The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything (Theology for the Life of the World)

"A compelling theological vision for how to think about and create home"We live in the midst of a crisis of home. It is evident in the massive uprooting and migration of millions across the globe, in the anxious nationalism awaiting immigrants in their destinations, in the unhoused populations in wealthy cities, in the fractured households of families, and in the worldwide destruction of habitats and international struggles for dominance. It is evident, perhaps more quietly but just as truly, in the aching sense that there is nowhere we truly belong.The Christian faith has been disappointingly inept in its response. We need a better witness to the God who created, loves, and reconciles this world, who comes to dwell among us.In The Home of God, Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz tell the "story of everything" in which God creates the world to be the home for humans and for God. They render the story of redemption and consummation through the lens of God's homemaking work and cast a vision that can inspire faithful and creative Christian living in our various homes today."This innovative and imaginative book offers a fresh way of reading and proclaiming the full scope of the biblical narrative--the big picture of faith--in terms of seeing the unifying thread as God's desire to be at home in what God has made, so that the creation may be at home in the divine life. It is an enriching, inspiring, nourishing study, written with energy and clarity."--Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury"A powerful intervention into the troubled ways we think about life in places and spaces. Like two highly skilled physicians, Volf and McAnnally-Linz diagnose our sickness and offer a compelling theological vision for how to think about and create home. At heart, this is a beautiful theological reflection on the significance of home."--Willie James Jennings, Yale University"What if the story of God were about a yearning to belong, to find rest, and to be at peace with God, each other, and the broader creation? This book offers a capacious gospel in which God's desire to make a home for and with us should be met with our gracious response to find intimacy and rest with God and others."--Keri Day, Princeton Theological SeminaryWe live in the midst of a crisis of home. It is evident in the massive uprooting and migration of millions across the globe, in the anxious nationalism awaiting immigrants in their destinations, in the unhoused populations in wealthy cities, in the fractured households of families, and in the worldwide destruction of habitats and international struggles for dominance. It is evident, perhaps more quietly but just as truly, in the aching sense that there is nowhere we truly belong.In this moment, the Christian faith has been disappointingly inept in its response. We need a better witness to the God who created, loves, and reconciles this world, who comes to dwell among us.This book tells the "story of everything" in which God creates the world as the home for humans and for God in communion with God's creatures. The authors render the story of creation, redemption, and consummation through the lens of God's homemaking work and show the theological fruit of telling the story this way. The result is a vision that can inspire creative Christian living in our various homes today in faithfulness to God's ongoing work.About the AuthorMiroslav Volf (DrTheol, University of Tübingen) is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture in New Haven, Connecticut. He has written more than twenty books, including A Public Faith, Public Faith in Action, Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World, and Exclusion and Embrace (winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion and selected as among the one hundred best religious books of the twentieth century by Christianity Today).Ry