Seminary Dropout 131: Brian Zahnd Author of "Water to Wine: Some of My Story"

Brian Zahnd is the founder and lead pastor, of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. He is a passionate reader of theology and philosophy, an avid hiker and mountain climber, and authority on all things Bob Dylan. He and his wife, Peri, have three adult sons and five grandchildren. He is the author of several other books, including Unconditional?, Beauty Will Save the World, and A Farewell To Mars. Follow his blog at www.brianzahnd.com. Water to Wine: Some of My Story Why would the pastor of a large and successful church risk everything in a quest to find a richer, deeper, fuller Christianity? In Water To Wine Brian Zahnd tells his story of disenchantment with pop Christianity and his search for a more substantive faith. "I was halfway to ninety—midway through life—and I had reached a full-blown crisis. Call it garden variety mid-life crisis if you want, but it was something more. You might say it was a theological crisis, though that makes it sound too cerebral. The unease I felt came from a deeper place than a mental file labeled "theology." I was wrestling with the uneasy feeling that the faith I had built my life around was somehow deficient. Not wrong, but lacking. It seemed watery, weak. In my most honest moments I couldn't help but notice that the faith I knew seemed to lack the kind of robust authenticity that made Jesus so fascinating. And I had always been utterly fascinated by Jesus. What I knew was that the Jesus I believed in warranted a better Christianity than what I was familiar with. I was in Cana and the wine had run out. I needed Jesus to perform a miracle." –Water To Wine Our Sponsor: Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods Flourish If you liked this episode then you might also like… Seminary Dropout 84: NT Wright Seminary Dropout 54: Walter Brueggemann Talking – Reality, Grief, Hope Seminary Dropout 127: Rethinking Hell with Chris Date & Graham Ware Subscribe/Rate/Review Seminary Dropout in iTunes *links to guest books or other products are affiliate links