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Holy Week resources and reflections
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The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative

by Christopher J.H. Wright. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006. ISBN 10-8308-2571-1. Hb., 581 pp. with outline, index, Bible index, and bibliography. $38.

 

All holy books are not alike. One reads various Buddhist Sacred texts in different ways: some are proverbial sayings, others are mythical stories of the former lives of the Buddha. Their coherence is elusive, their history enigmatic. Is the same true of the Bible, or is there a "Grand Narrative" that runs through the Bible? 

This book is a fascinating combination of introduction on biblical hermeneutics, biblical theology, and, at the same time, it is a missiology textbook. I spoke to Chris Wright in New York in December 2006 and he told me that his new book was trying to correct what we agreed was the lacuna in Bosch's Transforming Mission -- the Old Testament is missing. So, I expected his book to be a small paperback on Christian mission and the Old Testament. This however is a product of a life of careful biblical scholarship done, as his life has been lived, in a global context. Christopher Wright, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, was principal of All Nations College in Ware, England, and before that he taught in Puna, India. His position now with the Langham Trust involves working with church theologians and other leaders around the world

Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith

 

by Diana Butler Bass. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006. ISBN 0-06-083694-6. Hb., 336 pp. $23.95. 

 

 

 

When I read Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass I recommended it to all of our clergy, gave a book review, led a session retreat on its contents and bought it for a few good folks whose book budgets were stretched. The Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky then paid for eleven people to hear Diana at Columbia Theological Seminary at the end of January. Both the book and Diana made an impression not only on me but on our good people! 

 

Over a three-year period, Bass studied 50 old Protestant churches that were renewing themselves in mission and identity while exhibiting a new spiritual vibrancy, often coming from dire circumstances of decline and crises. Ten of these congregations became the key to her research. The churches were theologically moderate to liberal and none was the largest in town, but they did range in size from 35 to 2,500. They were Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Methodist, Lutheran, and Episcopalian. 

The Christening of Harry Potter — Beyond a “Mere” Christianity

The following reflections will give away some key elements of the plot that the reader may wish to resist reading till completing the book!

 

The Boy-Who-Lived, and lived, and lived, and lived again, lives!  After finishing the incredibly satisfying Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I went back and counted.  At least nine times in the seven books Harry Potter survived direct personal attempts of Voldemort to capture and kill him.  Four of those attempts come in the final volume.  What is more, in none of those attempts does Harry ever attempt to do anything more than defend himself.  Harry Potter never intentionally kills anyone... though admittedly he is sometimes tempted.

 

Many readers around the world have been rather stunned by the unmistakably Christian elements in the final showdown between Harry Potter and Voldemort.  I must admit that I was not.  Thanks to the insights provided though the various books and essays of John Granger -- no relation to Hermione -- I've been expecting this for several years.  (See bibliography below.)  As usual Joanne Rowling gets at least an "E" (Exceeds Expectations) on her "N.E.W.T." volume -- and I'd say she gets and "O" (Outstanding).

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

I have been a huge fan of Jimmy Carter for a long time and believe that he has set the gold standard for being a former president. Who else in recent generations can match his stewardship of the prestige that accompanies that position? Rather than retiring into a private world where he could lick the wounds he collected during his administration or going on the lucrative speaking circuit, Carter immediately threw himself into building homes for the poor and serving as an international ambassador for causes of peace and justice. He is widely respected for the moral authority he has earned over the last twenty-five years since leaving office. Like others, I just adore this man.

Over the last fifteen years, I have accompanied numerous church groups on pilgrimages to Palestine to visit the "living stones" of the church who are struggling for their very existence. We have helped to build homes, church facilities, ministries, and most of all, hope. Along the way, the Palestinian Christians found a very tender and abiding place in my heart.

God’s Troublemakers: How Women of Faith Are Changing the World

by Katharine Rhodes Henderson.  Continuum, 2006. ISBN 0826418678.  Hb., 247 pp., $24.95.

 

In an era when more women are entering seminary and fewer are rising to senior pastor positions, Katharine Rhodes Henderson's new book is both timely and important. It may help break the glass ceiling for women while also re-framing the idea of religious leadership in the 21st century.          

Dr. Henderson, executive vice president of Auburn Theological Seminary (N.Y.), introduces us to non-traditional entrepreneurs who lead not "from above" but from "behind, within and beneath." These brave women of faith have a contagious fervor for doing justice in new and creative ways. Many of them who are more "spiritual" than they are "religious" teach those of us in leadership positions how to analyze conflicted situations and move, as she says,  "organically and intuitively" from the center out and the ground up instead of from the top down. They teach us how to broker new partnerships and re-think conventional ways of addressing problems.

