In this latest imaginative fantasy by Michael Phillips, the victim of a terrorist attack on Easter Sunday travels in realms of heaven and earth, finding his notions of both to be turned upside down.

In what he considers one of his most significant contributions to the legacy of George MacDonald, Michael Phillips here presents the complete panorama of George MacDonald’s four books of sermons in a single volume. Climaxing a forty-year career making the writings of MacDonald accessible and understandable to the full spectrum of the Christian public—resulting in the publication of over 80 new editions of MacDonald’s books—Phillips sets this volume apart from all others, not only as his most ambitious, but perhaps his most important. Presenting 20 of MacDonald’s most influential sermons in their full original format, accompanied by his own edited and more understandable copy, Phillips highlights each entry with a concise "Central Thesis," then adds an insightful introduction that illuminates the significant theological ground plowed by MacDonald’s pen that, Phillips believes, is destined in time to change how Christendom perceives the underpinings of its faith. What emerges is not only MacDonald’s wisdom, but Phillips’ own as he shrewdly and perceptively distills what he calls MacDonald’s "transformational theology of the Christian faith." Added to the 20 complete sermons are condensed versions of the remaining 29—each again with a helpful "Central Thesis"—enabling the reader to mine the ore without laboring through dozens of pages of dense and incomprehensibly obscure word-thickets. The result is a massive tome of over 300,000 words comprising all 49 of George MacDonald’s sermons. It is a volume of incomparable value in understanding the Scotsman’s theological foundations.

In spite of a gradually expanding awareness of George MacDonald and his influence on the faith and writings of C.S. Lewis, most Lewis devotees, as well as many readers of MacDonald’s fantasies and fiction, remain largely unacquainted with the theological foundations of MacDonald’s corpus and its influence on Lewis’s spiritual development. When intrepid readers attempt to probe MacDonald’s sermons, however, most find the going extremely difficult. Expecting Lewis’s gift of straightforward clarity, many readers find MacDonald’s Victorian method and syntax from the previous century daunting and impossible to decipher. Dense theological progressions, sentences of 100-200 words, and an archaic linguistic style, prevent MacDonald’s wisdom from shining through with clarity. In his two volumes Your Life in Christ and The Truth in Jesus, Michael Phillips addresses this difficulty with the same editorial expertise that distinguish his editions of MacDonald’s novels. Assisted by insightful introductions based on his extensive knowledge of MacDonald’s writings and thought, these two volumes provide an understandable entrée into the expansive world of George MacDonald’s theological writings.