John A Vissers

Friendship has the capacity to elevate our lives and make us better people. It plays an important role in our moral development, spiritual growth, and personal flourishing. This is true of friendship between humans, and it is also true of friendship with God in Christ. What did friendship with Christ mean for Christians in ages past, and what can it mean for us today? In Friendship with Christ, John Vissers offers a robust biblical, historical, and theological study of friendship with God in Christ. Rooted in the "friendship teaching" of John 15, this book draws on the threefold office of Christ as prophet, priest, and king to develop a theology of divine friendship against the backdrop of the biblical record and historical tradition. Friendship with Christ, Vissers argues, is a theological truth and experience that continues to provide consolation and hope in a secular age and a suffering world. With a foreword by Hans Boersma, this book shows that friendship with Christ has been central to the experience of the providential love of God throughout the church's history and that it still matters today. Friendship with Christ will appeal to professors and students of theology, Christology, and spiritual formation, as well as to pastors and church leaders.

A biographical study on the Theology of W. W. Bryden. ""Walter Bryden, whose students remember him as an inspiring teacher and provocative exponent of Christian faith at a critical time in Canadian church history, has suffered the fate of many Canadians: neglect by his own countrymen. Vissers' lucid and well-documented study of this important Protestant scholar will help greatly to re-establish Bryden's place in the evolution of Christian theology in the Canadian context."" --Douglas John Hall, C. M. Professor of Christian Theology Emeritus McGill University ""Vissers' splendid study of Walter Bryden introduces a new generation to the importance of a leading scholar who in the 1930s introduced the emerging 'neo-orthodoxy' of Karl Barth to the Canadian church and to key students who themselves became significant theologians. Reacting to the idealism and rationalism of his times, in sharp contrast to the prevailing Liberal Theology, Bryden--like Barth--emphasized God's definitive revelation in Jesus Christ who pronounces a Judging-Saving Word to the world. A theology of God's Word and Spirit is the true source for the church's renewal. Bryden's influence in the Canadian Presbyterian Church was monumental as he worked out the implications of Barth's theological approach for his Canadian context. Vissers' study engagingly conveys the thought and influence of Bryden who called the church to theological engagement with issues that are still of vital importance today."" --Donald K. McKim Editor of the Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith and How Karl Barth Changed My Mind ""Walter Bryden of Knox College articulated a consistent evangelical theology during an embattled lifetime. This fine work is a fitting tribute to one who anticipated rather than echoed Neo-orthodoxy for the North American scene. His prophetic teaching rejected both the fashionable liberalism of the age as well as what he termed 'Rational Orthodoxy, ' those whose motto could well be 'Always Having Been Reformed.' Almost single-handedly he saved the 'continuing' Presbyterian Church in Canada from obscurantism. Vissers' book is a sympathetic yet critical account of a neglected voice that deserves to be heard today."" --Joseph C. McLelland Professor of Philosophy of Religion Emeritus McGill University John A. Vissers is Principal at The Presbyterian College in Montreal. He is also Director of the Montreal School of Theology and Faculty Lecturer in Christian Theology at McGill University.