My First Meme!

Thanks! I’ve now been tagged with my first meme! This is my entry into the "Best Contemporary Theology Meme," thanks to Strappy. I, too, am looking forward to having you back in February. While I’ll be sheepish, and admit that I have not read ALL of any of these books except "Geography of Faith" and "Amazing Grace," (yet), I’ve read enough excerpts from them that they have come to influence my thinking and my conversations. At this point, I’m looking forward to the years I have ahead of me to further plumb their depths.




Three Contemporary Classics of Theology

"A Black Theology of Liberation" - James Cone (1981)
James Cone, of Union Seminary, took the new and burgeoning field of Latin American Liberation Theology, and found in its cries to the God-of-the-Oppressed a message of hope and sustenance for black, who have been consistently marginalized throughout our nation’s history. He founded the Black Theology movement, which would later inspire the Womanists to investigate the ties between Black Theology and Feminist Theology and find their own identity. An inarguable classic, though a year too old.

"She Who Is" - Elizabeth Johnson (1992)
A former Grawemeyer Award winner, Elizabeth Johnson’s "She Who Is" is one of the essentials of feminist theology, expressing and arguing for use of feminine imagery for God in a way that is grounded in orthodoxy and accessible to the lay reader. It’s already been listed on a few of the other lists, but demands inclusion.

"Terror in the Mind of God" Mark Juergensmeyer (2003)
Another Grawemeyer Award winner, "Terror in the Mind of God" is a comparative study of the doctrines and conditions that create religious violence, including examples from Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Hinduism. As we speak of the rise of "terrorism" and religious violence of all forms, we in the United States have a tendency to focus on the Abrahamic Faiths. Juergensmeyer’s book gives us a strong perspective on those questions, as well as broadening the discussion to include other world religions.


Three Lesser Known Works Everyone Should Read (This the Fun Part!)


"The Geography of Faith" - Daniel Berrigan and Robert Coles (1971)
While technically a decade too old, "Geography of Faith," written in 1971, is too strong of a gem to get put aside. During the months that Daniel Berrigan, Society of Jesus, was underground evading capture by the authorities for acts of civil disobedience in opposition to the Vietnam War, he spent part of his time living in the basement of Robert Coles, the Pulitzer-Prize winning psychologist who had been instrumental in the Civil Rights movement in the South. What arose out of those months was a series of conversations recorded for posterity about the interrelationship between social action, psychology, and a lived theology. Beautifully inspiring.

"Amazing Grace" - Kathleen Norris (1999)
Kathleen Norris, who has become the laureate of mainstream Christian Spirituality through such works as "The Cloister Walk," took a series of the words that make Christianity difficult - words like "salvation," "ecstasy," and "apocalypse," - and created an intensely personal connection to each of them through her anecdotes and explorations of what they mean in her spiritual life. It’s style is clear enough to engage the average member, while profound enough to inspire the headiest theologian.

"Saving Paradise" - Rita Nakashima Brock (2007)
I’m cheating in all sorts of ways today - from the slightly-too-old to the not-yet-published. However, while Brock’s book isn’t due out until August of 2007, I heard her speak at the Voices of Sophia breakfast at the General Assembly this last June, and her upcoming work promises to be as controversial and inspiring as her earlier books. In an effort to dismantle sacrificial models of atonement, Brock stated in her speech....
"(Christians knew) that by his defeat of death and his resurrection, Jesus Christ re-opened the gates of paradise on the earth, especially in the church. Through immersion into earth's waters, which flowed out from paradise, the baptized received the indwelling spirit of God. Jesus became human so we might become divine. The newly baptized gained the power to grow in wisdom together and ascend to God. In the communion feast, paradise could be tasted, seen, and felt in its healing power and joy as it was celebrated with the risen Christ, who joined together the living and the departed in the great feast of life, of Eucharist."

Most of my readers have been tapped already; however, I extend the invitation to share with Kristen, Andrew, Tom, and Will. I can’t wait to see the diversity of the responses that arise!