"The creation of the earth ... The rise and fall of God's chosen people ... The mysterious stranger who brought about a new world order ... And the ultimate showdown between the forces of good and evil ... This is the greatest story ever told ... as you've never seen it before"
Walter Brueggemann
If justice is a world in line with God, then the prophetic imagination is to challenge injustice.
In our affluenza, we all live like Kings nowadays, and all deserve to be challenged by prophetic ministry to bring us back to God.
"Hagar has 'spoken' to generation after generation of black women because her story has been validated as true by suffering black people. She and Ishmael together, as family, model many black American families in which a lone woman/mother struggles to hold the family together in spite of the poverty to which ruling class economics consign it. Hagar, like many black women, goes into the wide world to make a living for herself and her child, with only God by her side."
"All of us, as we age, retire. We retire not just from jobs, but from relationships, ways of thinking, and how we think about ourselves. We move on. We no longer find validation in activities and tasks that have been important to us for decades. We can no longer do the things we used to do. ...
For some, the step through the door is a defined moment: the transition away from employment, learning to live in the empty nest, an unexpected illness, the death of a parent, or the loss of a spouse. Others of us recognize the door only as we look back. We realize that gradual losses have built up in recent years, family dynamics have changed, and we are not getting as many calls for professional input. Whether the step through the door is clear or not, it is always a step into liminal space."
Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourette
Mix together 250 grams cooked wheat berries, 250 grams cooked black lentils, 1 chopped sweet onion, 1 bunch sliced radishes. Dress with 3/4 cup hazlenut oil, 5 tsp lime juice, 1 Tbsp chilli sauce, 2 tsp caraway seeds, 1 tsp paprika. Garnish with 8 chopped Spearmint leaves.
The author of "The Art of Biblical Narrative" and "The Art of Biblical Poetry" continues the quest to provide "the first literary translation of the Hebrew Bible since the King James Version." The immortal stories of David and Goliath, Samuel, Saul, Bathsheba and Solomon will leave you questioning the divine right of kings.
"Servant leadership starts with a vision and ends with a servant heart that helps people live according to that vision."
Devotional traditions of Saint Anne derive from the condemned "Proto-Gospel" (Protoevangelium) of James. In this work Saint Anne has a magnificat of her own.
The saint who brought Christianity to the Ancient world has long seemed to be one of the biggest barriers to accepting Christianity in a post-modern world. Yet if we strip away the blinkers of medieval theology and appreciate Paul in the context of his times, we may find that Paul can reintroduce us to a Christianity that rises to the challenge of the present day and age.
Ronald Rolheiser
"There's a rich spirituality in these principles: Stay inside your commitments, be faithful, your place of work is a seminary, your work is a sacrament, your family is a monastery, your home is a sanctuary."
Sue Birdseye
"In an instant my life became completely foreign to me."
"The problem of abandonment is far more widespread than many people realise, and up until now it has been in the shadows. What does a spouse do when the usual Christian resources about how to fight for your marriage no longer apply? How does one face a spouse's unfaithfulness and desertion with a Christlike perspective, both for one's own sake and, often, for the sake of one's children?"
Mirabai Starr
A priest administering the last rites holds up a crucifix to a young woman on her deathbed. She experiences 16 visions of Jesus . A horror show of pain and agony, blood and gore dominates her visions at first. Out of the suffering comes a revelation of the feminine aspects of the Trinity. At the end of the revelations she awakes in pain but alive. She became the first woman to write a book in English, yet we still do not know her name.
Like so many things in this fallen world, most modern translations of the bible are done by committees. In producing the first "literary" translation of the Hebrew Bible since the King James Version, Robert Alter, Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, seeks to combat the poor English and poor Hebrew he sees in modern translations of the bible by conveying into English the extraordinary power of the imagery, repetition and word plays of the Hebrew text. An extensive commentary illuminates every nuance, allusion and elision of the text.
Youth ministry flounders because "youth, more often than not, reflect the religious commitment of their parents ... we do not have a teenage problem as much as we have an ecclesiasal or entire church problem."
Kathleen O'Connor re-examines Jeremiah in the light of contemporary studies of the survivors of disaster.
