![\"Impossible](\"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/New-Blog-Book-Review-Graphic-70.png\")
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There are so many ways to start this review. As someone who’s worked in marketing books, this book is a gift to market. Story of love against all odds? Check. World leading New Testament scholar? Check. War? Check. Complex relational webs? Check. Two divorced people encountering God in a deeper way and being drawn together by his good sovereign hand? Check.<\/p>\n
That would be one way of starting this review. I’ve been reading things by Craig Keener, a New Testament Academic at Asbury Seminary in the USA, for quite a while now. At the Society of Vineyard Scholars 2018 Conference, we heard from Craig and his wonderful wife Medine<\/a>. They spoke more personally than cerebrally – but that would be to set up a false binary, because in their personal story there is a deep theology. This story is shared in this book,\u00a0Impossible Love: The True Story of an African Civil War, Miracles and Hope Against All Odds<\/em>, and is well worth reading.<\/p>\n I love reading stories – biographical or autobiographical – of the saints who have gone before. I rather less enjoy reading the stories of people who are still alive (Surely their story has much more to be written) but\u00a0Impossible Love<\/em> broke that paradigm for me. This was in part as it is more of an autobiography of a beautiful relationship that became a beautiful marriage – the\u00a0Impossible Love<\/em> the title hints at – but also because both Craig and Medine are incredibly honest: warts and all. From the terror and visceral pain (which Medine describes in such a powerfully nonplussed way that it counter-intuitively draws you in to the story) of fleeing with a baby and disabled father from civil war, to the unexpected personal trauma of divorce (which Craig describes in his part) this is a book that invites you into two very different worlds and then draws you towards a beautiful conclusion. In that way, this is a\u00a0very<\/strong> Kingdom-of-God-shaped-book.<\/p>\n Impossible Love<\/em> is easy to read. Despite Craig’s reputation for producing academic doorstops, he writes personally and simply about his own story. So too for Medine – and her story is incredibly powerful. The two alternate – sections (not chapters) are title ‘Craig’ and ‘Medine’, ranging from a couple of paragraphs to multiple pages. This works very well – and echoes the marriage that comes from this story.\u00a0Impossible Love\u00a0<\/em>is also hard to read – as I noted in my review opener, this book covers an immense amount of ground. I look forward to reading the Keener’s work on reconciliation, and Craig’s book on divorce, to flesh out some of the theological issues touched upon in this book.<\/p>\n This book is superb. It reads beautifully and easily, inviting the reader into the stories of two very different people, a relationship that thrives against the odds, and a God who is Good and ever-present. I’d recommend it, whether you’ve been a Christian for decades or are just wondering who this God person is, and whether Jesus is worth investigating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are so many ways to start this review. As someone who’s worked in marketing books, this book is a gift to market. Story of love against all odds? Check. World leading New Testament scholar? Check. War? Check. Complex relational … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kt_blocks_editor_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[87,2,13,179,114,444,88,18,390,44,17],"tags":[741,742],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1637,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions\/1637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}