Why Jesus Makes Me Nervous: Ten Challenging Words of Faith

By Joy Jordan-Lake

Jesus offers grace and mercy but he's also ratcheted up all the rules.
Nice as it would be to frame Jesus as fun-loving, or a mercy-dispensing friend, the stories we have about him are a lot more disturbing than that.
We hear about celebrations that began as a wake, and about people who didn't use their talents well being bounced clear out of the club. Jesus clearly thought that following the way of truth involved a lot more than simply avoiding things like murder, stealing, committing adultery or telling lies.
When Jesus truly makes you nervous, he is worth living and dying for, and becomes the greatest source of meaning and purpose in life imaginable.
"Holiness. Abundance. Forgiveness. Hope. In these musings about ‘ten stained-glass words of faith,' Joy Jordan-Lake strips away the clichés and church-bulletin nostrums and exposes the honest, challenging, comforting, and yes, sometimes alarming claims that are at the center of Jesus' life and teaching. This book is downright restorative."
--Lauren F. Winner, author of Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paraclete Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9781612614472

Joy Jordan-Lake

Joy Jordan-Lake has written more than a half dozen books, including the novel Blue Hole Back Home, which won the Christy Award in 2009 for Best First Novel. The book, which explores racial violence and reconciliation in the post–Civil Rights South, went on to be chosen as the Common Book at several colleges, as well as being a frequent book club pick. Jordan-Lake holds a PhD in English, is a former chaplain at Harvard, and has taught literature and writing at several universities. Her scholarly work Whitewashing Uncle Tom’s Cabin draws on the narratives, journals, and letters of enslaved and slaveholding antebellum women, research that led her to the story behind A Tangled Mercy. Living outside of Nashville, she and her husband have three children. To learn more about the author and her work, visit www.joyjordanlake.com.