"Disasters mortally wound faith and trust. Confidence in God, the world, and other people often dissolve in the wake of trauma, and such profound distrust can persist indefinitely. By itself, suffering does not bring an increase in love or meaning. Radical suffering corrodes trust, traditions and institutions that anchored life firmly before the catastrophe ... ... ... Disasters nearly always demolish faith and trust: they tear down the symbolic firmament that protects the world."
Up until the 1970s, biblical scholarship was dominated by dissolving the bible into its constituent parts. Since then, informed by archaeology, the question has changed to asking how those sources came to be collated and synthesized into the Book of Books. That process may have only reached completion after the destruction of the second temple, in a competition between emerging Christianity and rabbinic Judaism.
Mike McHargue
While a deacon in a fundamentalist evangelical church, Mike McHargue made a mistake. He actually read the bible. Not isolated phrases ripped out of context, but the whole book, cover to cover. The more he read, the less he could believe - in God, his parents, in himself. His evangelical faith collapsed. He became an atheist. One morning at an astronomy conference, Mike was overcome by awe while walking along the beach. Mike found space for the presence of God in the midst of scientific revelation. This book is his journey.
A call for the church to die so it can rise again
Jeremy Myers
"The church is to be a beacon of hope in the darkness, a city set on a hill, the salt that preserves society and culture. But are we really any of these things if the average person in our neighbourhood wouldn't notice if we closed up shop? What has happened that the church, which seeks to be light and salt in the world, has become so insignificant and marginalised?"
"God becomes recognisable as God only at the place of extremity, where no answers seem to be given and God cannot be seen as the God we expect or understand."
Father Ronald Rolheiser examines the scriptures and theology in light of the modern plague of loneliness. The human condition is lonely and estranged from the divine. The 'restless heart' longs to be united in a 'community of life' with God.
We were given / as a gift of god / the possibility of community
Andrew Gant
The past truly is a foreign country. Choral music barely existed outside the high church cathedrals from the height of the reformation, when the monks in Eversham Abbey broke off their evensong in the middle of the Magnificat's 'Deposuet potentes' ('He hath put down the mighty'), to Wesley's hymnody and the Oxford Revival. Traditional psalm singing in the parish churches was considered so marginally religious that it was restricted to before and after the service when the vicar was out 'putting on the habit'. Sumptuous reproductions of the pivotal music highlight the influences of the sacred and profane, continental and insular trends, and political pressure on the development of the Anglican choral tradition.
Mark Steele challenges the evangelical churches that have lost their saltiness with this hilarious confessional tangentially combined with reflections on the moral malaise of modern evangelicalism in America, and the occasional scriptural reference.
"How did modern evangelicalism lose its balance? How did some behaviour fall into an accountability category while other distractions remained unaddressed and therefore socially and religiously acceptable?"
Africa is a vast continent, broad in space, deep in time. In one book, Elizabeth Isichei, professor of religious studies at Otago University, surveys every aspect of the history of Christianity in Africa, from Roman North Africa to the Deeper Life Ministry in post-independence Nigeria. This sturvey seems so comprehensive that there can scarcely be a single inch of the continent or tribal peoples left out.
Yvonne Gentile & Debi Nixon
"Practicing radical hospitality is an art. It requires the conscious use of skill and experience shaped by the radical hospitality we have received from Jesus. When our church, our congregation is truly transformed by this radical hospitality, we can't help but welcome the stranger. And in this, we join God's kingdom mission. It is time to start a movement where God can do great, miraculous things through us and through the church."
Sacred space can still be found in a disenchanted world, embedded in the daily routines of our lives as much as in the daily offices of a medieval monk.
For the last 150 years or so, historical sites in Jerusalem have been excavated by French senators, British soldiers, Seventh Day Adventists, mullahs, rabbis, cafe owners, householders, and even by archaeologists. The continued inability to locate the lost ark of the covenant, the city of David, or Solomon's temple has never stopped anyone trying.
In the focal point of of three world religions, every excavation sets off a storm of religion and politics, where the property owners on the surface may fall victim to subterranean forces.
Being a Christian cannot be about saving up brownie points and going to heaven when we die. Jesus said "Today you will be with me in paradise" - not heaven.
