Readers of this BLOG know I like to do recommended reading ( see archives for thorough list). A fascinating book with which I am currently working is James Carroll's PRACTICING CATHOLIC.
I highly recommend this book for current Catholics, former Catholics, 'fallen away' Catholics, those involved in relationships with Catholics and EVERYONE who wishes to come to a deeper understanding of Catholicism and religion in America. I expect this will become a required text in college/grad courses dealing with religion in our country and with Catholicism.
It is my belief that just as Protestantism had/has MANY GIFTS which have benefitted Catholics( love for the Bible, Biblical scholarship, singing in church, worship in one's own language) so too does Catholicism offer a multiplicity of gifts that can enrich Protestant religious experience.
Likewise, the mainstream theological traditions which formed Catholicism and those church communities that developed out of the Reformation provide necessary background and foundation for a mainstream Christianity in this 21st century, a Christianity that offers a viable alternative to the excesses and weak theology and Biblical knowledge one finds all too often within the so called 'religious right.'
If you are not Catholic and want to really take Catholicism seriously and learn more about your Catholic friends and neighbors, this is the book for you. If you are Catholic and want to read something that resonates with what may have happened within your own family, grab hold of this book...
PB
4 comments:
I don't know if you have ever read the novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It is so lyrical and mesmorizing in it's prose. It camptures the essence of Congregationalism through its story and poetic style. I have read it several times. It is one of my favorite books.
I know Pastor Bob loves to read, and one of the next books on everyone's list this summer should be "23 Minutes in Hell" by Bill Wiese. It's a NY Best Seller so it's easy to find on Walmart bookshelves. This is a fantastic book on the love of Jesus Christ for us and how to insure our salvation.
I'm going to look up that book by Bill Weise, but not at Wal Mart...story for another day!
GILEAD is a book I just have to read.......THANKS!!
FYI.......a book that really deals well with Congregatioanlism is ABIDE WITH ME, by Elizabeth Strout, an author from Maine.
PB
I spent time today on the '23 Minutes in Hell' website...I have some concerns.....
Strikes me at best as being the Protestant equivalent of the Catholic' 'private revelation' i.e. one can not b e expected to extrapolate a position applicable to all people on the basis of some private experience soemone went through....
Protestants also have to be really careful about 'post Biblical revelation'....
PB
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