Leaving Behind Left-Behind

January 10, 2011 by Frederick Schmidt

Continued from Page 1

Do those stories lead us into fatalism, or into hopeful living?

Do they require us to live responsibly, caring for one another and the planet that is our sacred trust? Or do they encourage us to care about our own fate to the exclusion of those responsibilities?

Do they prompt us to think in still larger ways about the grace of God? Or do they foster a zero-sum spirituality that assumes "I can't go to heaven, unless you go to hell?"

The stories we tell shape our souls.

Check back every Monday for the latest from The Spiritual Landscape,a regular column at the Mainline Protestant Portalat Patheos.

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About Frederick Schmidt

Frederick W. Schmidt is the author of The Dave Test: A Raw Look at Real Life in Hard Times (Abingdon Press: 2013) and several other books, including A Still Small Voice: Women, Ordination and the Church (Syracuse University Press, 1998), The Changing Face of God (Morehouse, 2000), When Suffering Persists (Morehouse, 2001), in Italian translation: Sofferenza, All ricerca di una riposta (Torino: Claudiana, 2004), What God Wants for Your Life (Harper, 2005), Conversations with Scripture: Revelation (Morehouse, 2005) and Conversations with Scripture: Luke (Morehouse, 2009). He holds the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, and directs the Job Institute for Spiritual formation. He is an Episcopal Priest, spiritual director, retreat facilitator, conference leader, writer, and Consulting Editor at Church Publishing in New York. He and his wife, Natalie live in Chicago, Illinois. He can also be reached at: http://frederickwschmidt.com/