This month, and apparently it's available now on Amazon, another book is coming out. I did not write this one, although I wrote a chapter in it. It has my name and thoughts and stuff included. It is also from a publishing company - a small, relatively young publishing company, but a really good one. If they can recoup the cost of publishing the book, I will make some small sum of money from it.
This post is shameless self-promotion, but of course, I would not have contributed to the book if I didn't think it was a good book. Quite frankly, it's a better book than I anticipated. My chapter is one of the least good parts of it - and my chapter ain't half bad.
The book is called "One in Christ," it focuses on shalom, in short. The subtitle is "Reconciliation, Justice, and Mutuality. Really it is about the Kingdom of God, the reality and future of a world in which people get along with each other, not for any other reason than because we are made to get along with each other.
The book is written in a cool narrative style - each chapter features a dramatic retelling of a passage of scripture, along with several real life narrative examples of a similar theme. The commentary and exposition is at a minimum to emphasis the evolving, relational aspect of life and faith. Hopefully, this technique allows readers to imagine the Kingdom as it is and as it is becoming - and also to imagine ways in which we can all participate and contribute to God's shalom in the world.
Christians believe in resurrection - that means we have to get along with each other, because we're always going to be here. Death is not the end; you can't wait someone out or ignore them. We need each other and we must get along with each other. That takes something special, something beyond our own abilities. We need the grace of God to be different, to be what we were created to be. Scripture helps us discover that grace and, hopefully, this book can help us better discover scripture and our place in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment