The Little Friar

American politics exhausts me.  All the bullying, the fracturing, the angry mobs.  I feel like I'm standing at the bottom of a lot of hills, each with their own, unique Tower of Babel, from which the occupants shout at me about building our own way to heaven.  "Look at the facts and go with us!" I've grown fairly deaf to all that noise, but as soon as someone claims Jesus to be part of their mob, my ears perk up.  And I get angry.  Angry enough that I have to cry foul.  Every Tower seems to think they have their own personal Jesus inside.  Just do your own search for "Jesus is a ..." and you'll see what I mean.  Jesus was a libertarian, a communist, a republican, a democrat, an anarchist, a baseball fan.  Every time this happens I think the infamous picture of Jesus invoked by the KKK at a rally in Portland. Give me an argument in favor of some particular issue in American politics and I'll probably tune you out.  But mention "Jes...

Carolyn Custis James' Finding God in the Margins provides a fresh look at the Book of Ruth.  She takes the three main characters of the story -- Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz -- and weaves together a reading of the text that helps us follow the characters in their discovery of hesed , that beautiful notion of sacrificial covenant love that is at the heart of the Hebrew Bible.  This is a love that surpasses circumstances, grief, power structures and culturally-appropriated roles.  It's a love that is other-focused, selfless, and the love we are all called to demonstrate as followers of the covenant God of Israel. James helps us read with fresh eyes one of the smallest books of the Old Testament, in a way that makes it far more than a simple romantic story about a woman and her new-found husband.  Instead, this story is a richly textured one that parallels the biblical story of Job, harkening all the way back to the Garden of Eden and looking forward to an earth filled ...

Jake Owensby's A Resurrection Shaped Life:  Dying and Rising on Planet Earth invites its readers to experience the fullness of the life of faith -- only getting to resurrection once we've admitted that death, pain and grief are real forces acting on our lives.   A Resurrection Shaped Life is a deceptive little book.  It's only six chapters, each with a set of reflection questions at the end, that give the reader the opportunity to mine deeply the truths contained within.  But those six chapters pack so much transformation!  Like a beautiful Burial Office service, Owensby bookends the difficult, but rewarding, work of redeeming grief and shame through the power of the resurrection with a stunningly powerful prelude and postlude.  If you're prone to skipping the prologue and epilogue of a text, take note that these seem to be intentionally named differently in order to invite you in to an experience of the Holy.  In that same vein, Owensby ...

Linda Rooks' Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated: A Practical Guide for the Brokenhearted is an incredibly wise book, filled with the spiritual wisdom of one who knows what it's like to live in that particular hell.  She and her husband endured the pain and confusion and disconnection of a separation in the mid-90s.  And in that tumult, Rooks gained a rich spiritual wisdom of what it's like for Christians to fight for our marriage when it seems to be breaking apart. Couples who need the down-to-earth biblical perspective that leads toward a life-giving marriage need this book!  Chapter 14, "Learning to live with the same spouse in a new marriage", is perhaps the most-gripping of the entire book.  ______________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

Deborah Simmons-Roslack and Linda Orber have given us a genuine gift in their new book, Love, God .  It's an imaginative collection of love letters in the form of a meditative guide. Whether or not we consider ourselves religious, Simmons-Roslak and Orber argue that each of us, deep down, is hoping to be touched by God.  Even so, the vast majority of us have inadvertently created barriers that keep us from recognizing the presence of God in our lives -- even those of us who are actively searching for him:  "Confused feelings of unworthiness, self-doubt and fear of divine retribution all create a smoke screen in which we attempt to hide our hearts and vulnerability from our very Source".  With Love, God , they hope to help readers dissipate that fog to allow for a clear channel for communication with the divine.  The book comprises 63 sections designed to get readers into the right mindset for receiving God's missives. Each begins with a quote from a promin...

Darrell Smith's Faith Lies: Seven Incomplete Ideas that Hijack Faith and How to See Beyond Them unravels what a fresh perspective on the Bible and a healthier view of faith might look like for those whom Scripture and faith have been hijacked by fundamentalism.  In this beautiful, extremely accessible book, Smith takes an explorative journey in faith and spiritual life.  Instead of simply providing answers, it encourages its reader to ask questions and open conversations that will strengthen their faith and deepen their relationship with God and with one another.  Through this approach, the book will challenge beliefs and thought processes.  It will also encourage being critically honest with inherited faith stories and doctrines, to shake things up and open the opportunity for discovery. This is a journey of discovery Smith himself knows well.  A teacher, writer, and an aspiring integral theologian, Smith's deep insights, knowledge and wisdom have c...

