One of the pleasures I enjoy most each Christmastide is the opportunity to sit down and read some new books. As usual, since Christmas day, I've been juggling three of them, all good in their own right. The one I want to comment on today is the first one of the triumvirate that I finished, Susan Campbell's DATING JESUS.
Ms. Campbell is a writer for the Hartford Courant and I've long admired her work. When i read that she had written this book, I asked for it as a Christmas gift. I'm not at all dissapointed.
I would describe it as a poignant and deeply moving memoir of a woman's religious journey. Ms. Campbell was raised in a fundamentalist church and as she grew was struck with the conflict between how she was raised religiously and what she saw as the legitimate aspirations of women who believe in Jesus.
While I was neither raised a fundamentalist nor am female, I found this book resonating with my own experience in my personal religious milieu. This book is strong on a number of counts:
* She tells a great story
* She knows her Scripture and has integrated it deeply
* She offers some great insights into Biblical passages
* She lays out her search and her questions....
On top of all this.......the ending is amazing and makescomplete sense of the title, a title that might make some who take religion VERY seriously gasp, if only mildly..!!
I'm aware of the limitations of writing about a book you have not read, so I'll stop now and suggest that if you get a chance, you give it a look. If you want to read a book that takes the personal journey of faith seriously and has something to say about the way human beings need to engage religious issues....this is your book......
And, though I'm not sure this was her intent, this author has given me much to think about as a 21st century Pastor in the universal church of Jesus Christ.
To read more...go to www.datingjesus.net
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