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About the Book
"The God Hater - A Novel" by Bill Myers follows the story of a successful professor named Brady who is forced to confront his own beliefs and prejudices when a mysterious woman appears claiming to be God. As Brady delves into her teachings, he begins to question his atheistic worldview and grapple with the possibility of a higher power. The novel explores themes of faith, redemption, and the power of love to transform even the most hardened hearts.
David Brainerd
Born to a farming family in Haddam, Connecticut, Brainerd soon turned his aspirations to the clergy and a life of study. The early death of his parents, combined with a naturally melancholy personality, caused him to be morose and to fixate on the brevity of life, so that his religious life was characterized by prolonged depressions punctuated by ecstatic experiences of God. He began to study for the ministry at Yale College in 1739. During his first year he showed signs of the tuberculosis that was to end his life prematurely. During the following year, the New Light preaching of George Whitefield and other itinerants such as Gilbert Tennent and James Davenport gained many adherents at the college, including Brainerd, and he became involved in a separate church founded by students. In November 1741 he was reported as saying that one of the local ministers who was a college tutor had “no more grace than a chair.” Determined to snuff out the New Light among the students, the Yale Corporation, led by its rector, Thomas Clap, expelled Brainerd for refusing to make a public confession.
Officially barred from the ministry, Brainerd nonetheless became an itinerant preacher, filling pulpits of New Light sympathizers throughout New England and New York. In the process he gained the admiration of many clergymen, including Jonathan Dickinson, a Presbyterian minister of New Jersey and commissioner of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. Dickinson in 1742 first proposed that Brainerd become a missionary. To prepare himself, in 1743 Brainerd went to work with John Sargeant, missionary to the Stockbridge Indians. He was ordained by the Presbytery of New York in 1744. From 1743 to 1747 he ministered to the Indians in western Massachusetts, eastern New York, the Lehigh region of Pennsylvania, and central New Jersey. At the New Jersey Bethel mission (near Cranbury), he achieved his most notable successes. Out of his experiences here came the publication of two installments of his journals that described both the revivals among the Delaware Indians and his own spiritual turmoil and exultation.
Brainerd preaching to the Indians for all of his zeal, however, Brainerd’s constitution could not stand up to the hardships of wilderness living. In April 1747, seriously weakened by tuberculosis, he left New Jersey for the home of his friend Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he died in October.
In 1749 Edwards published An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd, drawn from Brainerd’s extensive diaries and supplemented by Edwards’s own commentary. Edwards sought to portray Brainerd as a model of Christian saintliness who manifested his faith in good works and self-sacrifice, expurgating many passages that recorded Brainerd’s depressions and enthusiasms. Over the centuries, this work has achieved international fame, has gone through countless printings, and has inspired many missionaries in pursuing their call.
Minkema, Kenneth P., “Brainerd, David,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 84-5.
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
the courage you need in life’s uncertainty
“Jump! I’ll catch you!” When my son was young, getting him from the side of the pool into the water was difficult. His eyes darted side to side, quickly losing confidence, as his imagination surmised all the horrors associated with jumping. Only when I could get him to fix his attention on me would he find the confidence to bend his knees and spring off the side of the pool. Like my son, we are regularly confronted with situations that are overwhelming, unknown, or threatening. What does it look like for us to spring with confidence into every situation that the Lord brings into our lives? Four Ways to Walk in Faith Isaiah 7 tells the story of a king in crisis. When the Judean King Ahaz heard that Syria and Israel created an alliance to withstand the advancing Assyrian threat, his heart shook with fear (Isaiah 7:2). Seeking to strengthen their hand against Assyria, the Syro-Ephraimite coalition intended to use military force to depose Ahaz and coerce Judah to join them, as well. Ahaz responded to the imminent threat like a good king. He inspected the city’s water supply. How long can the city withstand a siege? Ahaz had been conditioned to believe that military threats require military responses. Yet, God responds to Ahaz by sending the prophet Isaiah, who relayed four commands from the Lord, each of which recalls other parts of the Old Testament: be careful, be quiet, do not fear, do not let your heart be faint. These four commands echo down the halls of Israel’s collective memory with the intention of reminding Ahaz of the provisions of faith. These commands are helpful for us too as we fight for faith amidst the challenges of our lives. 1. Be Mindful Moses instructed the Israelites before  they entered the Promised Land: they will live in houses they did not build, drink wine from vineyards they did not plant, eat until they are full. But, Moses warns them in Deuteronomy 6:12, “take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” At the moment of crisis, God acknowledged that Ahaz’s battle was not just outside the city walls, but also in his mind. It was essential for Ahaz to remember who he was and the history he had with God. In the same way, during times of uncertainty, cultivating memory and identity as those who are in Christ is essential for accessing the resources of faith to respond to present challenges. 2. Be Quiet This is an important theme in Isaiah. In Isaiah 30:15, God says, “In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” Quietness in Isaiah does not mean the absence of noise, but the absence of agitation. In fact, peace  and joyful shouting  are themes that merge together in Isaiah 14:7 and 55:12. At the moment of crisis, Ahaz needed to find calm and certain confidence in God — something his water supply could never fully provide. 3. Do Not Fear The phrase recalls God’s providence, promises, and purposes. God uses these words when he appears to Abram, Moses, Joshua, and Elijah. It may seem trite to tell Ahaz not to fear. But the rationale is implicit: God was with him, for him, and had made promises to him. Ahaz, then, needed to respond on the basis of that conviction. Similarly, I need to recalibrate my perspective around God when faced with uncertain circumstances. John Oswalt summarizes, “If we can believe that the transcendent One is really immanent, and the immanent One truly transcendent, then there is reason to live courageously and unselfishly” ( Isaiah,  211). 4. Do Not Faint This is an exact quotation from Deuteronomy 20:3–4, where Moses prepares the Israelites for facing their enemies in battle. The priest was to come to the front of the line of soldiers and say, “let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you.” At the moment of crisis, with a mind that remembers, a soul free from agitation, and a renewed conviction that God is for  me and with  me, I can respond with courageous faith. A Picture of Courageous Faith In southwest Rwanda, along the shores of Lake Kivu, is a peninsula, where missionaries from the region have gathered annually since 1942 for spiritual renewal. On the far end of the peninsula is a cliff, into which thrill-seeking missionaries from a previous generation lodged a long, rigid, slab of wood — called “the plank” — thirty feet off the surface of the water. I have approached the plank many times. I stand looking, hearing my children behind me. “Come on, Dad!” “He won’t jump!” I am distracted by local children gathering in canoes to watch. I think about others who have jumped — and hurt themselves. I feel certain that I will fall off the cliff by even getting near the plank! I have never jumped. I have a friend named Jeff, who does not blink at the threats imposed by the plank. He steps onto the plank, walks a few paces, pulls himself up into an overhanging tree, climbs even higher, turns backward, and launches into a backflip as he springs out over the water. This is a picture of how I want to live — not carelessly, but confidently — springing with confidence into every situation that the Lord brings into my life — not simply conditioned to respond according to my own resources, but convinced that the provisions of faith provide all that I need to respond with confidence in any situation.
