From the reading chair: A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide by Linda Melvern; Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary by NT Wright; Critical Reflections Of Stanley Hauerwas’ Theology Of Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology edited by John Swinton; The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability by Nancy L Eiesland; The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows by James Bryan Smith; Christian Identity (Studies in Reformed Theology) edited by Eddy Van Der Borght; Counterpoint by RS Thomas; Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia for All That Is by Joan Chittister & Rowan Williams; The Promise of the Father: Jesus and God in the New Testament by Marianne Meye Thompson; How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch; Teachers As Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach by Paulo Freire; Theological Fragments: Essays in Unsystematic Theology by Duncan B. Forrester; Very Little … Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy and Literature by Simon Critchley; Foundations of Dogmatics, Vol. 1 by Otto Weber; Reformational Theology: A New Paradigm for Doing Dogmatics by Gordon J. Spykman; Care of the Soul : A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life by Thomas Moore; Bread Baking: An Artisan’s Perspective by Daniel T. DiMuzio; Books of Amos and Hosea by Harry Mowvley; Resist!: Christian Dissent for the 21st Century edited by Michael G. Long.
Through the iPod: U2 Go Home – Live from Slane Castle by U2; London Calling: Live in Hyde Park by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band; Foundling by David Gray; All Delighted People by Sufjan Stevens.
On the screen: Edge of Darkness; Where the Wild Things Are; Shelter; Shutter Island; The Infidel; The Wolfman; After Life; Into the Storm; Into the Wild.
how was The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows ?
Is there some theme running through your cinema viewing this month, Jason? A sense of ‘storm, wildness’? The titles collectively just intrigued me.
This comment might have gotten spammed because I wasn’t logged in when I left it, but how was The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows by James Bryan Smith?
What were your thoughts on Eiesland’s book?
My take on The Good and Beautiful God is that it would serve well as a helpful discussion starter with some young Christians. It is an attempt to do for the 2010s what Packer’s Knowing God did in the 1970s, but at an even more popularist level.
While there are a number of meaningful insights, Eiesland’s essay is a disappointing and shallow treatment on a topic that deserves much better. If you’re keen to read more-satisfying studies, I’d recommend the following:
Jennie Weiss Block, Copious Hosting: A Theology of Access for People with Disabilities (New York/London: Continuum, 2002).
Arne Fritzson and Samuel Kabue, ed., Interpreting Disability: A Church of All and for All (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2004).
John Swinton, ed., Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Theology of Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology (Binghamton: The Haworth Pastoral Press, 2004).
Stanley Hauerwas, Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped, and the Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988).
Hans S. Reinders (ed)., What Can We Learn from the Disabled? Responses to Jean Vanier from Theology and the Sciences (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010).
Thomas E. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008).
John Swinton and Esther Mcintosh, ‘Persons in Relation: The Care of Persons with Learning Disabilities’, Theology Today 57, no. 2 (2000): 175–84.
Brett Webb-Mitchell, Dancing With Disabilities: Opening the Church to All God’s Children (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2008).
Brett Webb-Mitchell, Unexpected Guests at God’s Banquet: Welcoming People with Disabilities into the Church (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2009).
Amos Yong, Theology and Down Syndrome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007).
Thanks for the recs.