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Book Reviews

Sundays Down South: A Pastor’s Stories

By James O. Chatham
University Press of Mississippi.1999. 248 pp. $25. ISBN 1-57806-175-X

Reviewed by Louis Weeks, Richmond, Va.

 

"Exegete the biblical text, exegete the congregation, and exegete the community in which you serve." This profound advice for pastors and others who would lead the church I have heard constantly from seminary professors and from wise old hands in presbytery.

Book Reviews

Good News in Exile: Three Pastors Offer a Hopeful Vision for the Church

By Martin B. Copenhaver, Anthony B. Robinson
and William H. Willimon
Eerdmans. 1999. 116 pp. Pb. $12. ISBN 0-8028-4604-1

Reviewed by Angela L. Ying, Seattle, Wash.

 

In a word, it is a gift. Martin B. Copenhaver, Anthony B. Robinson and William H. Willimon's book, Good News in Exile: Three Pastors Offer a Hopeful Vision for the Church, is a genuine gift to the church. Unlike other "gifts" where we get exactly what we ask for, where there are no surprises, and where we know what to expect, Good News in Exile offers the church -- and thus offers us, as people of faith -- one of those rare gifts.

Book Reviews

Rachel’s Cry: Prayer of Lament and Rebirth of Hope

By Kathleen D. Billman and Daniel L. Migliore
United Church. 1999. 174 pp. Pb. $18.95. ISBN 0-8298-1353-5

Reviewed by Fane Downs
Midland, Texas

 

We live in a time of increased interest in things spiritual -- practices, techniques and theologies -- many sincere, some shallow. Our days are marked, moreover, by suffering and awareness of evil in our midst -- manifested in ethnic cleansing, wars, school shootings, family violence, etc.

Book Reviews

Home By Another Way

By Barbara Brown Taylor
Cowley. 1999. Pb. 212 pp. $ 11.95. ISBN 1-56101-167-3

Reviewed by Elisabeth Lunz

 

When I first met Barbara Brown Taylor more than 20 years ago, she was becoming a writer. We were both at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, where Barbara worked in administration during her postulancy for the Episcopal priesthood.

Book Reviews

The Millennium Myth: Hope for a Postmodern World

By N. T. Wright
WJKP. 1999. 128 pp. $12.95. ISBN 0-664-25841-7

Reviewed by Michael D. Bush

 

While too much of the Christian world is coming off the rails in expectation of a divine cataclysm on Jan. 1, 2000, N. T. Wright offers us a challenge to celebrate the millennium as a Christian festival, rather than standing by passively or ex-citedly, waiting to see if the world will end. He issues the challenge in few words, with the clarity and good sense we have learned to expect from him in his New Testament scholarship.

Book Reviews

The Dynamic Congregation

By Robert H. Ramey Jr.

Chalice. 1999. Pb. 139 pp. $15.99 ISBN 0-8272-0626-7

Reviewed by William Hawkins

 

Out of his "25 years of pastoral work, 16 years of teaching ministry in a theological institution and more than 200 seminars with churches and judicatories," Robert Ramey offers congregations the distilled essence of his considerable wisdom.

Book Reviews

Putting the Amazing Back in Grace

By Ann Weems
WJKP. 1999. 112 pp. $14.95. ISBN 0-664-22150-5

Reviewed by Jane C. Perdue

 

Pay attention, lay people, ministers and Christian educators! Putting the Amazing Back in Grace is another Ann Weems collection of poems to use in reflection, preaching and teaching!

Book Reviews

Mustard Seed Versus McWorld: Reinventing Life and Faith for the Future

By Tom Sine
Baker Books. 1999. 249 pp. Pb. $14.99. ISBN 0-8010-9088-1

Reviewed by Elizabeth Dodson Gray

 

Watchman, tell us of the night,
What its signs of promise are.
-- Advent season hymn

It is seldom that we find a Christian preacher or writer like Tom Sine, who can stand like an Old Testament prophet on the parapet of the city and tell us of the present and the future without losing his own footing in the Christian faith.

Book Reviews

Here I Am Lord, Now What? Transition and Survival in the First Parish

TAS2TE of Ministry Inc. $24.95

Reviewed by Edward A. White

 

The big problem is that theological seminaries do not and probably cannot fully prepare people for parish ministry. Seminaries can provide theology, Bible, church history and certain skills training in homiletics. They can give attention to the spiritual and emotional development of the person.

