Knock at the Sky. Liz Charlotte Grant, foreword by Sarah Bessey. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883759) 2025.

Summary: After losing faith in biblical inerrancy, the author returns to Genesis with all her questions, seeking God in the story.

Liz Charlotte Grant grew up as a card-carrying evangelical. Mission trips, a minor in Bible from a Christian college, quiet time, and kissing dating good-bye. And then, approaching her forties, the certitudes stopped working. She joined the ranks of those deconstructing her faith. This included giving up her faith in an inerrant Bible. But, as this book shows, it did not mean giving up on either the Bible or God. In fact, it led her into an intense reading of Genesis, not to determine its historicity but to bring her story, with all her questions to the story of Genesis 1-32. She describes her approach as midrashic. She writes, as she invites the reader to join her:

“What else can we find in the Bible besides fact? What does the Bible say about reality, about death, about the purposes and origins of humanity? What does the Bible reveal about God? Ask and you will receive. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will blow wide open. Thanks be to God.”

In succeeding chapters Grant weaves her close reading of Genesis with Jewish commentators and Christian theologians, contemporary music and art, and archaeology and nature. Most of all, she weaves in her own questions, “knocking at the sky” as she seeks God. In the creation account, she considers how unlike God’s voice is to any other voice. The closest she comes to it is whale songs. She suggests we might well try standing on our heads as we read! In the narrative of the fall, she explores how deeply God values human freedom, unlike some controlling churches. She references James Fowler’s Stages of Faith, discussing how important the process of moving through doubt is to mature faith.

Succeeding chapters explore the flood narratives, Babel, and then focus on the life of Abraham. Why does he answer the call of God to leave Haran? Then what do we make of Sarah’s infertility in light of the promise, and her resort to Hagar as a surrogate? What do we make of the fact that God spoke to Hagar and was named by her? But the most troubling is the binding of Isaac. In this case, did Abraham hear God wrong and what do we make of God’s provision? Finally, we come to the night of Jacob’s wrestling. Not only does all his checkered past come to focus, but also his resolve to be blessed.

Not only do we encounter different interpretive possibilities and a host of questions. We also, as we read with Grant, encounter the mysterious, transcendent presence of the God who welcomes the questions, the wrestling, and the knocking.

You may not agree with Grant on her doctrine of scripture. But do you read scripture with the fierce tenacity she brings to the text? You may claim that you bring everything to God in prayer. But do you “knock at the sky” with the unvarnished honesty Grant brings to her study? Instead of certitude, I found in what Grant writes a gritty faith that hangs onto God through doubt and keeps expecting God to show up. When we hear of faith deconstruction, we fear people are abandoning Christ. While that sometimes is the case, Grant offers an example of moving from unquestioning certainty to truly seeking after and being found by God.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.