Paula Owens Parker Pickwick Publications, 224 pages Reviewed by Karen Branan Why did my mother get so upset when I asked simple questions about race? Why did I grow up feeling as if I had committed some horrible crime? Why did my father die believing erroneously that he’d killed a black girl? These questions haunted me for many years and in my search for answers, I discovered family systems therapy, the genogram and trauma theory. I wandered from one discipline and method to the other, weaving in historical study, Jungian art and dreamwork, yoga, prayer, meditation, genealogy and regularly walking a labyrinth at Westminster Presbyterian in Washington, D.C. — a 25-year journey that would result in a book and a sense of wholeness long hungered for, but unimagined, in my youth and middle years. Therefore, I am fascinated and delighted to discover “Roots Matter,” a fertile course of which blends genealogy, theology, psychology and history in order to heal generational … [Read more...]

Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery and Cynthia L. Rigby, editors WJK Press, 400 pages What a marvelous commentary that will go right alongside the popular “Feasting on the Word” series! The nine volumes belong on the pastor’s shelf. Why? Because preaching is crucial to the life of the church, always and especially in turbulent times.  A wide variety of teachers, preachers and scholars bring the depth of the Scriptures into conversation and connection with both Word and world. The biblical texts for each Sunday are interpreted within the context of the whole canon as well as the world to which they speak. The preacher looking for a path forward that takes both Word and world seriously will find skilled companions in this collection. Imagine being in a lively seminar each week! What’s even better is an added feature of the commentary connecting the Psalms with Scripture and weekly worship. As Barbara Brown Taylor said, “there are diamonds to be discovered each week.” That … [Read more...]

Alan Jacobs Oxford University Press, New York, 280 pages Amid the horrors of World War II, Christian humanist thinkers came suddenly to see that Christian values were collapsing all around them. Alan Jacobs, a humanities professor at Baylor University, presents the thought of five of these Christian intellectuals: Jacques Maritain, T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, W.H. Auden and Simone Weil. Though the war was waged with instruments formed by technology, they came to see it primarily as a spiritual conflict. Auden summarized this perspective best: “The English intellectuals who now cry to Heaven against the evil incarnated in Hitler have no Heaven to cry to: they have nothing to offer and their prospects echo in empty space.” Christian thinkers had long been aware of the challenge posed by modernism, yet it took the shock of a brutal world war – the second in a generation – to force them to come to grips with the reality of a world increasingly based on science and technology. They … [Read more...]

Peter Wohlleben Greystone Books, 288 pages About worship, David Gambrell once said, “I like to think of worship as an organic, dynamic thing — like a tree that is rooted, growing, bearing fruit for the world.” I have no idea whether Gambrell, associate for worship in the PC(USA) Office of Theology, has read “The Hidden Life of Trees,” but doing so would certainly confirm his use of trees when referring to worship. In fact, Peter Wohlleben has opened wide a window on the life of trees that evokes wonder and awe akin to worship. Not worship of trees, of course, but worship of the living God whose presence is made visible in the beauty of creation. Our ancestors in the faith reveled in scientific discovery. This joy is what I experienced reading the author’s description of how trees actually communicate with one another using fungal networks. He goes on to the describe how trees protect themselves by clever use of toxins. I will never look upon the skin of trees – or trees themselves … [Read more...]