A reflection on the launch of Reckless Love

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

I made a mistake in my reading of Dr Bruce Manners’s new book Reckless Love: Adventist Beliefs as Stories of Grace. I read to finish the book rather than to reflect on its content.

Bruce wrote Reckless Love to discover the elements of grace and God’s love within the core doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. So, the truths presented should, if you’re an Adventist, be familiar. The stories through which they’re couched are compelling and contemporary.

I liked this summary by Imogen Menzies, who works with Bruce as part of the ministerial team at Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church: “Reckless Love captures old truths with new enthusiasm.” Avondale College president Dr Ray Roennfeldt went one step further, describing the book as one that will “comfort the distressed and distress the comfortable.”

That’s true.

Take this example: “God is love. That makes Him reckless enough to want every Adolf, Idi and Osama in His kingdom.” OK, but then: “It’s been this way since those first terrorists, Adam and Eve, destroyed Edenic perfection and it will remain this way beyond Eden’s restoration.”

Or, what about this for those with even a cursory understanding of recent Adventist history: “In remembering the Great Disappointment and the development of our understanding of the sanctuary teaching, we can get so caught up in mathematical calculations . . . and arguments . . . we forget Christ Himself.”

Terrorists who misinterpret the Word of God? We desperately need a God of reckless love.

My advice, no, warning: read Reckless Love carefully; its truths bite.

Tags: Brenton Stacey, Reckless Love

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