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Home > Resources > Recommended Reading
From a review at Zimbabwe's
Cry for Justice: "Torture is the act of an oppressive State to assume mastery and
control over bodies. It is one part of the State’s liturgy of power,
where participants are scripted into a drama of obedience to the
sovereign claims of the governing authorities. Eucharist is the Church's
response to torture, where bodies are given over to God and incorporated
into the Church's liturgy of love and sacrifice. The Eucharistic ethic
includes re-membering those bodies who have been 'disappeared,'
silenced, imprisoned, tortured and murdered.... In Torture and Eucharist,
William T. Cavanaugh describes the situation of the
Catholic Church in Chile under the Pinochet regime, 1973-1990.
The parallels with the situation in Zimbabwe are frightening."
This insightful work explores the
changing conception of God’s character over a three-hundred year period
in American history. Jenkins centers his discussion on the attempts
by various American theologians, preachers and writers to understand
God’s anger as expressed in the Bible. For the more sentimental types,
wrath portrayed in the character of God was considered unbecoming, while
restraint and serenity and love
exhibited the heroic ideal. The only way to understand the Biblical
passages which demonstrated something otherwise was to view such texts
in the Bible as an accommodation to the Israelites primitive state and
undeveloped world view.
Ron Powers, Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore, St. Martin's Press, 2001 A murder mystery, courtroom drama, autobiography, social
analysis, and literary reflection all wrapped up in one riveting
narrative of small town life in America’s hometown of Hannibal, MO.
Powers probes the loss of "social
capital", the breakdown of the family, the erosion of community, the
spike in violence, and the vulnerability of children in America’s cities
and towns. The book is reminder that our character is nurtured in the soil
of places that are found on a road atlas and by people whose names are
listed in the phone book.
Scott Cairns, Philokalia: New and Selected Poems, Zoo Press, 2002 When we read the Bible we discover that God is not only concerned
with what is said but with how something is said. The writers of the
individual books make extensive use of literary artistry to communicate
their messages. There are riddles and paradoxes, metaphors and
alliterations. There are puns and parables. And then there is poetry.
Lots of it. Scott Cairns's latest work, Philokalia, is a collection of
poems similar in approach to the midrashic tradition of the rabbis, a
meditative reading of the ancient texts of the Bible. Cairnes's poems
locate the good and the beautiful within the landscape of creation.
Buechner interacts with four major writers (Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mark Twain, G. K. Chesterton, and William Shakespeare) and describes their individual struggles to bear the weight of great sadness. Buechner discovers in the words of these "vein-opening writers" a courageous attention to the tragedy of human life.
Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, Canon Press, 2003 Against Christianity is a ripsaw, a
crowbar, a jackhammer. Leithart’s book cuts through the facade of
"Christianity," aiming to let in some gospel light.
Similar in form to
Pascal’s Pensees and Hammarskjold’s Markings, similar in mood to
Kierkegaard’s Attack on Christendom, Leithart’s small book sets its
drill bit firmly into the brick of some wrong-headed notions that
obscure the Church’s identity and mission.
Our default worldview says Church and State are two separate realms with
two separate jurisdictions and "never the twain shall meet." The
Church should concern herself with
things private, interior, spiritual and heavenly. The State should
concern itself with things public, external, material and earthly. N.T. Wright asks, what
happens if we rethink the Church’s identity and
mission by returning to the witness of the New Testament?
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