he barely scratches the surface of where he could go with this!
The author does a fantastic job at describing how far we have strayed from the true God - the God described in the Old Testament, the God who seeks to transform us.
The only reason that I’ve given this book 4 stars instead of 5 is that it is quite short. This author no doubt has quite a bit to say, as he feels quite passionately about this topic. However, he barely scratches the surface of where he could go with this!
November 9, 2025
My vote goes against this book; I stand with those who found it tedious and saddening.
The premise seems interesting at first: that God shouldn't be a vending machine fulfilling our whims. However, the author spends most of the book arguing that faith should be a logical structure, contrasting it with what they claim is the currently dominating "touchy-feely" viewpoint.
I am not necessarily on the "touchy-feely" side; in fact, I am looking for ways to make my faith deeper. In this regard, the book let me down completely. There is no way the author's version of God would have pulled Matthew out of his tax office.
The premise seems interesting at first: that God shouldn't be a vending machine fulfilling our whims. However, the author spends most of the book arguing that faith should be a logical structure, contrasting it with what they claim is the currently dominating "touchy-feely" viewpoint.
I am not necessarily on the "touchy-feely" side; in fact, I am looking for ways to make my faith deeper. In this regard, the book let me down completely. There is no way the author's version of God would have pulled Matthew out of his tax office.
April 17, 2018
I enjoyed this book. Although, I’m not Catholic, I felt that the author did an excellent job presenting some tough and thought provoking information regarding the subject and what mainstream society, and religious communities have come to believe regarding the character of God. The author makes us questioned what we have been taught regarding God’s nature and makes us think about who he really is and not what we would like him to be. The only reason I didn’t give the book five stars is because I didn’t care for the author’s philosophical insights and felt those could have been left out.
October 8, 2020
El autor da una guía bastante práctica para evitar el fanatismo. Nos da una dosis de realidad y nos descubre el camino que lleva a encontrarnos con el verdadero Dios. El Dios verdadero no es amable y mucho menos un Dios que está disponible como si se tratara de una máquina dispensadora de refrescos que le das una oración y a cambio te cumple un capricho. Muy revelador y de lectura obligada para cualquier católico que busque encontrarse con el Dios revelado en la persona de Jesús.
March 19, 2025
Książka pokazuje, że Bóg nie jest tylko po to, by spełniać nasze zachcianki ani pojawiać się wtedy, kiedy tego chcemy. Język momentami nie był dla mnie łatwy, książkę czytało się dosyć szybko – sporo ciekawych cytatów. Pierwsza połowa to w dużej mierze krytyka Nietzschego i Freuda xd. Ogólnie ciekawa perspektywa, która skłania do refleksji.
Fajny cytat: “to ważne dla nas, aby się nauczyć, że powinniśmy kochać Boga z powodu tego, kim On jest, a nie z powodu tego, co On robi dla nas”.
Fajny cytat: “to ważne dla nas, aby się nauczyć, że powinniśmy kochać Boga z powodu tego, kim On jest, a nie z powodu tego, co On robi dla nas”.
November 2, 2019
Very Evangelical For a Catholic perspectives. A lot of name dropping to then apply it directly to life, which doesn't work academically. Said it wasn't supposed to be "safe" but it was so safe. I agree with main idea but the way it is written is disappointing and does not accomplish effectively what hes trying to do, which then hurts his case.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 15, 2025
This book disappointed me. I had, perhaps mistakenly, thought with the title "God is Not Nice" and summary on the back cover Lehner would shatter the overly sentimental image many in our culture believe as the only persona of God - a God without anger, expectations, or demands. While efforts were made on that front, the overall text seemed to lack cohesion and direction.
December 27, 2021
Tytuł prowokujący, ale sama książka pełna jest teologicznego toku rozumowania zmierzającego w kierunku wyeksponowania przymiotów Boga i wskazania jak fascynujące może być życie w wolności i pełnym zawierzeniu Bogu.
Want to read
November 29, 2025Very interesting title from a fellow Catholic when I grew up singing the hymn "Loving and forgiving are you oh Lord/Slow to anger/rich in kindness". Which is it my dude?
Anyway I think I may read this one when I don't have so much on my plate to read.
Anyway I think I may read this one when I don't have so much on my plate to read.
December 10, 2017
A worthwhile read aimed at the general reader. I’d have preferred something that dug deeper into some of the points made. An excellent resource for the preacher or religious educator.
May 23, 2018
A challenging read - but full of insight and uncomfortable truths.
July 29, 2018
A Great God
This is the God I want to worship! The author breaks down the door of the timid and goes right at the heart of the insidious evil that haunts the church. Good Words.
This is the God I want to worship! The author breaks down the door of the timid and goes right at the heart of the insidious evil that haunts the church. Good Words.
April 29, 2020
The God of Noah, Abraham, and Moses, of Chesterton and Lewis, is not a safe and easygoing milquetoast. He is mysterious, powerful, and just, and he calls us to a life of adventure and sacrifice.
May 9, 2023
Muy bueno. 4.7
July 16, 2025
Equally disturbing and profound. Not a causal read.
August 11, 2025
It was interesting but it was a difficult read. A lot of philosophy.
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