Brilliant. Rachel Held Evans has made it easy for me to decide what I am going to buy all my family and friends for their birthdays this year. All the way through the book I was thinking 'I must buy this for my Mum', 'this friend would LOVE reading this', 'I've got show this to so and so', etc. The book is funny - hilarious at times - but also poignant, challenging and theologically astute. It manages to entertain and keep you gripped the whole way through, whilst making important points in subtle yet powerful ways about gender equality and 'Biblical Womanhood'.
The premise is straightforward: to spend a year trying to obey all the biblical commands for women in the Bible. It leads her into a great adventure of meeting some interesting (and at times very odd) people, covering her head to pray, calling her husband 'master', staying in a monastery and much more. I loved it. I don't want to write to much about it so as not to spoil the fun for you. And it's not all about the story. The story is just a vehicle for teaching some deep truths in a winsome and easy-to-read manner.
Just one quote for you from this book, I loved this:
'Too many Easter services begin with a man standing before a congregation of Christians and shouting "He is risen!" to a chorused response of "He is risen indeed!" Were we to honour the symbolic details of the text, that distinction would always belong to a woman'.
I have noticed that the author has taken some serious stick from people in the US over this book and the whole project. This is a real shame as we all have lots to learn from her discoveries, whether or not you agree with all her conclusions. Please buy this book, then buy it for everyone you know.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/year-biblical-womanhood-Rachel-Evans/dp/1595553673/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363556562&sr=8-1-spell
Sunday 17 March 2013
What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell
This is Rob Bell's first book since Love Wins. Some people loved Love Wins, some hated it. It certainly created a strong reaction in most people. I felt it was not Rob Bell's best book by a long way, though it did contain some great stuff. With What We Talk About... I think Rob Bell is back with a real cracker. I read it in two days and really enjoyed it. It will be of interest to anyone thinking about issues of faith, whether Christian or not, and will stretch your mind when it comes to thinking about the way the world works and how God interacts with us.
He looks at how God relates to us using three central concepts: With, For and Ahead. God is with us, for us and ahead of us.The first two are basic Christian truths expressed in beautiful and challenging ways as Rob Bell is known for doing. The third reminded me very much of Brian McLaren's book The Story We Find Ourselves In, in describing how God stands in our future, calling us forward into progress and fresh understandings of ourselves and the world. He describes a kind of progressive revelation in how God relates to humanity, bringing restrictions to a barbaric culture and eventually revealing himself fully in Jesus. He uses this to explain some of the apparently barbaric commandments God gives in the Old Testament. This is interesting but only partly convincing.
My favourite chapter was Open, where he gets into a bit of quantum physics, and blows your mind with some crazy facts about universes and atoms, relating it all to how we think about God. For example, 'if all of the empty space was taken out of all the atoms in the universe, the universe would fit in a sugar cube'. That's all well and good Rob, but where would you find a sugar cube when all that empty space has been removed? Seriously though, it is a great chapter and typical of how the author's mind works in brilliant ways.
As ever, some quotes to whet your appetite:
(on science and religion) 'Science does an excellent job of telling me why I don't have a tail, but it can't explain why I find that interesting'
'the same creative bang that formed the universe is unleashed in us through our trust in what God is doing in the world through Jesus'.
'Confession is like really, really healthy vomit. It may smell and get all over the front of your shirt, but you fell better - you feel cleansed - when you're done'.
So get this book, whoever you are, and chat to some other people about it. It's well worth a read. You've done well, Rob Bell.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Talk-About-When-God/dp/0007427336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363552381&sr=8-1
He looks at how God relates to us using three central concepts: With, For and Ahead. God is with us, for us and ahead of us.The first two are basic Christian truths expressed in beautiful and challenging ways as Rob Bell is known for doing. The third reminded me very much of Brian McLaren's book The Story We Find Ourselves In, in describing how God stands in our future, calling us forward into progress and fresh understandings of ourselves and the world. He describes a kind of progressive revelation in how God relates to humanity, bringing restrictions to a barbaric culture and eventually revealing himself fully in Jesus. He uses this to explain some of the apparently barbaric commandments God gives in the Old Testament. This is interesting but only partly convincing.
My favourite chapter was Open, where he gets into a bit of quantum physics, and blows your mind with some crazy facts about universes and atoms, relating it all to how we think about God. For example, 'if all of the empty space was taken out of all the atoms in the universe, the universe would fit in a sugar cube'. That's all well and good Rob, but where would you find a sugar cube when all that empty space has been removed? Seriously though, it is a great chapter and typical of how the author's mind works in brilliant ways.