Book Reviews

Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology

By Gordon W. Lathrop

Augsburg Fortress. 1999. 236 pp. Pb. $29. ISBN 0800631331

Reviewed by Deborah A. McKinley

 

Gordon Lathrop's book, Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology, voices fresh thoughts in the sometimes cacophonous conversations about contemporary ecclesiology. Holy People is a reflection on the meaning of "church," working from the conviction that the church's identity arises from the One the church worships -- the Triune God.

Book Reviews

Presbyterian Polity for Church Officers

By Joan S. Gray and Joyce C. Tucker

Geneva. 1999. 204 pp. Pb. $17.
ISBN 0-664-50018-8

Reviewed by James E. Andrews

 

The third edition of Presbyterian Polity for Church Officers by Joan Gray and Joyce Tucker is an improvement of a resource that has been essential for Presbyterian leaders since it first appeared in 1986.

Book Reviews

Hopeful Realism: Reclaiming the Poetry of Theology

By Douglas F. Ottati

Pilgrim. 1999. 134 pp. $14.95. ISBN 0-8298-1322-5

Reviewed by James G. Kirk

 

If you are looking for a book to use this fall with your adult education class, look no further! This is a wonderful resource that lends itself to an eight-week class on "How a Church Can Engage the World."

Book Reviews

Telling the Truth: Preaching about Sexual and Domestic Violence

John S. McClure and Nancy J. Ramsay, eds.
Cleveland. United Church Press.1998. 162 pp. Pb. $15.95
ISBN 0-8298-1282-2

Reviewed by Gail A. Ricciuti

 

This challenging book, a collection of essays emerging from a 1997 Presbyterian Consultation on Preaching and Sexual and Domestic Violence, may be the most helpful resource available on preaching with integrity in the face of the violence that, often invisibly, permeates our congregations.

Book Reviews

The Church as Moral Community: Ecclesiology and Ethics in Ecumenical Debate

By Lewis S. Mudge

Continuum. 1998. 176 pp. $19.95
ISBN 0-8264-1048-0

Reviewed by Clifton Kirkpatrick

 

Lewis Mudge, professor of systematic theology at San Francisco Seminary, is one of the greatest gifts the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shares with the ecumenical movement. His vision and insights, matched by his gracious and generous spirit, have decisively shaped all of the major ecumenical movements in which our church has been engaged for more than a generation.

Book Reviews

Creation and Reality

By Michael Welker

Fortress. 1999. 102 pp. Pb. $13.
ISBN 0-8006-2628-1

Reviewed by Walter Brueggemann

 

Michael Welker, Heidelberg University, is only now becoming known and visible in the United States, both through his publications and his extended residency at Princeton Seminary. He is emerging as a major force in Reformed theology, perhaps destined to be the dominant German figure in Reformed theology as was JŸrgen Moltmann before him.

Book Reviews

Being There: Culture and Formation in Two Theological Schools

By Daniel O. Aleshire, Jackson W. Carroll, Penny Long Marler
and Barbara G. Wheeler.

Oxford . 1997. 299 pp. $35. ISBN 0-19-511493-0

Reviewed by David Steele

 

The book has a snappy title: Being There. I wanted to read it because one of the four authors is Barbara G. Wheeler, president of Auburn Seminary, and I think she has one of the best minds in Christendom.

Book Reviews

Genes, Genesis and God: Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History

By Holmes Rolston III

Cambridge. 1999. 400 pp. $18.95.
ISBN 0-521-64674-x

Reviewed by Donald L. Mykles

 

As a molecular biologist, I have grown to appreciate the complexity of genetic mechanisms underlying biological processes. No one doubts that molecular biology has revolutionized the biological sciences in the 20th century. We know a great deal about how genes are expressed, replicated and transmitted.

Book Reviews

Heart of Flesh: A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men

By Joan D. Chittister

Eerdmans. 1998. 187 pp. $20
ISBN 0-8028-4282-8

Reviewed by Freda Gardner

 

If you are a feminist, female or male, you will find convictions and new insights resonating deep in your being. You will also be challenged to think through again the broader and deeper dimensions of life lived on the basis of feminism rather than the patriarchy that has so long dominated the culture of much of the world.

Voices

Together, As the Church

Through the years, I have said it before Presbyterian churches and governing bodies, I have written it in Presbyterian publications and I continue to believe that the ordained Presbyterian pastor is the front line, the cutting edge of our Presbyterian witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Voices

A Jezebel Sermon for Mother’s Day

So far as I can remember, no young preacher has ever asked me for advice.  This is a real shame because I have had spectacular success in the creation and implementation of bad ideas.  A whole preaching generation could be improved by learning from me what to avoid.

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