HERETIC DAYS is grand theatre--a drama enacted in Eric Mader's subtle and playful mind. Mader queries, dramatizes, teases, mocks, pronounces, parodies, lunges, and finally burrows down into some the of the most intractable conundrums facing Christian seekers today. I know of no other writer who reads theology so deeply and so well. You come away from his work with a new understanding of play as sacrament. Think of this book as a stage onto which skip Tolstoy, St. Paul, the Gnostics, William Blake, Leonard Cohen, and, above all, Jesus, who makes many entrances and commands the most stage-time; think of it as Marionette Theatre where ideas come to play, parry with each other, bow, exit and re-enter with new masks and voices.In this play Mader keeps a directorial eye on his constant theme--Who was Jesus? How do we come to know him? What does he mean for our lives and, especially, what did he intend to mean? --J.S. Porter, author of THOMAS MERTON: HERMIT AT THE HEART OF THINGS"