(R. Kirby Godsey, Is God a Christian? Creating a Community of Conversation, Mercer University Press, 2011, 196 pages.) When I receive books in the mail to review for the Patheos Book Club, they are usually new books with which I am previously unfamiliar. So I was pleasantly surprised to be sent Kirby Godsey’s book with the provocative title, Is God a Christian? My initial response was to think of another book I recently finished that provides at least one response to... Read more
NPR’s Barbara Bradley Hagerty ran a report recently titled, “Evangelicals Question The Existence Of Adam And Eve.” One reason this finding is important is that, according to the article, polls have shown that forty percent of people in the United States believe that there was a historical Adam and Eve, who literally were the ancestral parents of the human race. We should all celebrate and stand in solidarity with the courageous conservative scholars who are willing to put their careers... Read more
(David Platt, Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God, 2011, 165 pages.) I have previously reviewed Platt’s earlier book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. That review is available on my blog, and to avoid repetition, some caveats made there about the differences between Platt’s more conservative theological orientation and my own more progressive stance are presumed for this review. Platt structures his latest book around six convictions. The first is “The Tyranny... Read more
(Christine Valters Paintner, The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom, 2001, 173 pages.) Christine Valters Paintner wants to change your life — in a good way. Macrina Wiederkehr, an actual monk (cloistered in Arkansas of all places), writes in the foreword that this book is an invitation to “spend twelve weeks in the cave of your heart, nurturing your creative soul, and sitting at the feet of your inner monk” (ix). Will you accept the invitation? This book... Read more
Whenever I hear commentators blaming natural disasters on God’s punishment for human sin (most typically on sexual sins like homosexuality, adultery, divorce, pre-marital sex, or abortion), this week’s Hebrew Scripture lesson from 1 Kings 19 comes to mind. We read in verses 11 and 12 that God is “not in the wind” of the hurricanes like Katrina which struck New Orleans. Similarly, God was “not in the earthquake” (or the tsunami) such as that which struck Japan back in April, just as... Read more
“The same night” as what? This week’s scripture begins by saying, “The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.” We’re led to ask, “‘The same night’ as what?” Earlier in the chapter, we learn that Jacob, the great patriarch of Israel, is afraid. He is afraid of his brother Esau seeking revenge. If you remember the story, Isaac — the child of promise, born... Read more
(David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, 2010, 231 pages.) David Platt, the pastor of a four-thousand member megachurch in Birmingham, Alabama, boldly highlights near the beginning of his book that Jesus, at the time of his death, was at best a “minichurch” pastor with far less than four-thousand followers (2). Even Jesus’ closest and most loyal followers fled when the Romans arrested him. This insight is one of many contrasts that Platt draws between the radical,... Read more
Paul writes to the church in Rome that, “The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.” I invite you to consider that part of what Paul is hinting at in this verse is the process that we witness every spring as the barren landscape of winter bursts forth into the flowering of spring and into the lush green of summer in which we currently find ourselves immersed. We humans don’t do anything to make the flowers bloom;... Read more
When you think back on the life of Mother Teresa, the first words that come to mind might be “Saint of Calcutta’s Slums” or “Caregiver to the Poorest of the Poor,” but, I suspect, that your first association with Mother Teresa is not “Chief Executive Officer” or “CEO.” Nevertheless, Ruma Bose and Lou Faust, in their recent book Mother Teresa, CEO: Unexpected Principles for Practical Leadership mount a case for us to consider what lessons we may be able to... Read more
I invite you to consider viewing Jesus’ “Parable of the Sower” — about a farmer sowing seeds — through the lens of the third chapter of Thomas Merton’s book New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton was a twentieth-century Roman Catholic monk, who lived in Kentucky and was a prolific writer. I will share with you two separate excerpts from Merton’s words then briefly reflect on each one for some of the meaning I see in them for us today. Merton writes:... Read more
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