Who is this God and How do you Know?

“This full, radiant, glorious experience of God in Jesus Christ eventually revolutionized the whole concept of God, so that the word God itself was reimagined through the experience of encountering Jesus, seeing him act, hearing him speak, watching him relate, and reflecting on his whole career.” (Brian McLaren A Generous Orthodoxy 82)

I’m reading this book by Brian McLaren, a book about some of the changes that seem to be happening in American Christianity. Actually, it’s about McLaren’s own theology, which as he describes it, is evolving in reaction to changes in contemporary theology, new ways of thinking, and new experiences. Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence and an important thinker who believes (along with a lot of other people) that we are in the midst of a new Reformation, says “I am sure that the generous orthodoxy defined in the following pages [of McLaren’s book] is our 95 theses.” She sees the ideas McLaren presents as key to our new, emerging articulation and practice of our faith.
So, one of the issues in McLaren’s book is, simply, what is God like? During the last Reformation, Martin Luther and others proclaimed that Jesus is the best representation of God we have. Jesus is the version of God we can begin to get our minds and hearts around. If we want to know what God is like, look to Jesus.
I am intrigued by this idea of reimagining. The word reminds me that theology is our trying to describe One who is ineffable, utterly beyond our capacity to fully express, even perhaps to fully know. Yet, we are in relationship with this mind-popping God, and part of being in relationship is trying to understand, to know the other. So, we imagine. We propose. We attempt to put words to our experience, and we wrestle with the words left behind by others who have experienced God.
Think about it. How do you know who God is?