Advertisement
Holy Week resources and reflections
Advertisement

The best sellers

Christian book top sellers for late 2006 and early 2007 from the following publishers:

  • Abingdon Press/United Methodist Publishing
  • Augsburg Publishing/ Fortress Press
  • Ave Marie Press
  • Bethany House Publishing
  • InterVarsity Press
  • Paraclete Press
  • Zondervan

 

Letters to New Pastors

 

by Michael Jinkins. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0­8028­2751­9. Pb., 186 pp. $15.

 

For almost five years we were privi­leged to be in a program developed by the Office of Theology and Worship entitled "Excellence from the Start." The design of the program was to put new pastors in groups of seven or eight under the leadership of experienced pastor/mentors. Groups met twice a year for theological reflection on min­istry in light of assigned readings.

Ecstasy and Intimacy: When the Holy Spirit Meets the Human Spirit

by Edith M. Humphrey. Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0-8028-3147-8. Pb., 295 pp. $21.

 

This is an exciting book. It links the doctrine of the Trinity with the spirituality of ordinary Christians. Humphrey, who teaches New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, organized her book around three triads: love, light and life. In keeping with the Trinitarian motif, each triad has three sections.

The heart of Humphrey's work is her understanding of the Triune God and how this God relates to believers. For her, the Trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living in a perfect community of love and sharing. The Triune God is not self-contained but stands outside the divine self. This is the meaning of ecstasy. The purpose of this ecstasy or standing outside of the divine self is to have an intimate relationship with men and women. This is the "holy tryst" that Humphrey defines as "a holy meeting in which God, through his very own love, brings humanity (spirit, soul, body) to himself" (p. 17). This occurs especially through the action of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, for Humphrey, Christian spirituality is "the study of what happens when the Holy Spirit meets the human spirit" (p. 17).

Dreams Where Have You Gone? Clues for Unity and Hope

 

 

by William G. McAtee. Martha Gilliss, editor. Louisville: Witherspoon Press, 2006. ISBN 1571530657.  Pb, 434 pp.  $24.95.

 

Dreams Where Have You Gone? is several things: a survey of Presbyterian history, a chronicle of the Union Presbytery Movement, an oral history of that movement, a memoir of a Presbyterian pastor, and a probing assessment of where the Presbyterian reunion of 1983 came from with questions about where we are going. It is a wonderful book that can be read at several levels and will provide wisdom and insight for all its readers.

The Seven Last Words from the Cross

by Fleming Rutledge. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2786-1. Pb. 81 pp. $12.00.

 

One of the great traditions of the Christian Church is to take time, during Holy Week, to reflect upon the words Jesus spoke from the Cross. Sometimes this happens in a three- hour service on Good Friday, in which the combination of the crucifixion accounts in the four Gospels are read and interpreted in turn. Out of this tradition, Fleming Rutledge has created a series of mediations that are helpful for personal reading, reflection, and devotional use at any time of the year.

Evil and the Justice of God

by N. T. Wright. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 2006. ISBN 0-8308-3398-6. Hb., 176 pp. $18.

 

Every pastor and every politician should read N.T. Wright's newest book, Evil and the Justice of God. It serves as both a concise explanation of what the Christian faith has to say about evil and also as a way of understanding all of the terrible things happening in the world around us.

Wright starts by discussing the problem of evil, which is not only a philosophical riddle but a terrible reality in our world today. Wright says that most of us in the West have accepted the Enlightenment myth of progress. Thus we tend to ignore evil in the world for as long as we can, and when it slaps us in the face, we respond to its existence in immature and inappropriate ways. 

Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

by Barbara Brown Taylor. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006. ISBN 0060771747.  Hb., 256 pp. $23.95.

 

Without a doubt, my very favorite of all images used to describe the task and privilege of preaching comes from Barbara Brown Taylor's book, The Preaching Life, and likens the preacher to a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac. Barbara Taylor imagines herself there in the pulpit "passing messages between two would-be lovers who want to get together but do not know how. The words are my own but I do not speak for myself. Down in the bushes with a congregation who have elected me to speak for them, I try to put their longing into words, addressing the holy vision that appears on the moonlit balcony above our heads.  Then the vision replies, and it is my job to repeat what I have heard, bringing the message back to the bushes for a response. As a preacher I am less a principal player than a go-between, a courier who serves both partners in an ancient courtship."1

Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War

by Harry S. Stout. New York: Viking, 2006. ISBN 0670034703. Hb., xxii + 552 pp. $29.95.

 

Wars take on their own mythologies and none more so than the American Civil War. It stands at a center of American consciousness and identity. More than 100,000 titles have been written on the conflict, in its various facets. Now Yale historian Harry S. Stout has given us a "moral history" of the Civil War, providing a unique--and disturbing--view of the years when this nation tore itself apart.

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense

 

by N.T. Wright. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. ISBN 10:0-06-050715-2. Hb., 240 pp. $22.95

 

N.T. Wright admits, "Being a Christian in today's world is, of course, anything but simple. But there is a time for trying to say, as simply as possible, what it's all about, and this seems to me that sort of time." 

Now is that sort of time, it seems to me. Some who claim that Christianity "makes sense" pare it down until the mystery is peeled away and we are left with a God whose edges are sharply drawn and whose greatest attribute is clarity. N.T. Wright is not to be confused with these voices that reduce Christianity to simplicity.

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President

by Allen C. Guelzo, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans. Paperback edition, 2003.  ISBN 0-8028-3872-3. 528 pp.  $24

 

Lincoln has been the subject of an unending stream of biographies. Among the many good treatments of Lincoln's life and times, Guelzo's excellent biography deserves special attention because he examines Lincoln as a man of ideas. Lincoln famously wrapped his political ideas in religious themes, a trait that led many to lionize him as the "Christian president." Often forgotten, however, is that Lincoln entered politics as an enlightened skeptic (friends burned a scandalous, irreligious pamphlet "Infidelity" so it would not ruin his political career). The story of the development of Lincoln's philosophical and religious thought makes a fascinating story and Guelzo tells it well. 

LATEST STORIES

Advertisement