Author: Donald Hart
Submitted: December 17, 2014
Tell us a little about yourself. I was born in 1952 and I'm still kicking! Although I have degrees in Journalism and History it is my absolute LOVE of dogs, and my belief in Christ, that were the ingredients for the soup that became the book-If Jesus Had a Dog.
What was your motivation behind this project? One day, I had my pack(we have three dogs), jumping all over me during a play time and I realized THIS was to closest I would ever come to an absolute state of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE in this life! I had a conditional love for my dogs BUT they and an UNCONDITIONAL LOVE for me! You know the feeling if you are a pet owner. So I thought how beautiful it would be if JESUS could have known this love by an animal. So I put together a story of the life and ministry of Jesus-straight out of the Gospels, but told through the eyes of his "best friend", his dog.
What do you hope folks will gain from this project? I purposely wrote this in a style and manner that would get young people involved in the story of Jesus. I have always been clear that most young people are NOT tripping over themselves to read the Bible, but when there is a story about a DOG they are very open to reading it and in the process get a heavy dose of scripture through my book. They are being exposed to the ministry of Jesus and they don't realize it because they are so caught up in the interaction of Jesus and his "best friend."
How were you personally impacted by working on this project? Doing research for the book got me to think about Jesus the man-not the religious icon. I truly felt I was by his side from his birth to his death as I wrote the story. I simply felt like an invisible reporter telling the story...
Anything else you'd like readers / listeners to know: I absolutely feel this book can CHANGE the life of a young person so hopefully you'll make an effort to get their paw's on a copy!
