Above All: He Took the Fall and Thought of Me

The popular Christian song of the title gets fleshed out via personal anecdote and scriptural quotation in this slim character study of Jesus by the author of The Ragamuffin Gospel. Manning, who first experienced transcendence when he was a young Marine, didn't like""chanting psalms in Latin with pantywaist eighteen-year-old postulates"" during his seven days of seminary school. But on a last-minute trip around the Stations of the Cross, he says, he heard""a word that is my real name in the mind of God, a name spoken with indescribable tenderness and written on the white stone (Revelation 2:17)."" He still left the seminary, but the faith Manning came to feel was a passionate, righteous one. Jesus, Manning says,""sets us free from fear of the Father and dislike of ourselves,"" shows us how to have""sovereign respect for people's dignity"" and""brought a nonviolent revolution."" Satan, on the other hand,""seduces us into dwelling on our past sins and stirs the pot of self-hatred."" The song lyrics sprinkled without may have inspired this book, but its raison d'etre is Manning's vociferous and motivating cry to his fellow Christians to acknowledge the miracle that is the risen Jesus, to let themselves be loved by him and to let him""run wild in their lives.""