This month’s recommended reading spotlights a number of pieces to help you start the new year off right! Take a look at the titles below to inspire new energy in this new year.
Delilah in Gaza
March 2023 Poetry Selection
You have heard of Samson and the wreckage of pillars.
Listen to me. Samson had the strength of a giant and the soul of a brute...
You have heard of Samson and the wreckage of pillars.
Listen to me. Samson had the strength of a giant and the soul of a brute...
Oh Love, Come Close: A Memoir
Oh Love, Come Close is a deeply personal reflection on one woman’s journey to confront her chronic depression and its underlying causes.
A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself...
"A Year of Biblical Womanhood" is not just for women. Dan Evans is characterized in the book as a partner who trusts, supports, and respects his wife. Dan’s example is a reminder that one does not enact “biblical womanhood” in a vacuum; it is always a performance in relationship and community.
Personal Transformation and a New Creation
By shifting our concept of the universe as static to “an unfinished universe in the act of becoming,” we gain hope. We see a way forward “to an ultimate evolutionary convergeance of consciousness and love.".
New Heaven, New Earth: The Final Vision: Revelation 21:1–22:5
Lesson 35: “The city is also the people, gathered from all over the world, collectively to become the wife of the Lamb. And a tender, motherly God says, ‘I will be their God and they will be my children’ (Rev. 21:7). No wonder this passage is so often read at funerals!”
“A Permeable Life” by Carrie Newcomer
It’s like a sweet cup of a caramel macchiato. The silence of the first snowfall. A porch swing on a perfect spring day. A breeze carried from the surf across your beach blanket. These are the inviting images that came to me as I listened to Carrie Newcomer’s newest album, A Permeable Life. This is Newcomer’s twelfth album, and it will not disappoint those of us who enjoy her music.
Thanksgiving Day For Christians, Jews, and Muslims
"The time for enmity is over... few non-Muslims know that Islam considers reconciling with people to be better than many acts of worship. "
Elizabeth Nordquist shares“wisdom by starlight” for the new year.
Yesterday, many churches celebrated Epiphany, marking the 12th day after Christmas and the visit of the Wise Ones who followed a star to the newborn Jesus. In this reflection from her "A Musing Amma" blog for the Progressive Christian channel on Patheos, Elizabeth Nordquist shares what she calls “a template of questions by which to navigate the fresh, new days ahead.”
The Word Became Flesh and Lived among Us
Lesson 16 - "Perhaps one reason I find this analogy meaningful is because I relate to Jesus more as a human and less as a divine figure whose feet rarely touch the ground. Becoming flesh is the point of 'Immanuel—God with us.' Too often Christians see primarily the inaccessible divinity of Jesus, and thus cannot follow him in life. As a result, they miss the point of the downward thrust of Incarnation."
Women and Transitions: A New Year’s Reflection
"Change often involves chaos, the abyss of not knowing, an emptiness, an awareness of loss —and can include intense emotional drama, grief, and fear. But change can also (thankfully) involve release, a new way of experiencing ourselves and the world, and can open us to a new sense of hope and meaning. "
My Fifty Year Journey with Women and Ministry…
The Pauline (as one of my students once said: “I have had enough of Paul; I want to meet Pauline!”) vision of Galatians 3:28— the text used in the ordination sermon of Antoinette Brown in 1853, the first woman ordained in the USA in a recognized denomination—continues to be a critical beacon light of and for the gospel.
A Year of Anti-Racism Work
"We lose our zeal for justice as (our) lives return to normal, and we get busy with jobs, families, and our own (real) problems. But anti-racism work needs to be ongoing if it is to be effective. We must be in this for the long haul, even when the issues don’t dominate our newsfeeds, and for that, we must pace ourselves, educate ourselves, work on ourselves, and take concrete action."
Untold Volumes Poetry
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Jesus and Women: Beyond Feminism
At the heart of Middleton's new book, "Jesus and Women," is a call to reclaim Christianity from the stranglehold of the patriarchy.
Feminist Bible Studies and Related Material
The Pastoral Epistles — Introduction and Questions of Authorship
Lesson 1 - "... the letters to Timothy and Titus can seem like outliers. They differ so much in tone and content that most Pauline scholars today assume they are pseudonymous."
Biblical Interpretation: Can We Get It Right?
Lesson 1 "This new series of lessons in Reta’s Reflections will not be a book study, as earlier studies have been. Rather, it will deal with the broader issue of hermeneutics, the science of interpretation as it relates to how we understand our Scriptures. The question of how we interpret authoritative texts becomes acute when current social, economic, or political issues divide believers who look to these texts for answers."
True Inclusion: Creating Communities of Radical Embrace
Unfortunately, many Christian churches have made marginalizing others into an entire theology. “The . . . evangelical theological paradigm depends upon patriarchy,” which must, therefore, be “completely deconstructed” (p. 68).
Bathroom Legislation: Unconstitutionality Is Only Part of the Story
In this article, I explain why HB2 is clearly unconstitutional. But I will also stress that constitutionality is always only one small part of understanding why legislators do what they do. A hostile feeling (or animus) toward transgender people becomes an important part of the legal discussion.
A Year of Anti-Racism Work
"We lose our zeal for justice as (our) lives return to normal, and we get busy with jobs, families, and our own (real) problems. But anti-racism work needs to be ongoing if it is to be effective. We must be in this for the long haul, even when the issues don’t dominate our newsfeeds, and for that, we must pace ourselves, educate ourselves, work on ourselves, and take concrete action."
Jesus Was Divisive: A Black Pastor’s Message To White Christians
"While many church communities have been closed since the height of the coronavirus pandemic, some evangelical congregations have fought against their governors orders despite the very real health and safety concerns for many minority communities."
An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation
Although Junior’s book offers a basic introduction to womanist biblical interpretation, it is extensive in the amount of material it covers. One aspect of the author’s intent is to show how feminist biblical interpretation relates to African American women’s interpretation.
Most Recent Book Reviews
The Nativity of Mary as Revealed by James
Each page offers a few lines of translated text with a number of beautiful images, enhancing the reader’s reflection of the smooth translation. Reading Mattison’s book feels like immersing oneself in a spiritual experience.
From the Archives
Where Am I Wearing? A Global Tour of the Countries, Factories,...
Timmerman’s research began with the simple act of checking the labels on his clothes, curious about places of origin for his shirt, jeans, boxers, and flip flops. He then decided to travel to those places—Honduras, Cambodia, Bangladesh and China—to go undercover as a garment buyer in order to meet the people who made his clothes.