Rather, having witnessed the bodily resurrection of Jesus (in a body that is as wheat is to its seed), we have a job to do: to build God's kingdom 'on earth as it is in heaven'.
Like a stonemason carving a single stone for a cathedral, we join a construction project that began before we were born, we may never glimpse the architect's plans, and we may not live long enough to see the cathedral completed, but our trust in the architect means that our work is not wasted.
Our mission is to join the work to bring about peace, justice, beauty, and the Good News to this world, here, now.
Fresh out of seminary and straight into her church planting at House for all Sinners and Saints, Nadia Bolz-Weber put on one hell of a party: a non-stop 24 hour binge watching Christian Television. In between the bemusement, hilarity and sleep deprivation are some moments of deep reflection and cross-denominational inspiration.
This academic work spans the history of Christianity in the Indian subcontinent from its legendary beginnings to the current day. Christianity isn't just something introduced from elsewhere; particularly in the evangelical and pentecostal movements, Indian Christianities have developed and grown in contrast and relation to Indian Hinduism.
Suzanne G. Farnham, Joseph P. Gill, R. Taylor McLean, & Susan M. Ward
How do we open our hearts to God's call?
"God calls out to us, inviting us to share in the divine life. How can we hear that call? What could hearing it mean as we live day to day? How can we help each other hear God's voice and follow where God leads? "
"Understanding that God calls us to ministry, preparing our hearts and minds to discern God's call, and meeting with others for insight and support helps us to live these questions."
"Thus we gain hearts to listen and respond to God's call."
"I was a stranger and you welcomed me". If we are to live that gospel, we can learn and take inspiration from the monastic communities that show us how to welcome people into our lives, our work, our community, and our church.
Karen Armstrong
Modern biblical scholarship has deconstructed the text of the bible to the point where faith can seem lost. One reaction to this is to insist on the literal truth and accuracy of the bible. Karen Armstrong proposes another: to understand the religious ways in which the bible has been understood across the ages as a living document that speaks to people in the spiritual crises of their day and time.
Phyllis Trible performs a close reading of four of the most horrific passages in the Old Testament. Free translation draws out the poetic structure and literary emphases of the Hebrew text to draw out the voices (and erasure of voices) and lived experiences of women in pivotal events of the bible. While she draws out new meanings of the annunciation, the suffering servant, and Abraham's sacrifice, there is no redeeming story to be found here.
An Eastern Orthodox scholar explores the experience of God across the major world religions.
Elaine Pagels
An examination of the numerous ways in which Christians have interpreted and reinterpreted the story of humanity's expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury explores themes of discipleship that may enhance a Christian life.
An imaginative retelling of the life of Saint Aidan, by the late vicar of Holy Island, Lindisfarne
Alistair Mackenzie and Wayne Kirkland
"What does God have to do with productivity reports and cleaning toilets? Everything. People were designed to work in partnership with God. When you find yourself rightly aligned with God's perspective, your daily work takes on a higher level of excitement and significance. Everything you do can be transformed into an act of worship."
30 daily devotions from the saintly exponent of the "Little Way" to God.
A Palestinian Christian reflects on the Gospels from the experience of living under modern Middle Eastern geo-politics, to present "a theology from and for the Palestinian context," and to "struggle with scripture and its meaning in its original context of permanent occupation."
Rachel Held Evans
Following in the footsteps of AJ Jacobs, the late Rachel Held Evans continues her re-examination of the pillars of her evangelical upbringing in the heart of the Bible Belt: gentleness, domesticity, obedience, valor, beauty, modesty, purity, fertility, submission, justice, silence, and grace.
Exploring other ancient forms of Christianity that developed in Africa, the Middle East, India, and Asia, beyond "western-centric" standard histories of "Nicene" Christianities.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury explores the essential practices of Christian life in the Anglican tradition.
Frances S Collins converted from atheism to Christianiy after witnessing human suffering while practicing as a doctor. Later he was one of the lead scientists on the Human Genome Project. He founded the BioLogos Foundation to bridge the gap between science and religion.
"The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful - and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles."
During evening prayers on the first day of his first visit to Taizé, a woman with a history of mental instability murdered Brother Roger, the founder of Taizé, metres away from Jason Brian Santos.
