Review: “Jesus Is Better Than You Imagined”

Liberty University alumnus pens memoir-like book, opening up about how he met Jesus in unexpected places

It was only about a month ago that I connected with Jonathan Merritt, a Liberty University alumnus. I began to read his work, as a journalist and author, and discovered deep conviction in his writing. It did not take long before I realized this is what Christian culture needs more of — unabashed honesty and a drive to see the world changed.

When I started to read Merritt’s new book, “Jesus Is Better Than You Imagined,” that same passion filled its pages. Merritt, 31, was born a son of a Baptist preacher, making church a permanent fixture in his life starting at just nine days old, when he attended his first church service.

“Jonathan is a child of the church, who speaks without the subcultural accent that so often keeps those of us who speak ‘church’ from sounding fully human, or perhaps from being fully human,” John Ortberg, a senior pastor and author, said in the book’s foreword.

In “Jesus Is Better Than You Imagined,” you get a taste of Merritt’s knack for challenging tradition and countering the Christian cultural norms. Growing up, Merritt “became skilled at wearing a mask.” As he got older, he knew he could not stay that way.

Instead of running from Christianity, Merritt’s dissatisfaction with the church’s representation of Christ gave him a hunger for an encounter with the real Jesus. In this memoir-like work, Merritt explores what happened when he asked God to “show up and surprise me.”

“I woke up one day and felt like my faith had become dry, predictable and rote,” Merritt said. “I wanted to know the surprising God of the Bible—the one who shows up in axe heads and talking donkeys and water from desert rocks.”

During his year-and-a-half of searching, Merritt found God in three places: at a monastery while taking a vow of silence, in the aftermath of a friend’s death from an unrevealed flesh-eating disease and when he found himself staring down the barrel of a Haitian bandit’s gun.

“I learned to find Jesus in the impossible,” Merritt said.

In one of his beautiful moments of brute honesty, Merritt opened up about a topic that often leaves a bad taste in the mouths of evangelicals: homosexuality. It was in his searching that he began to come to terms with his childhood sexual abuse and his own discordant feelings of same-sex attraction.

“One of the mantras of evangelicalism over the past quarter-century regarding gay men and lesbians has been ‘hate the sin, love the sinner,” Merritt said in a 2009 USA Today column. “If, however, you Google the public statements made by evangelicals regarding our gay neighbors, you’ll uncover a virtual how-to manual on hating sin and little, if anything, about loving sinners.”

It was not until now that Merritt admitted he was not just talking about Christians needing to love their neighbors. He wanted to know that he was loved, too.

Merritt’s USA Today column caught the attention of one gay blogger in particular who wanted to further discuss his writing. Merritt grew comfortable with him through emails and text messages and was transparent about his sexual past when the two met.

“As we were saying good-bye, we had physical contact that fell short of sex but went beyond the bounds of friendship,” Merritt said.

It was only a matter of time before he was “outed.”

One friend told him to “throw the gay community under the bus and save yourself,” Merritt said. However, he saw a greater opportunity: a chance for grace.

“Rather than attack or defend, I opted for honesty,” Merritt said.

Merritt’s words are sharp and poignant in an evangelical culture that is so often afraid to color outside the lines. Merritt boldly declares that life is not always black and white, but God’s grace erases the contrast.

Though Merritt struggled with same-sex attraction due to his abuse-permeated past, the author and writer now uses the personal history he was once ashamed of as an avenue to point to the goodness of God. Through honesty and vulnerability, Merritt has found that his story has touched hundreds who have either struggled in the past or who currently struggle with the same temptations he once faced.

In “Jesus Is Better Than You Imagined,” you meet a Jesus “who gives grace to broken and burned-out people without disclaimers, qualifications or asterisks,” Tullian Tchividjian, former Convocation speaker at Liberty University and Florida pastor, said in his review of the book.

Even though Merritt does not claim to always color in the lines or have a cookie-cutter answer to all of life’s questions, he identifies himself as an evangelical.

“Liberty planted my feet into the Christian worldview that still forms my faith’s foundation. It also taught me not to just accept whatever the dominant cultural narrative is but to always investigate and stay curious,” Merritt said, when asked how Liberty helped prepare him.

Merritt does not present a theological argument for faith. Rather, he offers readers the opportunity to fall madly in love with the romance of God’s grace. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy of “Jesus Is Better Than You Imagined.” You might just meet God.