Recent Reads: Imaginary Jesus

Jen Bradbury
Feb 22 · 5 min read

This week's review is of Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos.  

What the book's about: This book is about the author's search for the "real Jesus". It's a story of rooting out all the imaginary Jesus' surrounding him and discovering the ways in which we create God in our image rather than allowing him to create us in his image. It's tongue and cheek, whimsical, and in places, laugh-out-loud funny.    

Why I read this book: As with Unholy Night, I read this book for research I'm doing for a master's project on Jesus. As part of this project, I'm studying what influences the Christology of teenagers. To better understand this, I read a variety of books about Jesus, some non-fiction, as well as some fiction; Some written by Bible scholars, others not.

My favorite quotes from the book: "Some Jesuses are more convincing than others. People invent a Jesus for one specific reason and then discard him when they don't need him anymore."     

Thumbs up or thumbs down? Thumbs way up!

Who I'd recommend this book for: Those wanting a fresh look at Jesus who are willing to laugh at their faith while simultaneously being challenged to seek out the real Jesus in their own lives.