Santos explores how the community of brothers coalesced around Brother Roger in the post-war period and how they responded to the increasing numbers of young pilgrims visiting the community. The result was the development of a distinctive mix of ecumenical worship and hospitality for young adults.
A war correspondent and professor of journalism travels to Mount Athos seeking healing for his failing marriage and the trauma of covering the Bosnian war.
A lively retelling of the life of Saint Cuthbert, by the late vicar of Holy Island, Lindisfarne
For the last 2000 years, Christians have read and re-read the book of Isaiah in a multiplicity of ways that have informed and reformed their understanding of the gospels.
The former stand up comedian turned pastor continues her trademark combination of Alcoholics Anonymous confessional with Evangelical Lutheranism's focus on the grace of God.
"... what makes us the saints of God is not our ability to be saintly but rather God's ability to work through sinners."
Appalling, heart-rending, and astonishing stories of God's grace breaking into people's lives despite them rather than because of them.Â
An Eastern Orthodox scholar attempts to convey the feeling of what it is like to read the Koine Greek of the New Testament, doggedly avoiding any theological niceties, to present a New Testament in the raw.
As an adolescent growing up in the heart of the Bible Belt, calling herself "evangelical" signified that she found the Southern Baptists too staid and left-wing. A crisis of faith in young adulthood led the late Rachel Held Evans on a journey that ultimately lead her to ... Anglicanism.
Thomas C. Oden explores Coptic church traditions about St Mark and his early life in Libya. Oden then re-examines in the light of these traditions, exploring Mark's relationship to the Last Supper, Pentecost, and missionary travels.
"Why do we expect justice? Why do we crave spirituality? Why are we attracted to beauty? Why are relationships often so painful? And how will the world be made right? These are not simply perennial questions all generations must struggle with, but, according to NT Wright, the very echoes of a voice we dimly perceive but deeply long to hear. In fact, these questions take us into the heart of who God is and what He wants from us."
The Visual Bible Experience
Jeff White collaborated with 17 illustrators to produce an illustrated bible for adults, retelling the classic bible stories from the perspective of the leading characters.
"... become an eyewitness to God's story in your life."
Rowan Williams
Is there a place for Christian theology in public policy debates? The former Archbishop of Canterbury traverses topics ranging from secularism to the climate crisis, economics, justice and multiculturalism to demonstrate where communities of faith contribute a vital and necessary perspective to political debate.
AJ Jacobs
What begins as a journalistic stunt of taking biblical prohibitions literally (don't wear clothes of mixed fibres) becomes a fascinating engagement with people who do try to do exactly that, with the religion of his forefathers, and with the discipline of daily prayer.
Dunn challenges the "literary bias" in most historical treatments of the gospels ignoring the prior oral transmission that had to be involved. This must have begun in Jesus's mission in Galilee and particularly in his instruction of the disciples. It must have been maintained within communities of faith. Oral tradition would best explain the roots of both the commonalities and the differences between the synoptic gospels.
A scientist of faith grapples with and rebuts many common smears against Christianity.
In an age of Wikipedia untruths and misinformation can become commonly known facts. David Bentley Hart unravels and corrects more misinformation about Christianity than you ever knew existed.
The message of Easter is the universal salvation of all humanity. "God will be all in all". Eastern Orthodox theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart doubles down on his New Testament translation by challenging major streams of theology derived from Saint Augustine that play on eternal hellfire and damnation.
James H. Cone
"The lynching tree - so strikingly similar to the cross on Golgotha - should have a prominent place in American images of Jesus' death. But it does not. In fact, the lynching tree has no place in American theological reflections about Jesus' cross or in the proclamation of the Christian churches about his Passion. The conspicuous absence of the lynching tree in American discourse and preaching is profoundly revealing, especially since the crucifixion was clearly a first-century lynching."
A collection of prayers by the late rector of Holy Island, David Adam, illustrated with contemplative photographs in and around Lindisfarne.
The Nazareth Community at St Martin-in-the-Fields is a reimagining of monastic disciplines and work, here, in our lives, now. The disciplines include silence, prayer, contemplation, lectio divina, liturgy, sacrament, service, hospitality, sabbath.
