Books
Spiritual Abuse
Every week, as a counselor, I come across victims of ‘spiritual abuse.’ The following is offered as a first-draft attempt to promote discussion on a very common problem… ‘Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction’ (Pascal). ‘If the divine call does not make us better, it […]
Eugene Peterson
Book Review/Essay: Eugene Peterson, ‘Take and Read: Spiritual Reading – An Annotated List’, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996. So you’ve got a good Bible (my choice: the HarperCollins NRSV Study Bible), a concordance, and a set of Bible commentaries. What next? Most of us buy what our pastor or friends recommend. This can lead to ‘tunnel […]
A Workbook For Church Leaders
Ross Kingham & Robin Pryor, Out of Darkness – Out of Fire, A Work-Book for Christian leaders under pressure, Melbourne: JBCE, 1988, $14-95. This is a book about stress in ministry. People not in pastoral ministry wonder why clergy are stressed. They preach one or two homilies a week whereas teachers give up to 30 […]
The Problem Of Pain
(Apart from the Bible, C.S.Lewis’ The Problem of Pain is the only book I can remember reading five times. This essay comprises the gist of the work. This apologetic classic ought to be read alongside Lewis’ later work, A Grief Observed. The first book was written from his head, the second from his heart (after […]
Saints: Two Good Devotional Books
‘Saints remind us of Jesus. They see Jesus in every human being – asserting, quite simply, that all are created in the image of God [so] there’s something of Jesus in everyone… They delight in doing humbler tasks for others – unseen often, but known to God. They have a cavalier disregard for status, wealth […]
Four Books By George Barna
George Barna has become for the Western churches in the 1980s and 1990s what Alvin Toffler was for Western society: the cataloguer of new directions, discerner of trends, the mentor for leaders on ‘where we go from here’… His MARKETING THE CHURCH, (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1988) asked a lot of interesting questions not often on […]
SDA Bible
I could be wrong, but there seems to be something seriously sacrilegous about a new Seventh Day Adventist translation of the Bible: ‘The Clear Word Bible’ by Jack J. Blanco (published 1994, printed and distributed by Review and Herald Publishing Association, 55 West Oak Ridge Drive, Hagerstown MD 21740. ISBN 0-8280-0858-2). [‘Sacrilege’ – n., […]
The Preaching Life
Here’s something from our clergy/leaders’ mail-list. Feel free to join us! BOOK REVIEW: The Preaching Life by Barbara Brown Taylor (Massachusetts: Cowley Publications, 1993). Have you ever had a ‘prophetic serendipitous’ experience? Occasionally I’ve read a book which no one recommended, about which I saw no reviews, but I felt something of an ‘aha’ experience: […]
Sexual Abuse
Neil and Thea Ormerod, When Ministers Sin: Sexual Abuse in the Churches, Sydney: Millennium Books (EJ Dwyer Pty Ltd), 1995. Heather McClelland, The Almond Tree: Child Sexual Abuse and the Church (Stories from Country Victoria), self-published (PO Box 3 California Gully, 3556), 1995. Sexual abuse is the ‘Jericho Road’ issue of our time. Women (and […]
Journeys To Justice
Book Review: Philip Hunt, *Journeys to Justice*, HarperCollinsReligious, 1996. This book is a raconteur’s commentary on Dom Helder Camara’s famous line: ‘When I give to the poor they call me a saint; when I ask "why are they poor?" they call me a communist.’ Philip Hunt’s aim is to convince us that aid and development, […]
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