As ever, some quotes to whet your appetite:
(on science and religion) 'Science does an excellent job of telling me why I don't have a tail, but it can't explain why I find that interesting'
'the same creative bang that formed the universe is unleashed in us through our trust in what God is doing in the world through Jesus'.
'Confession is like really, really healthy vomit. It may smell and get all over the front of your shirt, but you fell better - you feel cleansed - when you're done'.
So get this book, whoever you are, and chat to some other people about it. It's well worth a read. You've done well, Rob Bell.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Talk-About-When-God/dp/0007427336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363552381&sr=8-1
Saturday 2 March 2013
The Pastor by Eugene Peterson
As with all books by Eugene Peterson, I initially found this book difficult to get into. I find that the way he writes forces you to slow down, get into a quiet place, and only then do you really find his writing having an impact on you. And it does have a big impact, especially this book.
Peterson writes in a poetic way, painting vivid pictures in your mind as he tells his story. He revisits similar themes all the way through the book. It is not so much a linear narrative as a piece of classical music, each movement echoing but building on the last. At times you wonder why he is telling a story in so much detail, and then he brings it together in a powerful way. He describes how he became a pastor, having been warned against it by friends, and the gradual and sometimes painful process of realising what his calling involved, and what it did not involve. I loved how the whole thing is soaked in the scriptures, how he uses biblical stories and characters to summarise different key periods in his life and the life of his church.
You really need to read it for yourself, so I'll just give you a couple of quotes to whet your appetite:
(On the church growth movement) "The momentum of what was being termed church growth was gathering... it was more like church cancer - growth that was a deadly illness, the explosion of runaway cells that attack the health and equilibrium of the body"
(On the role of a pastor) "My work is not to fix people. It is to lead people in the worship of God and to lead them in living a holy life"
(Discussing the Christian pursuit of happiness and the next spiritual fix) "our task is to obey -believingly, trustingly obey. Simply obey in a 'long obedience'".
(On pastors being asked for 'pearls of wisdom', and meals as sacramental) "Jesus didn't drop pearls around Galilee for people as clues to find their way to God or their neighbours. He ate meals with them. And you can do what Jesus did. Every evening take and receive the life of Jesus around your table".
Some quite provocative thoughts, obviously you need to read them in context to fully understand where he's coming from, but I hope they will give you a desire to buy and read this book. Get yourself in a quiet room for a couple of hours and just let his well crafted words and paragraphs reach into your soul and create a desire for a more authentic relationship with God and church.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pastor-Eugene-H-Peterson/dp/0061988219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362260047&sr=8-1
Peterson writes in a poetic way, painting vivid pictures in your mind as he tells his story. He revisits similar themes all the way through the book. It is not so much a linear narrative as a piece of classical music, each movement echoing but building on the last. At times you wonder why he is telling a story in so much detail, and then he brings it together in a powerful way. He describes how he became a pastor, having been warned against it by friends, and the gradual and sometimes painful process of realising what his calling involved, and what it did not involve. I loved how the whole thing is soaked in the scriptures, how he uses biblical stories and characters to summarise different key periods in his life and the life of his church.
You really need to read it for yourself, so I'll just give you a couple of quotes to whet your appetite:
(On the church growth movement) "The momentum of what was being termed church growth was gathering... it was more like church cancer - growth that was a deadly illness, the explosion of runaway cells that attack the health and equilibrium of the body"
(On the role of a pastor) "My work is not to fix people. It is to lead people in the worship of God and to lead them in living a holy life"
(Discussing the Christian pursuit of happiness and the next spiritual fix) "our task is to obey -believingly, trustingly obey. Simply obey in a 'long obedience'".
(On pastors being asked for 'pearls of wisdom', and meals as sacramental) "Jesus didn't drop pearls around Galilee for people as clues to find their way to God or their neighbours. He ate meals with them. And you can do what Jesus did. Every evening take and receive the life of Jesus around your table".
Some quite provocative thoughts, obviously you need to read them in context to fully understand where he's coming from, but I hope they will give you a desire to buy and read this book. Get yourself in a quiet room for a couple of hours and just let his well crafted words and paragraphs reach into your soul and create a desire for a more authentic relationship with God and church.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pastor-Eugene-H-Peterson/dp/0061988219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362260047&sr=8-1
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