God's Wider Presence

“From one of the world’s leading scholars on theology and film comes something new and thought provoking: a lucid and insightful exploration of God’s wider Presence. Rob Johnston offers the reader an engaging, rich, and thoughtful account of discovering the transcendent in unexpected places. Bringing together historical, biblical, and contemporary examples, this book provides a significant contribution to a wide range of discussions about discerning the divine throughout the world.”—Jolyon Mitchell, University of Edinburgh

“Robert Johnston’s reconsideration of general revelation moves the discussion light years beyond the sterile binaries—objective/subjective, propositional/experiential, salvific/damning, and the like—that have debilitated constructive thinking in this arena over the last hundred years. God’s Wider Presence is not an anthropocentric reduction of divine activity but a pneumatological dynamic that transfigures the spaces and times within which all creatures live, move, and have their being. This is a new starting point for twenty-first-century theological reflection on important matters regarding the human experience of and encounter with God.”—Amos Yong, author of The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh; professor of theology and mission, Fuller Theological Seminary

“Johnston’s book brokers important, fresh theological conversations. Grounded in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, his argument for a more expansive understanding of revelation will get Christians of many traditions thinking and talking together in new ways: about the arts, about their cultural habits and the significance of those habits, and about their approach to other religious traditions. It deserves a wide readership.”—Clive Marsh, Director of the Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Leicester (UK)

“Robert Johnston has written on the topic of general revelation before, but here he brings together all those threads he’s been pulling on for years to weave a marvelously rich tapestry that opens up our understanding of how God whispers to us through nature, conscience, and culture. Who else could reference baroque art, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ingmar Bergman, C. S. Lewis, and Star Wars in such a scholarly and readable fashion? I thoroughly enjoyed every page.”—Michael Frost, author of Seeing God in the Ordinary

“Rob Johnston has written a seminal book, one that greatly enlarges our understanding of the multiple ways in which God is present in this world. God’s Wider Presence opens our eyes, brings us to places of awe, and helps us interpret encounters with Mystery. It has the power to make us aware of the hitherto unnoticed ways in which God is present in our own lives. This is a book I will give to my friends.”—Richard Peace, Robert Boyd Munger Professor of Evangelism and Spiritual Formation, Fuller Theological Seminary; author of Noticing God