I read Trish Warren's response to the fiasco around Nadia Bolz-Webber's commissioning of a vagina sculpture with a great degree of affinity.  After all, Bolz-Webber is rather late to this game. But Warren's essay for Christianity Today's website, posted on social media, elicited one memorable "throwing the book" response:  Taking umbrage with the liturgy of the Churching of Women.  The interlocutor's only exposure was the proudly secular Masterpiece series Victoria, when the young queen seems to be forced into a degrading ritual of repentance after the birth of her first child.  This person, battling the same complicated portrait of sexuality that so many women have experienced over the years, prickled at the implication that bearing children required some kind of forgiveness by the Church.  Of course, that's exactly what the plot device was meant to do in this episode, but it's a far cry from the intention of the liturgy, or even its general un...

It's hard to believe that 19 winters have passed, but this is the hymn I insisted we sing all those years ago at the funeral for Michelle and Linda.  It's on my mind today because Psalm 91 -- one of the most pregnant psalms for my spiritual imagination -- was chosen for the psalter today.  Typically, this is the one hymn I'm most often asked to sing as a solo.  I've never been quite sure, but I'd imagine it's because this hymn is one of my absolute favorites.

As a student, I lived through the crisis in Southern Baptist life around the ordination of women for pastoral ministry.  It was that time as a student at Carson-Newman that I came face-to-face with the reality that the SBC wasn't the ecclesial home to which God had called me.  (If you're not aware of those days and that struggle, I recommend this documentary as well as Bill Leonard's book, God's Last and Best Hope .)  At that time, one of the driving questions -- though it was more a symptom of the cancer of biblical literalism as the only theological authority in the Church and that horrible idea of biblical innerancy -- this issue was one of the big ones ripping apart the fellowship of Christians as well as tearing at the souls of very gifted, called women I happened to know as a student.  So I never took the question lightly:  Does the Bible really affirm women's full participation in the Church? Now, I've read the New Testament several times.  And ...

In my student days, one of those books that made a difference -- if not the book that made the difference -- in how I think about gender in the Church was Stanley Grenz's Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry .  He and Denise Kjesbo laid out the best argument for egalitarianism I've ever read.  Most folks make those arguments around the issue of justice (those are legitimate issues, don't get me wrong, but I don't think they're as strong as some of my progressive friends might think).  Grenz made the argument around the issue of Jesus .  When you combine egalitarianism with Gary Thomas' notion of marriage as spiritual formation ( Sacred Marriage ), there's an interesting perspective about marriage that most folks -- even those within the Church -- don't appreciate.  Ponder this for a moment.  What sort of marriage is best positioned to form us into the image of Jesus? Jesus washes the disciples feet and says, "Do th...

I keep reading and hearing internet posts and comments that the reason we have so many problems in ___ (fill in the blank with the appropriate institution in question) is that we have taken God out of them.  The idea is suggested that if we once again allow (or even mandate) prayer in ___ (or if we could teach creation in schools or if we could do other things to bring God back into the classroom, etc.), these problems would be solved.  I'm a pastor.  And I don't want God put back in the schools. Here's why. First off, I always want to know which God we're invoking.  Let's face it, among the various Christian denominations and non-Christian religions, there are all sorts of different views of God.  Do we mean some "God" in general?  (That would seem to be the idea that Thomas Jefferson, et al., certainly had.)  The Jesus of the Bible?  Allah?  The life force of some other religion? When someone says we have to put God back in s...

Over twenty years ago now, as a student, I developed one of my major works around the thesis that the liturgy -- in particular, daily prayer and the church year -- is perhaps the greatest untapped resource for congregational renewal that churches have, and I utilized John Wesley's Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America as an expression of how that might look for particular congregations.  In that thesis, I argued that Lent, not Advent, was the proper beginning of the church year. Congregations that live comfortably in North America need Lent more often than they know, and pastors are uniquely placed to reclaim the season in a congregation's spiritual life.  Of all the seasons in the Church's calendar, none preaches more forcefully against bourgeois complacency.  Lent spurns contentment, celebrates self-discipline, and sanctifies self-knowledge.  We all need Lent more than we know. Sadly, too many clergy are confused -- or worse, lazy.  They coddle...

