A passionate rereading of Christianity and the nature of personal faith.

Canadian author Rozek’s debut takes the form of an enthusiastic top-to-bottom re-envisioning of the Christian mythos. Rozek cites such influences as C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters (1942), Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods (1970) and the Christian-mystic writings of Zecharia Sitchin as she goes back to the Bible with fresh eyes and reads it anew in search of the answers to basic questions such as “Why am I here?” or “What’s the purpose of life anyway?” She views these questions as central to “the game of life” and tells her readers, “To get to the ultimate level, we must play it seriously with all the skills we have.” The schema of quasi–Judeo-Christian faith she derives from her readings is personal and interactive. She reminds her readers that the Bible is full of references to heavenly interactions with the lives of humans, and in her view, this is a necessary thing. “Our world today still needs celestial intervention desperately.” That intervention comes about at the behest of “the Great Ones”—“a collection of benevolent, celestial God-beings: the Source, the Son and Spirit.” She also spends a good deal of time on forerunners and servants, the supernatural beings known as angels. Rozek’s conceptual revamping of traditional biblical ideas ultimately appeals to the well-known Christian narrative: Jesus died as a sacrifice and as a living key to redemption. “By accepting the death of this Great One as a ransom for our freedom,” Rozek writes, “each of us can belong to something far greater than ourselves.” The book then broadens from this dramatized 21st-century recasting of the Messiah story to include some intriguingly wider suggestions for how the faithful of any denomination can find meaning: “The Great Ones know that in order for us to have abundant lives, we must first learn how to love.” Familiar concepts, sure, but Rozek’s unconventional perspective makes them seem invigoratingly new.

A well-written and welcoming take on the traditional tenets of Western religion.