Made in Our Image: The Fallacy of the User-Friendly God

by Steven J. Lawson

Digital imaging can alter a picture so fast it leaves people asking, "What is reality?" Have we bought into a user-friendly, "designer" God of our own? In his eighth provocative primer on Christian living, Pastor Steven Lawson asks if we're seeing a true picture of God these days, or a distorted one designed to fit a popular image on the present cultural canvas? Lawson tackles the timely topic on the personal and greater church levels. Non-condemning, Made in Our Image alerts readers to the dangers of a socially constructed deity and inspires them to "accept no counterfeits" for the true, living, sometimes "socially incorrect" God.

Genres: Christian, Theology

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 2000

About the author

Dr. Steven J. Lawson is the Senior Pastor of Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, having served as a pastor in Arkansas and Alabama for the past twenty-nine years. He is a graduate of Texas Tech University (B.B.A.), Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.M.), and Reformed Theological Seminary (D. Min.)

Reviews

[Myra-Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very important book in this day and age.

[Alyssa Waller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though it's been awhile since I've read it, I personally enjoyed Lawson's book. He uses simple to understand language when it comes to how, people have in a way made a version of God that doesn't condemn them.

[Chris Bloom · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the author has a Calvinist viewpoint which I do not share, I found this book interesting and helpful in understanding the fallacious view of God that much of the professing Church has embraced. I agree wholeheartedly that "Santa Christ" is a false and evil doctrine, though I would have liked to see Lawson address other aspects of our wishful-thinking approach to God, specifically as pertains to the modern evangelical embrace of patriotism and the military.

Overall, it's not exactly a great book, but it's a very good one.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! Lawson challenges the reader to have a Biblical view of God underscoring the fact that unless God's holiness, sovereignty, justice and wrath are understood we will have a faulty view of His grace, love and mercy. The latter attributes are often focused on to the exemption of the former in today's user-friendly atmosphere.