Author: ppadmin

Reviewed by Dale Roberts

When Mary Lou Williams converted to Catholicism in the 1950s she turned away from her career as a jazz musician, thinking that music played in bars had no place in the realm of the spirit. She came to realize that, as her friend Duke Ellington said, “Every man prays in his own language, and there is no language God does not understand.” Williams and Ellington were among the first jazz artists to write sacred music in the jazz idiom and perform jazz in churches.

Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs, 1910 – May 1981) was an African-American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger whose career spanned the history of jazz from early swing through the big band era, bebop, and beyond. She stood in the first rank of jazz pianists. She wrote and arranged music for Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and other bandleaders.

Reviewed by Dale Roberts

All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. —Mark Twain

Why bother talking with people at the other end of the political or theological spectrum? We already know what they think. They’re wrong. They won’t listen to reason. They view the world askew. They march mindlessly in lockstep behind partisan ideologues and extremists.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

Smith’s book is an intriguing extended metaphor, using weaving as a central lens of understanding.  Weaving is an art, an expression of our time, and Smith uses the components of weaving as illustration, as an organizing image in women’s lives:  weaving, loom, warp, weft.  Weaving:  interlocking threads to create joyful instances of textures and colours.  Loom: keep threads in order and under tension.  Warp: binding together differing threads.  Weft:  the most prominent threads.  This is Smith’s extended metaphor for preaching.

Smith believes there is some ‘qualitative distinctiveness surrounding the preaching of feminist women (p 9); there is a distinctive quality to women’s preaching (p11).  Women use more images and more stories than men do.  ‘The texts women choose are less abstract and more related to everyday life/ (p 12); they are more creative and imaginative in dealing with the text.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

This book looks at sermons and the changing perspectives; the writer, Ray Bystrom, has taught homiletics (the theological name for sermons) at several colleges and shares both the descriptions of sermons past as well as the approach today, and as pastor had  to practise what he preached!.  He does so through an analysis of our culture and an examination of three major homileticians:  Frederick Craddock, Eugene Lowry and George Buttrick. 

In the treatment of each, he devotes a chapter that includes a theology of the person featured, a sample and an analysis of a sermon preached by the person, a description of the approach, and an evaluation of the method.  Bystrom states that most North American preaching is ‘discursive’:  built on argument and organized by points and propositions; the sermon is frequently little more than the three burdensome logical points with helpful illustrations designed to relieve the minds of those trying to follow the preacher’s logic (p 1).  ‘Preachers need to move beyond ‘three points and a poem’ (p 3).  In place of the discursive model, Bystrom encourages the inductive and the narrative approaches.  Preoccupation with the sermon as argument meant that attention was focused on content and not on form, even though the focus of the early church’s sermons was narrative, not ‘discursive’.  Once the  church moved into the Hellenistic world, a reflective shape became the construct of preaching, a discursive structure (p 10). 

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture has dominated the discussion of the relation between Christian faith and ‘secular’ culture.  The discussion has been based the awareness that theology always stands at the crossroads of decision:  either to serve Christ and His church, of to fall prey to a private religious expression, some fashionable philosophy, moral crusade of political ideology (p 7).  Niebuhr’s position is the doctrine of the two kingdoms, the belief that Christians are simultaneously saints and sinners, what Niebuhr called ‘Christ and culture in Paradox’.  The Lutheran concept of the two kingdoms speaks against the cultural accommodation of theology, the paradoxical vision provides correctives to two possible dangers:  a ‘Christianization of society’, remaking the world into the image of the church, or an ‘acculturization of the church’, remaking the church into the image of the world.

Menugo’s book speaks to three major themes.  One. The identification of alternative approaches to Christ and culture, clarifying Lutheran perspectives.  Two.  The dialogue between Christ and culture as It applies to social issues (war, evangelism).  Three.  The institutions of the church, with specific attention to worship and the educational structure of the church.  (This is particularly cogent for church colleges and seminaries.)

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

This well-balanced volume looks at the key facets of significant interaction between religion and culture.  Religion’ may refer to the religious traditions (Buddhism , Judaism).  Or it may refer to symbols and meanings, values.  ‘Culture’ is the interaction of the political dimensions, a vital public arena where social debates are encouraged and may contribute to preserving democracy and preventing mass destruction (p xviii).  Religious pluralism may be the key, the public spaces for face to face communications.  Religion and Culture is a compilation of essays (from a Lutheran perspective) dealing with three spaces where religion and culture are performed:  peace building, as it creates communities; the dome and domestic space; contemporary art.

Six essays outline religion and culture in the space of politics (key areas sketched here are science, women and peace building).  ‘Sometimes it is religion that creates or reinforces women’s suffering, and sometimes it is religion that provides the antidote and the opportunity for freedom’ (p 110).  Another six essays examine religion and culture in the space of ethics. Fascinating conceptualization here:  the religious ethics of capitalism, education, children, death.  The final seven essays describe a third space that Hecht calls aesthetic, where there is greater creative freedom:  visual art, music, film. 

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

Here is a helpful look at our worship time together, by Willimon, for many years Minister to Duke University and now bishop in the Methodist church.  From his knowledge and personal experience he stresses that the form and substance of worship if a whole, and sketches the biblical and pastoral components of the ordo:  Gathering, Confession, Praises, Scripture, Sermon, Creed, Intercession, the Lord’s Supper, Sending Forth.  A very useful adjunct to Willimon is "An Educational Gide," prepared by John Westerhoff, a resource for group study and discussion that implements Willimon’s material.

Of special interest to me were his comments about greeting, talking and silence in the time leading to the more ‘official’ worship.  Announcements should be made here in the pre-service, and be made by laypersons rather than by the pastor.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

Gushee tells his story, of finding faith and struggling with spirituality, whose commitment to Jesus puts him at odds with American evangelicalism.  Still Christian tells of his pilgrimage from personal faith found on a Baptist church parking lot as a teenager to studies and teaching in five seminaries and several inter-church social action groups.  His story relates to a wide range of religious probing:  the Southern Baptist Convention controversy; mainline liberalism and radicalism; American conservative and progressive evangelicalism; life as an academic in both secular and Christian institutions; Christian engagements with politics; national media; fights over specific issues such as abortion, climate, torture, women’s participation in church structures and LGBT inclusion (xv). 

He became a Southern Baptist as a teenager, discovered Protestantism at liberal seminars, got a teaching gig at a conservative seminary, got involved in environmental and anti-torture activism, change his mind about gay people (xi).  The discipline of journaling helped create accuracy and perspective.