(0664221416), 2000
My Ratings: 10 Merit, 8 Interest, 7 Fun
Well done, Beast!
The author is a journalist, formerly employed by The Wall Street Journal, and now working for a couple of different magazines. She is unabashedly and unashamedly a liberal Christian member of a mainline church. Her purpose for this book was to travel around and watch how people study the Bible. She goes to where the Big Shots are primarily: Billy Graham, Marcus Borg, Jim Forbes. But she also sits in on Bible Studies at a variety of churches (and/or worship centers).
It was nice to see that her point of view didn't do a dramatic shift, even though she was mostly turned off by many of the 'teachers.' She pulled no punches, even admitting that she felt she was even harder on people she tended to agree with theologically because of their inability to take a firm position on anything. Yes!! One of my huge annoyances with mainline Bible study.
Some random quotes:
Marcus Borg: "As an intellectual hypothesis, God is very problematic. If God is not an experiential reality, then there is no reason to take God seriously at all. You might as well be out playing golf."
Laurence Wieder: "John Donne said if you want to know what it means to be human, strip yourself of your name, place in life, date of birth, parents, possessions, citizenship. Take all of those away and what is left is what it is to be human."
Ann Monroe: "Jesus talked about giving his followers streams of living water; well, at their best, Monday nights [her home Bible study] leave me feeling I've been given not water, but champagne. When I walk out, my soul is bubbling and slightly off-kilter, as though I am responding, at least for a little while, to an entirely different form of gravity."
And I'll second that.
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