THE FINGERPRINT OF GOD
Reflections on Love and Its Practice
by Willard Dickerson
Dickerson, a Christian educator, focuses on the centrality of God’s love in this nonfiction exploration of spirituality.
Just as each human has a “unique set of fingerprints” used to identify them, so too, argues the author, does God, whose distinctive identifier is love. While exploring a myriad of topics germane to Christianity, from forgiveness and humility to biblical history and Renaissance art, Dickerson always returns to the significance of God’s love. The book opens with a critique of atheism, which combines anecdotes from the author’s two decades of interactions with atheists in post-communist Hungary as an English instructor with a philosophical analysis of its limitations. Indeed, while Christian apologetics are not the book’s focus, defenses of the faith against its putative ideological and spiritual competitors appear at various intervals. In addition to its refutation of atheism (which boils down to the familiar Christian maxim that “it takes great faith to believe that we are the product of chance”), the book similarly compares Christianity to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and various New Age spiritualities. Dickerson concludes that the God of Christianity moves toward recalcitrant humans and that the central fault of most non-Christian religions is their reliance on humans to “make the first move toward God.” Just as atheists may be unconvinced by the book’s arguments (“atheists have difficulty explaining…the existence of male and female” is a claim that ignores long-established theories accepted by evolutionary biologists), so too may those of other faiths be irked by the book’s fleeting descriptions of their beliefs.
Contrasted with its straw-man treatment of non-Christian ideas, the book’s strength lies in its nuanced understanding of Christianity itself. With a master of divinity degree from Princeton and a doctoral degree in medieval history from Cornell, the author provides knowledgeable and thoughtful analysis of Christian theology and history. His chapterlong discussion of the “Lord’s Supper” is particularly admirable, offering a solid history that is sensitive to disagreements between Catholics and Protestants as to the meaning and history of the Eucharist. While definitively Protestant in its theological approach, the book is deliberately ecumenical and includes critiques of fellow Christians. While the book challenges the Catholic belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary, it also questions the Protestant emphasis on doctrinal purity, noting that “God does not want your dead doctrines any more than He wants your dead works.” Despite Dickerson’s academic background, the book is written in a conversational style that juxtaposes engaging vignettes with accessible biblical commentary. Having pastored two churches, the author has clearly honed his skills in distilling complex ideas into concise, digestible packages. Interspersed throughout the text are astute analyses of classical Christian art and frequent breaks for poetry, inspirational passages from the Bible, and even the occasional and adorable piece of artwork by Dickerson’s grandchildren, illustrating the book’s preference for personal connection over academic jargon. Christian scholars may prefer a few more citations and deeper engagement with scholarly sources, but the book’s blend of learned analysis and accessible prose will appeal to a broad Christian audience.An engaging, often sophisticated analysis of Christianity that fails to extend the same nuanced approach to other ideologies and faiths.