Diana Butler Bass’s love letter to Jesus

By her own account, Diana Butler Bass did not set out to write a book devoted to Jesus. Instead, she felt led to write an accessible systematic theology for those who not only had lost faith but also had lost interest in the Christian faith. She wanted to give the thoughtful people she encountered a way to engage—or reengage—the Christian story. She intended to write a book that took up the dominant Christian beliefs and practices and shared them in a way that would demonstrate that you can stay Christian without becoming “dogmatic, narrow, or pietistic.” She would consider the doctrines of the church without being doctrinaire. She would tell the Christian story.

The first chapter Bass wrote—the one that seemed most ripe and ready for picking—was a chapter on Jesus. Eighty pages later, and still writing about Jesus, Bass concluded that he was her topic. She would write a book dedicated to Jesus.

This is a different kind of book about Jesus than we have come to expect from someone with a PhD. Writing and talking about Jesus is quite different from expressing devotion; it is the difference between describing someone and writing a love letter to that person. Bass, in this book, does both.