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The God of wholeness

Paul Martens

God’s Healing Strategy: An Introduction to the Bible’s Main Themes Ted Grimsrud. Telford, Pa.: Pandora Press U.S., 2000. 163 pp.

In our time of self-proclaimed fear of metanarratives, it is refreshing to discover that there are some who still dare to paint a broad background in which our stories find meaning and before which they are played. Ted Grimsrud, assistant professor of theology and peace studies at Eastern Mennonite University, briefly traces the central narrative – God’s healing strategy – through the Bible. In addition to the text, which began as a collection of lectures and sermons, Grimsrud helpfully includes questions for discussion and a reading list at the end of each chapter.

The central theme of the text is simply that God is bringing about salvation by restoring wholeness to the human/divine relationship. Drawing deeply on both the Old and New Testaments, Grimsrud persuasively argues that God is restoring this relationship as “Shalom” Creator. God is not coercive or retributive; His intentions are goodness, wholeness, peaceableness and justice. God gives humans time and space to choose to follow Him. To follow God, then, is to exhibit trust in His abundant mercy, self-sacrificially persevering in the knowledge that His purposes will be fulfilled. To articulate these claims, Grimsrud draws on many of the familiar biblical stories from Creation to the Flood to Jesus’ ministry and Paul’s conversion.

Lest one think that this is a simple exposition of God’s mercy, it is important to note the latent controversy against authoritarian models of relationship, empire and organized religion. Unfortunately, these critiques often become figures of speech that lose their concrete force as they are abruptly lifted from their biblical context. Perhaps this is symptomatic of an attempt to explain God’s relationship to humanity in 150 pages. The text’s simplicity, therefore, turns out to be its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Grimsrud is self-consciously selective, and in doing so, he is able to intimately link the Old and New Testaments in a continuous revelation of God’s healing love. In being so selective, however, assertion often trumps argument. It logically follows that a very weak account is given for those pieces, particularly the darker side of God’s justice, which do not blend into the picture.

God’s Healing Strategy is an excellent, accessible introduction to one central biblical theme that has both liberation and Anabaptist accents. If one is serious about considering other biblical themes, as the subtitle suggests, supplementary reading will be necessary.

Paul Martens, formerly of Manitou, Man., is pursuing a doctorate in moral theology at the University of Notre Dame.

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Last modified April 19, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
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