Brian McLaren and Gareth Higgins' new "children's" book, Cory & the Seventh Story (illustrated by Heather Lynn Harris), is one of the most beautiful stories I've read this year.  For those who grow up and live in a violent world, Cory learns a new story, "the seventh story", the story of the world in which there is enough love to transform everything and everyone into a bigger world. "This is the truth", Cory the racoon says, "There is no them.  We are all part of one great, big, beautiful, wonderful us".  And that good news makes all the difference in the world. The temptation, in reviewing this book, is to say more.  But I'm resisting that temptation.  Because I believe you, dear reader, deserve to hear that seventh story straight from Cory. Anything else I might say would diminish the story itself. ______________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

Christie Purifoy's Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace is one of the most important works on the sacramental sense of place that I've ever read.  Purifoy blends her love of place and beauty into a part memoir, part spirituality of place.  It is, quite simply, a beautiful book that refreshes readers' soul as well as helps readers to see their own places as spaces for the Spirit in our daily lives. Placemaker explores fundamental questions of community and belonging, and helps us to embrace those questions in our own lives, in our own places. ___________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

Robert Cherry's Jewish and Christian Views of Bodily Pleasure: Their Origins and Relevance in the Twentieth-Century explores, with such scholarly depth, the way in which the Jewish and Christian views about the body and bodily pleasure arose in the ancient world -- as well as the complicated ways in which those views have found expression in the modern world. It's a fascinating, exquisite reading, that covers what the spirituality of pleasure looked like to both religions, and the way in which they interacted with one another.  Biblical scholars and pastors will find Cherry's research thorough and helpful in so many ways.  It's a thought-provoking reading that kept me reading. ______________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

James Krueger's The Disfiguration of Nature:  Why Caring for the Environment is Inherently Conservative explores environmentalism without falling into the traps of most of the -isms often associated with it.  The goal here is the preservation of nature, not the collapse of modern American political debate.  Krueger is right to ground that preservation, at least for Christians of whatever political stripe, in our love for God and for others.  That love, at its heart, serves with others (con-serves) in order to preserve our world as a common, shared one. In the end, however, Krueger falls into the very traps he wants to avoid, by bringing in subjects -- like abortion -- that are so radically nuanced in ways he fails to appreciate.  It's those traps that make this book one that, while certainly a step forward, cannot help but be a brief advance in the discussions. _____________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for ...

Rob & Stephanie Green's Tying Their Shoes: A Christ-Centered Approach to Preparing for Parenting prepares parents -- both those who are new and those who are welcoming additional children into their families -- with a Christ-centered, hopeful book filled with pastoral wisdom.  It's an unparalleled resource that gives so many resources.  Each of them grounded in the Gospel -- grounding families in their relationship with the Risen Christ. And in a culture where so many parental situations require that wisdom, the Greens offer a father and mother's perspectives.  They cover so many different topics -- including the goal, blessings and pressures of married life as parents -- that help couples stare, with the clear truth of the Gospel, into the realities of parenthood with the cautious hope of life in the Spirit. This is a book that every parent should have and read often! _______________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange f...

Marin Mosebach's The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs is a compelling modern hagiography of the contemporary lives of Coptic Christians.  After watching a video of the 2015 beheading of 21 Coptic men in Libya by ISIS, Mosebach decided to travel to Egypt, where the victims were from.  He visited the men's families and homes as well as holy sites to unravel how these men could so peacefully accept death.  He gives the Copts personalities (in the way that classic hagiography has always done) and explains why they exposed themselves to the dangers of Libya in order to find work in the oil sector there. His account of the lives of these 21 men, as well as the Coptic Christians' memorialization of them as "saints", provides some of the most compelling accounts of Eastern Christianity for those outside the Middle East.  The 21 ends with a reflection on the nature of martyrology in the Christian faith that really cannot be ignored -- particularly ...