david LeBlanc

Rare is a book finished where I want to know more about the characters in it and what happens next to them. Thankfully, this is slice one of 2 of Brad’s life. What a literal gauntlet. Brilliantly crafted, his writing skills have few peers in Canadian literati. Most memoirs don’t get this close to the bone of revealing the author’s inner life. Not so All the Rage. I read sections of the book twice, savoring the delicious turns of phrase woven into what was often a brutal life story. I became indignant, angry often. I cried twice. I smiled at his devilry defiance. And throughout, I admired Brad’s ability to stand up where others would have long crumbled, shaking off the rejections and muck thrown from media – critics, the madding crowd, and even friends. A lightning rod for our community, none of his immense success and accolades came easy, and all the praise he received in the end was well deserved. With the hard-knocks life he bore up under, his memoir’s title is an understatement for the anger I felt on his behalf. I am chomping at the bit for Volume Two. Thank you Brad, for baring your heart and soul, and sharing your genius. A highest recommended read!

The author of Disrupting Religion, Colin Ferreira is a successful businessman, devoted father to a flock of nine bright children, and a devout modern American Christian, a seeker of the truth. Friends, neighbors, fellow religious travelers would all join in unison stating that he is a good, upstanding moral man. He takes us on a deeply intimate journey into scholarly examination of scripture, and shares personal biographical touchstones that reveal how he got to his current understandings. His examinations of his exploration show a subtle grasp of his studies, deeply contemplated, deeply held. The good in this book is a hopeful message that “God completely accepts and loves us as we are.” There are four pages of important uplifting redemptive themes that are important to be heard now, in the day of an overcrowded arena of megachurches. The neutral part of this book is the voice used, describing God in the masculine paternal role. That attribution alone will set many readers on edge. Of equal note is Mr. Ferreira’s confident defining of God. He treads into a territory that even the Buddha refused to go: when asked, “What is God?”, Buddha replied wisely, “Conventional words could never explain what conventional minds could never understand.” The entire book is his telling us who God is. His note that traditional religion is problematic in its misguiding and concealing spiritual truths rings true, and has historical weight going back to Constantine in 331 AD and Julian the Apostate, and again with the Vatican’s own campaigns of repression of the full bible over the centuries. Modern-day preachers fill arenas, all with their own opinions of who God is. Most now, thankfully, do not want or need to have someone else’s interpretation and opinion of who God is tell them how they should value or lead their lives. The great teachers Jiddu Krishnamurti, Rudolf Steiner, Osho, and others long ago liberated us from the burden of guru structures and antiquated dogma-based doctrines and thinking. When someone professes to be Christian, and then moves into judging, and excluding, others, alarms go off. This is where this book turns to its tragic and predictable downfall. Mr. Ferreira reveals a not-so-Christian agenda on page 2, noting that same-sex marriage, transgender issues, and “socialism” are responsible for the downfall of America the Great. There are several running starts, and wisely stops just short of an endorsement of the prior MAGA regime. He deepens the theme on pages 175-6, when he espouses conversion therapy for homosexuality thinly disguised as faithful shepherding. The average man will never read this far after his page 2 opening volley. They will add the book to the pile of others hell and brim-fire American preachers, who were blind to their own judgments. These observations, projecting his unchristian prejudices and judgments out on the world, destroy the Christian ethos of his book, relegating him to the pack of fundamentalist born again ‘Christians’ who choose to judge and exclude others, the very antithesis of Christ’s teachings and life example of unconditional love, all in the name of their personalized brand of faith.