"Free Range Faith" is a companion memoir for people who have left the institutional church, but not the faith. Glenn Hager addresses the question, "Is there is a more real and meaningful way to try to follow Jesus and express your faith without having to deal with all of the baggage of the institutional church?"
He honestly admits, "I was trying to figure out what's next. I did not want to re-enter the institution that we call the church, but I never ceased being amazed by Jesus. I decided that however I expressed my faith, it needed to be real, personal, and a part of everyday life."
The author suggests a potential path forward for irreligious friends of Jesus. He examines each of the practices generally believed to be important for nurturing spiritual formation by looking at the conventional way they are expressed, then digging deeper to uncover the foundational principle for the practice, and lastly, considering a more open, meaningful, and honest means of expression.
He also devotes several pages to what he calls "lessons that I haven't mastered." These "lessons" are things that every honest person of faith struggles with, like the tension between trusting God and personal responsibility, our hunger for certainty and things that seem to be unanswerable, and the inner battle between grace and guilt.
It is an invaluable resource for honest seekers, people who have questions, but haven't been finding answers in the institutional church, and for those who are re-examining their faith and are looking for meaningful avenues of expression.
This book is about breaking out of the cage and flying free by forging a personal faith rather than outsourcing it an institution.
