by Frederick Buechner. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006. ISBN: 0-06-084248-2. Hb., 320 pp., $24.95.
Here is a noteworthy collection of sermons by one of our most celebrated Christian apologists, Frederick Buechner. Ranging from sermons delivered in the 1950s to the late 1990s, this anthology lives up to its subtitle, presenting a half-century's worth of thinking aloud about the Christian way. Buechner, who has described himself as a part-time Christian and a part-time novelist, offers the reader many windows into the oftentimes hidden world of Christian truth.
The collection begins with a sermon called "The Magnificent Defeat," concentrating upon the all-night wrestling match between Jacob and God at the ford of the Jabbok. The encounter leaves Jacob crippled and helpless but, as Buechner describes it, in the end Jacob sees "something more terrible than the face of death--the face of love." (p. 7). Thanks to Buechner's vantage point, one can share a sense of authentic surprise the original Phillips Exeter Academy student-congregation must have felt at hearing the news that out of defeat can come blessing.
by Randall Balmer. New York: Basic Books, 2006. ISBN 0465005195. Hb., 242 pp., $24.95.
This book will anger, frighten and give hope.
Balmer is professor of American Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University, and visiting professor at Yale Divinity School. He is also a Baptist whose evangelical credentials are impeccable. He calls his book "An Evangelical's Lament," lament because the religious right has hijacked traditional evangelicalism, and, in its lust for political clout and legitimacy, has sold its soul to the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party. To be perfectly fair, religious liberals in the sixties and seventies did likewise, often identifying Democratic Party platforms with the promise of the kingdom of God. But that was then; this is now. Have we learned nothing?
by Jacqueline Lapsley. Louisville: WJKP, 2005. ISBN 0-664-22435-0. Pb., 154 pp. $19.95.
This exploration of four Old Testament narratives about women begins by recounting two different experiences that reflect well the difficult relationship between feminist scholarship and the church.
The first story is of Lapsley's conversation with a clergyperson who bemoans yet another book on women in the Bible! This experience speaks of a certain tiredness with respect to the topic, its redundancy given the many treatments that already exist. But it also might hint at impatience with the task of feminist scholarship and its hermeneutics of suspicion, an interpretive position that often denies the Bible's ability to speak a word of God for women's lives.
The second experience is a story about a student who admitted to throwing her Bible across the room in disgust and outrage over the sexist worldview that inhabits the Scriptures. This story reveals the importance of the feminist task but asks how God's word can be heard when the dominant voices in Scripture undermine and often harm the well being of women
What Christian books are believers reading and discussing? Publishers list their top sellers for fall 2006, both new books and continuing bestsellers.
by William Stacy Johnson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0-8028-2966-X. Hb., 320 pp. $25.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. ... William Stacy Johnson believes that it is time: to address the issue of same-gender unions as a society and church and to lend his reasoned voice to the discussion. In A Time to Embrace he offers a well-documented, cogent argument in support of a welcoming and affirming posture toward persons in exclusively committed same-gender relationships. In so doing he traverses the terrain of religion, law, and politics, carefully reviewing where we have been, analyzing where we are, and setting forth a path for where we might go faithfully into the future. He limits his affirmation to those in committed, monogamous, egalitarian, same-gender relationships, for it is in these unions that he finds not only the possibility for compassionate support, but also the responsibility for faithful action.
Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action by David Ray Griffin. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. ISBN 0-664-23117-9. Pb., 246 pp. $17.95.
reviewed by Christian T. Iosso
What does a rationalist do when so many irrational things are happening?
As David Ray Griffin summarizes them, we have a global warming crisis, continued nuclear proliferation, massive death by preventable poverty and growing social inequality in the United States, still the world's most militarily powerful nation and hence the most responsible for these trends. But why does the US government focus about 58% of our federal budget--inclusively calculated--on a unilateral militarism that alienates most of the world and blocks social progress? The reason given is the "war on terror," and the defining moment of that continues to be 9/11.
by Fred Lehr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8006-3763-1. Pb., 147 pp. $18.
On a recent day, three committees of the presbytery I serve met at the same time. As meetings broke up, the young woman on the Committee on Representation and I headed down to my office to get information about college scholarships for her. On the way we were stopped at least five times by people who just wanted to say a word to the presbytery executive. Finally, when we were alone, as I apologized for the delay, she, a preacher's daughter like me, said, "Oh, Paige, it's fine, really. It was just like being with my dad after church. I know how it is. We have learned to wait 'til we get home if we need his attention for something."
It was an instant bond between us, two women forty years apart in age who realized instantly that we had grown up to love the Presbyterian Church and our fathers, patiently waiting our turn while they served the flock.
by Charles R. Lane, Augsburg Fortress, 2006 ISBN 0-8066-5263-2 Pb. 128 pp. $11.99
It has long been my contention that, with very few exceptions, stewardship is the aspect of church life most neglected. Ask, Thank, Tell is one more welcomed book on the subject.
Charles Lane, Director for Stewardship Key Leaders in the Lutheran Church of America, brings to the table pastoral experience and a fervent desire to teach stewardship through faith commitment. The author clearly believes and states that stewardship begins with one's relationship with Jesus Christ, but then proceeds to present an open, honest conversation about money.
by Charles Denison. Atlanta: Chalice Press, 2005. ISBN 0827223293. Pb., 114 pp., $15.99.
Have you taken time lately to browse through the magazine section of your local Barnes & Noble or Borders bookstores? Gone are the days when a few magazines -- Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated -- dominated the racks.
Now you find literally hundreds of titles, each appealing to a narrow segment of the magazine reading audience, e.g. Cigar Aficionado, American Ceramics, Ad Busters.
Through his book Mainline Manifesto: The Inevitable New Church, Charles Denison wants us to understand that the American cultural landscape is similarly fractured and that our evangelism (and especially our new church development) needs to take account of that reality.
This is a tough movie to sit through. "Intense" is an understatement. It brings back all the horror, puzzlement, and shock of 9/11, and then it becomes oh, so personal.
John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) begins this day like any other: awake at 3:30 a.m., he stumbles to get dressed in the dark without waking his sleeping wife (Maria Bello). He quietly looks in on his four children, all snug in their beds, before he takes the George Washington Bridge into the City, where he works as a Port Authority policeman. He's a veteran sergeant. He sees himself as a true professional: someone who rarely smiles, who is all business. He thinks that a certain amount of distance from his men is necessary for them to maintain proper respect for his rank."
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