Launch of Dr Bruce Manners’ “first” book
Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia
Three words: God is love. Speakers provided context to this deceptively simple phrase at the launch of Reckless Love this past Thursday (October 28).
Dr Bruce Manners with wife Margaret at the launch of Reckless Love. “It’s a delight to be married to someone who demonstrates the kind of love God has for us.” Credit: Ann Stafford.
Author Dr Bruce Manners sees Reckless Love as his “first” book, not the first published—that is Salt, Not Mustard, a collection of Bruce’s editorials from his time as editor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific’s magazine Record. Reckless Love is the first Bruce has published with a particular purpose on a single theme. He wrote Reckless Love for two reasons.
The first: to discover the elements of grace and God’s love within the core doctrines of the Adventist Church. Contrary to the view of many people, these are never perfect understandings of biblical teachings, said president Dr Ray Roennfeldt in his speech. “New context raises new questions, new reflections provide new insights, and new challenges remind us the doctrines are to be lived out, not just consented to.”
The second: to answer the “so what?” question, to ask how we respond to God in our being and living. Imogen Menzies is a Graduate Diploma in Theology and Graduate Diploma of Ministry student who also serves as a member of the ministerial team at Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church, where Bruce is senior minister and where the launch took place. She reflected on how Bruce gives God’s Word reality, describing him as a mentor with unswerving faith and the ability to forgive quickly. “College Church deals with college students,” she said, “and that comes hand-in-hand with a bunch of twentysomethings who don’t know what they’re doing with their lives, and that requires a minister who can deal with things gracefully and with new enthusiasm.”
Chaplain Dr Wayne French reflected on the importance of communicating the message of grace. He began his speech by telling of the 15-year-old who, when asked what he remembered hearing at a youth worship service, replied, God is good. You are bad. Try harder. That is not grace, said Wayne. “Grace is God saying, ‘I love, I am love, but I can’t keep it to myself. I want to give it to you.’”
Signs Publishing Company book editor Nathan Brown launched Reckless Love, describing the hurdles of marketing a book whose content falls in the centre of the theological spectrum. What makes Reckless Love different, he said, is the context from which it is written, its practical application—the book includes a group discussion guide—the author’s credibility and “the depth and the greatness of what it represents.” He described the launch as significant because “it’s where the author stops and the readers begin.” He offered a prayer for those readers, borrowed from Paul in Ephesians 3:18, that they “may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (NIV).
The origins of the book came from conversations Bruce had with Adventists longing for a deeper Christian experience. “They just saw doctrines as a list of things to know,” he said during the launch. The experience encouraged Bruce to do more to communicate the God-is-love message. “He’s sharing something of Himself through His teachings.”
Reckless Love: Adventist Beliefs at Stories of Grace is available at Adventist Book Centres for $19.95.
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Truths bite: Brenton Stacey reflects on the launch of Reckless Love.