The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

by Brennan Manning

The ragamuffin road always leads to Calvary.

St. Augustine, “Lord Jesus, don’t let me lie when I say that I love you…

and protect me, for today I could betray you.”

We see our darkness as a prized possession because it drives us into the heart of God. Without mercy our darkness would plunge us into despair—and for some, self-destruction.

Pelikan suggests that the way a particular age depicted Jesus is an essential key to understanding that age. The later chapters of the book show that “as respect for the organized church has declined, reverence for Jesus has grown.

“You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.”