Rut Etheridge III
Rutledge "Rut" Etheridge III is assistant professor of biblical studies at Geneva College. Prior to this, Rut taught high school and pastored a church. He holds a B.S. in Bible and philosophy and an MDiv; he is a PhD student at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
Rut speaks frequently at youth retreats and theology conferences. He and his wife, Evelyn, have five children. He loves music, the ocean, martial arts (he’s a blackbelt in Gosoku-ryu karate), basketball, coffee, and more coffee.
Featured book
God Breathed: Connecting through Scripture to God, Others, the Natural World, and Yourself
Self-made truth is the air we breathe in our day, which past philosophers hailed as the Age of the Lonely Self. You feel it when the silence falls around you and the whispers start within you: that growing, gnawing isolation, that deepening detachment from the world, from others, from yourself. God Breathed will help you understand and courageously doubt the popular dogma that God cannot speak, that the Bible is not only inaccurate but impossible. It will help you break out of the soul-suffocating confines of self-made truth. Within the pages of God's book is the true you, just waiting for you to arrive. God Breathed will help you get there.
God Breathed reaches young adults wrestling through profound issues—identity, sexuality, suicidality, human rights, and creation care. Thoughtful, heart-to-heart exploration of Scripture’s lifegiving truth on these topics and more makes it ideal for high school and college students and those who love and serve them.
"This book actually changed my life. The last chapter healed deep things in my heart in relationship to music. I have never heard anyone talk in such a completely pure and holy way about music. This helped me see what music is actually meant for, and I was humbled to a mess of tears that I still cry when I think of it. This book is a very important one. I pray you will receive it in love and find your heart open to reading the Bible with new eyes, like I did. It will bring your heart to life."—Lacey Sturm, chart-topping hard rock solo artist, author of The Reason, from the foreward to God Breathed
Michael HortonI talk a lot of nonsense to myself. With age, though, I’m realizing more deeply how I have to listen to God speak, to his definition of who I am, what I need, and what he has secured for me in Christ. This is a fantastic book for anyone looking for better answers than usual to the questions of our contemporary culture and our own hearts.
J. Gresham Machen professor of theology and apologetics, Westminster Seminary, California
Russell HaitchWhereas many critiques of our culture complain and scold, Etheridge decides instead to explain and counsel—and to do so supremely well. This book, so clearly and lovingly written, is a gift to Reformed theology and the wider church. It has us meditating on things above and rethinking how we live our lives and teach our youth during our years below.
professor of theology and human science, Bethany Theological Seminary
Janie Harden FritzI was very heartened to see someone write a book as brave and honest as this one. Scholarly, engaging, and remarkably accessible, this book takes history seriously and refuses to simplify complex issues. Drawing from early Church fathers through Descartes, Kant, and Nietzsche to purveyors of pop culture and advocates of atheism, Rut addresses contemporary cultural issues from a perspective many would prefer not to consider—but that cannot be ignored.
professor of communication and rhetorical studies, Duquesne University
William EdgarThis is an extraordinary book…Imaginative, engaging, humorous and thoroughly orthodox.
professor of apologetics, Westminster Theological Seminary
Anthony T. SelvaggioRut Etheridge’s God Breathed is a culturally relevant theological tour de force that speaks directly into the hearts and minds of its readers. This book is heavy in every sense of the word, but if you are willing to mine its depths I can promise you that you will emerge from its pages edified, enriched, and empowered because the One to whom Rut is drawing his readers is the One who speaks the words that are truly spirit and life.
author of A Proverbs Driven Life, and 7 Toxic Ideas Polluting Your Mind
Aimee ByrdIt is difficult to find good books targeted for a young adult reading audience. They are usually dumbed-down, trying too hard to connect, or cheesy. And yet this is often the time of life when people have serious and meaningful questions about the Christian faith. Rut offers us a “Schaeffer-esque” blend of philosophy, theology, and apologetics that connects with the questions about God that Christians and unbelievers alike wrestle with in our current cultural context. He takes his audience seriously and points them to something (Someone) altogether delightful. I will be giving this one away!
author of No Little Women, and Why Can’t We Be Friends?
Vincent BacoteEtheridge creatively diagnoses the condition of our age and opens the way for us to see that if we truly want to find ourselves we need to read and encounter God’s book. Truly scholarly and truly accessible, God Breathed is the kind of book that brings strong conviction wrapped in genuine love for God and others.
director, Center for Applied Christian Ethics, Wheaton College