Digging to America: A Novel

 

 

by Anne Tyler. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. ISBN: 0-307-26394-0. Hb., 277 pp., $24.95.

 

In Digging to America, Anne Tyler returns to the themes of longing and healing. The story begins in the Baltimore airport as two families wait for their adopted daughters to arrive from Korea. One family, the Donaldsons, is out in full force with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in attendance. The other family, the Yazdans, is an Iranian-American family composed of three people. The Yazdans are quiet and private, while Bitsy Donaldson habitually turns occasions into celebrations. As both families are leaving the airport, Bitsy invites the Yazdans to join their family party at her home. Thus begins the relationship between the two families, who have little in common besides their adopted daughters.

Summer reading 2007

 

The Presbyterian Outlook invited pastors and leaders from across the church to share with us their hopes for summer reading. Here are their responses:

 

Betty Meadows, general presbyter, Mid-Kentucky Presbytery:

Christianity for the Rest of Us, by Diana Butler Bass

 

Scott Black Johnston, pastor, Trinity Church, Atlanta, Ga.:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling

Portions of Calvin's Institutes (the 500th anniversary of his birth is approaching fast)

A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics by William Stacy Johnson

 

Beyond the burning bus: The Civil Rights Revolution in a Southern Town

by Phil Noble. Montgomery: New­South, 2003. ISBN 1­58838­120­X. Hb., 168 pp. $24.95

 

Growing up in north Alabama, I vividly remember riding in the back seat of my father's Mercury and hearing him and a friend of his, an insurance salesman from Cullman, talk with some pride about the fact that Cullman, Ala., did not have any African­-American resi­dents. My father's friend said he called on one elderly woman regularly in Cullman who had a small arsenal in a bedroom in the back of her house which was ready to be used by several men in that small town to intimidate any African-­American who thought to try moving into the city limits. The conversation between my father and this man was filled with the kind of racial epithets that I routinely heard in my childhood. This was 1978.

The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version

(fully revised and updated), by the Society of Biblical Literature, Harold W. Attridge, general editor. Harper­Collins, 2006. ISBN 0­06­078685­X. Hb., 2272 pp. $44.95.

 

In these days of hit­or­miss Hollywood sequels, one picks up a "revised and up­dated" work in fear and trembling. The new edition may fail to rise to the level of the original. Something of the essen­tial character of the original may be re­moved or replaced in an effort to make the new edition somehow "better." 

Such fears are unfounded here.

I was a seminary student when the first edition of The HarperCollins Study Bible came out in 1993, and have found it to be an indispensable tool both in the classroom and in the church. As a student, I realized that it reflected well the insights and interpretive methods of the biblical scholars whose works were among my seminary readings (much as the Oxford Annotated RSV did for previous generations). As a pastor, I have found it to be a useful way to bring the fruit of current biblical scholarship into Bible studies without having to lug around numerous volumes of commen­tary. The pages of my original edition are underlined, dog­eared, torn, worn, and crumpled; alas, one section has even fallen out. I hope my copy of this new edition will be similarly worn in a few years--except for loose section!

What Presbyterians NEED to read

For the past few months, I have been conducting a very unscientific survey among PWPAs  (Persons With a Pres­byterian Affiliation). I think I've talked with around a hundred folks. I asked: "What does it mean to be a Presbyter­ian today?" The most frequent re­sponse is a glazing over of the eyes, a couple of mumbles, followed by, "Gee, I wish I knew." I often have followed this up by asking, "Then why do you stay?" The most frequent response? "I don't know. (Sigh) I just don't know." 

Lately, I've been asking a third ques­tion of people who seem receptive: "How would you describe being a Christian these days?" Puzzled looks and slow, rueful headshakes are very common. "You got me. I don't know how to describe that. (Pause.) Y'know, I don't think about it all that much."

Admittedly it is an unscientific sam­ple, but thinking back over the years it rings way too true. Folks like this are not simply missing a denominational identity, they are missing a core Christ­ian identity as well. For these folks, "faith" is a series of very blurry, abstract concepts that have nothing to do with "real life." Church is strictly an "if con­venient" proposition that has to do with social contacts and "feeling good" more than anything else.

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