Jesus the Forgiving Victim: Listening for the Unheard Voice

James Alison has been teaching Jesus the Forgiving Victim as a course for small groups for over a decade. When a participant told him "This is Christianity as I've never heard it before," he felt challenged to make the material more widely available. You are invited into a journey of discovering that the unheard voice of the Crucified and Risen Lord is enlivening in you a new narrative, one that is both your own, and yet much more than your own.

Jesus the Forgiving Victim offers something quite fresh in the field of introductions to faith and Christian orthodoxy by restoring to the Christian life the wonder and transformative power of discovering not some new Biblical fact or church doctrine, but that you are loved far more than you know.

In reading these four books of essays and viewing the videos that capture the program, you will undertake a journey of discovery that will open your heart and mind to discovering new things about yourself and your faith.

It is a journey from fake goodness, from a false and insecure self, to relaxing into a goodness and security not your own, but in which you discover yourself held by God. And it is a journey from a unity that needs to create victims toward a unity received from the risen and forgiving victim in our midst. James Alison hopes Jesus the Forgiving Victim will be a meaningful part of your journey toward a deeper faith and fuller life in Christ.

Part One: Starting human, staying human (5 sessions)
Part Two: God, not one of the gods (6 sessions)
Part Three: The difference Jesus makes (10 sessions)
Part Four: Unexpected insiders (10 sessions)

(31 sessions)