The Pursuit of God

A. W. Tozer's 1948 short devotional, written, by his own account, on a single overnight train journey from Chicago to Texas. Ten chapters argue that the contemporary American evangelical church has lost the experiential reality of God to the merely doctrinal — that knowing about God has displaced knowing God — and call the reader back to a tradition of inward pursuit that Tozer traces through Augustine, the medieval mystics, the Puritans and Andrew Murray. Each chapter closes with a written prayer.

Tozer's intellectual furniture is unusual for its evangelical context: Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Lady Julian of Norwich, and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing all appear as witnesses to the interior life he argues the church has forgotten. The book is short — under 130 pages in most editions — and densely aphoristic. It was named to Christianity Today's list of the 100 Books of the Century in 2000 and has remained continuously in print since its first publication, with several million copies sold.

The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.

Chapter 1, "Following Hard after God"

First lines

To have found God and still to pursue Him is a paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily satisfied religious person, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.

Contents

Reception

A defining text of mid-20th-century American evangelicalism's contemplative wing — continuously in print since 1948, several million copies sold, frequently named alongside Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship as one of the two essential 20th-century Protestant devotionals. Tozer pastored a Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation in Chicago and never sought academic credentials; the book's intellectual furniture (Eckhart, Tauler, Lady Julian, the Cloud of Unknowing) is unusual for the evangelical milieu in which it circulates and is part of why it has held its readership. Reformed and dispensationalist critics have flagged the mystical strand as theologically risky; for Tozer's actual audience that strand is the point.

Frequently asked

What is The Pursuit of God about?

It argues that the contemporary evangelical church has traded the experiential reality of God for mere doctrine — that knowing about God has displaced knowing God. Ten chapters, each closing with a written prayer, call the reader back to an inward pursuit Tozer traces through Augustine, the medieval mystics, the Puritans, and Andrew Murray.

Which contemplatives does Tozer draw on?

Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Lady Julian of Norwich, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Augustine, and Andrew Murray all appear as witnesses to the interior life Tozer argues the evangelical church has forgotten. This is unusual reading for an evangelical devotional and is central to the book's long appeal.

Why has The Pursuit of God remained in print for over seventy years?

The combination of evangelical theological framing with genuine mystical content is rare. Reformed and dispensationalist readers have criticised the mystical strand as theologically risky, but Tozer's actual audience — people who want experiential religion, not just doctrine — has sustained the book across denominations and generations. It was named to Christianity Today's list of 100 Books of the Century in 2000.