When we feel abandoned and alone, we may need someone who will walk with us, not talk at us and give answers, but simply listen and walk. That is the grief walk, and it is what is needed to help us live through the many tragedies that cut across life.
"... on Monday morning, you're back at work with all its regular assignments, deadlines and obstacles, and the Sunday sermon about God, faith, His kingdom, and Jesus becomes a distant memory."
This book explores various biblical passages, theological insights and self-reflection that might help bridge the gap between Sunday and Monday.
"How can we recover the depth and power of the Bible in the twenty-first century?"
Publish a sumptuous bible with multitudinous commentaries providing "a chorus of voices from the great theological and spiritual tradition", lavishly illuminated with the great masterpieces. All "designed to appeal to nonbelievers, searchers, and those with far more questions about religion than answers."
Karen Armstrong
"... one small act of kindness can turn a life around."
Armstrong examines the Golden Rule in the major world religions and how that might lead us to becoming more compassionate to others and to ourselves.
Nadia Bolz-weber
A heavily tattooed standup comic struggling with sobriety goes to seminary school....
When one of the members of her Alcoholics Anonymous group committed suicide, Nadia was asked to take the memorial service as being the only "religious" person any of them knew. She found her calling. After ordination, she founded a church.
Rowan Williams addresses the things worth treasuring in the Chronicles of Narnia series: "The possibility Lewis still offers of coming across the Christian story as if for the first time." ... "How do you make fresh what is thought to be familiar, so familiar that it doesn't need to be thought about? Try making up a world in which these things can be met without preconceptions, a world in which the strangeness of the Christian story is encountered for what it is, not as part of a familiar eccentricity of behaviour called religion."
A practising scientist and member of one of the three Abrahamic faiths questions how he as a scientist - or anyone living in the modern world - can adhere to faith while living in a scientific world.
Leunig
A book of prayers and cartoons originally published in Melbourne's Sunday Age newspaper.
"When we fall, let us fall inwards. Let us fall freely and completely: that we may find our depth and humility: the solid earth from which we may rise up and love again."
"You have a responsibility to womanhood on the planet to be all that you were created to be .... The princess chick, the warrior chick, the champion chick, the friend chick, the party chick, the lover chick, and the whatever-it-takes chick all reside in you. You are woman, and you were put on the planet for 'such a time as this'. Now is your time".
Joy Cowley
A book of modern meditations drawing on the Christian traditions of devotion, simplicity, discipline, service, surrender, trials, courage, growth, healing, prayer.
"Give whenever you can / The greatest gifts in life / cannot be bought with money ...
The richest people on earth / are those who give / themselves away."
Rowan Williams
A fresh and inspiring look at the letters of Paul. Rowan Williams discusses such things as how important his Roman citizenship was to Paul, and how astonishing and challenging were such concepts as the equality of master and slave in Christianity.
Kathy Coffey
"When John said that if all the things Jesus did were recorded, the world itself could not contain all the books, he might have meant the stories of these women".
A Study in the Origin of the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels
Etienne Trocme
If the core of the gospels was transmitted by a community of faith, how did they preserve memory until it could be written as history?
Etienne Trockme performs a close reading of the four gospels detecting a passion liturgy as a common source between them, developed in early Christian commemorations held at the time of the annual Passover celebrations in Jerusalem.
An elegiac travel diary as the renowned historian travels through Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Syriac, Marionite, and Coptic communities from Mt Athos through the Middle East to the birthplace of monasticism in the Egyptian desert.
An electrifying new translation of the Gospel of St Mark. Laid out chapter by chapter with the commentary as footnotes.
J Ruka
The modern church needs to become a missionary church in its own country. That will require a change from sending missionaries like soldiers to a foreign country to re-evaluating the treasures that are already here.
Finding a way for young people to nurture personal faith & know God
He Karakia Mihinare o Ao
Geoffrey Haworth
A surprisingly interesting explanation of the making of the Anglican Prayer Book in New Zealand.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a famous discovery but we know less about them than we may think.
Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago
Meditations for the young and old
Covers modern scholarship on the formation of the bible and how it has been used and understood by various faiths over time, such as the early Christian Church