Unfettered

“Do not, dear reader, take up this book unless you intend to be changed, because this book concerns emancipatory transformation. In poetic idiom, Mandy Smith has written a narrative account of her wondrous awakening to the gifts of freedom and grace in her life that have taken her by surprise. Her quite personal account is intended as an invitation and a summons to her readers that they, like the author, might come to live differently in the world. . . . This book is a powerfully compelling good word to the church in our society—evangelical and liberal—that has largely exhausted its old endowments.”—Walter Brueggemann (from the foreword) 

“This rare book on childlikeness is written by someone who is herself charmingly childlike in her approach to God, people, and the world. Mandy is a well-informed writer, and she is also a profoundly enchanting one as she pens what could prove to be the manifesto for the always-possible, ever-resurgent, Order of the Eternal Child. Viva!”—Alan Hirsch, founder of Forge Missional Training Network and the Movement Leaders Collective; author of The Forgotten Ways 

“Even Christian ministry has been fettered by modern Western ideals and presumptions: control, success, calculative thinking, and—fundamentally—reality-dismissing acedia. What is a passionate, caring, supposedly sophisticated pastor to do? Follow Smith’s journeying, in search of God and reality, away from this ‘adultishness’ to become like a child. And don’t just read it; undertake such a journey yourself.”—Esther Lightcap Meek, professor of philosophy, Geneva College; author of Longing to Know, Loving to Know, and A Little Manual for Knowing 

“Few writers are able to combine cultural criticism and hopeful imagination for the future in the manner that Mandy Smith does. Unfettered is essential reading, a wise guide to tiptoeing into a vibrant, post-Christendom faith. It is a much-needed book, and at the same time a dangerous one, for one cannot read it and remain unchanged.”—C. Christopher Smith, founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books; author of How the Body of Christ Talks 

“We have pastor-practitioners and pastor-scholars, but we need pastor-artists because they help us encounter God as Mystery. Mandy Smith is a pastor-artist. She is also a theologian, a passionate advocate for human freedom, and a trusted voice I seek when I need the Good News to seep through my layers of control and false self. In Unfettered, Mandy invites us to dance a three-step of rest, receive, and respond. Her invitation is compelling because she goes first, wondering if she still knows how to dance, overcoming the awkwardness of pretense and self- consciousness, daring to believe the Good News can be embodied. Using word pictures, a hefty critique of Western assumptions, wisdom from the sages, and . . . well . . . geese, she shows us what we can be: human beings deeply connected to God, self, and others. Mandy doesn’t make it sound easy; she just makes it sound so very worth it. She prods us to move beyond ‘adultish hyperengagement,’ and guides us past the other extreme of ‘childish disengagement.’ She invites us to a dance that lives fully into the goodness of God. I’ve been grateful for Mandy’s voice for a long time now, and Unfettered is an overdue guide for those of us wanting another way.”—Steve Cuss, lead pastor of Discovery Christian Church, Broomfield, Colorado 

“Being quite skilled at the controlling, adultish ways of exegeting Scripture, I was deeply confronted by Mandy Smith’s rest-receive-respond approach. She invites us to divest ourselves of our need to be masters of the text and, like children, allow our senses, our instincts, even our bodies, to contribute to hearing from God. Like Nicodemus asking Jesus how one becomes born again, I found myself regularly resisting, questioning, and doubting Mandy’s new method before being won over by her approach. If you want to contend with the Good News in your heart, mind, and body, read this book!”—Michael Frost, Morling College, Sydney