Jesus the Holy Fool


Book Description

Richly written, Jesus the Holy Fool combines diverse images from religious traditions, world literature, Jungian archetype, and Scripture. Weaving the best theology and spirituality, Jesus the Holy Fool is a fresh and inviting Christology. The Scriptures tell us that religious leaders thought Jesus was "possessed," and his own family thought he was "crazy." In his open table fellowship, choice of followers, radical passion, and his death and resurrection, Jesus was willing to appear as a fool for the sake of God's reign. His teachings--especially the parables, paradoxes, and the beatitudes--advocate a way of life that is grounded in Holy Foolishness. Through an archetypal examination of the fool motif as it applies to Jesus in the Gospels, Jesus the Holy Fool develops the connections between holiness and folly. Offering new insights into Christology and exploring its practical pastoral ramifications, Jesus the Holy Fool presents Holy Foolishness as a paradigm for the Christian journey and as a new model of what it means for us to be church.




Symeon the Holy Fool


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Perfect Fools


Book Description

This title, by John Saward, explores foolishness and fools in Catholic and Orthodox spirituality.




Jesus the Fool


Book Description

"One who is strengthened by God professes himself to be an utter fool by human standards, because he despises the wisdom men strive for."--Thomas Aquinas "Go and do likewise. . . ."--Luke 10:37 Missiologist Michael Frost is looking for the real Jesus--the man who didn't care what people thought, worked on the Sabbath, touched the unclean, ate with sinners, and generally contradicted what was acceptable to the leadership of his day. He's searching for the Jesus who embodies all the characteristics of the ancient tradition of the holy foolish paradigm as described and commended by Paul, the church fathers, and the medieval saints. And he finds him. . . . Saintly fools prefer life out in the open in the secular world, intentionally make themselves conspicuous, and consistently defy rules set by society. Frost directs our minds and hearts to the greater story of Jesus. He reminds us that following the Savior is rarely safe--and that Christ will continue to redraw our blueprint of what's right and what's righteous; and will persist in calling us to take the alternative, dangerous, ridiculous road walked by wise fools down through the centuries of the church. A much-needed and longed-for challenge to emergent, contemporary, and traditional gatherings and churches alike.




Fools for Christ


Book Description

The Holy is too great and too terrible when encountered directly for men of normal sanity to be able to contemplate it comfortably. Only those who cannot care for the consequences run the risk of the direct confrontation of the Holy. This book is a study of six men who ran this risk. Balancing the negative and positive points of view throughout these six essays, Jaroslav Pelikan has written a brilliant examination of the three questions: the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. With Kierkegaard and Paul, Dr. Pelikan looks into the relationship between the True and the Holy. With Dostoevsky and Luther, it is the Good and the Holy and with Nietzche and Bach, it is the Beautiful and the Holy. In the first two he draws on the whole history of Western thought. In the second two, he looks into the background of Christian morality, and in the last two, he reaches all the way back to the Greeks in his penetrating study of Western aesthetics. Philosophy, theology, ethics, and aesthetics - they are all here. Beyond them all, Dr. Pelikan shows how the Holy cannot be captured and held by any of them, although the attempt is frequently made. Rather the Holy must remain unqualified, transfiguring within itself the experience of the True, the Good, or the Beautiful.




The Fool and the Heretic


Book Description

The Fool and the Heretic is a deeply personal story told by two respected scientists who hold opposing views on the topic of origins, share a common faith in Jesus Christ, and began a sometimes-painful journey to explore how they can remain in Christian fellowship when each thinks the other is harming the church. To some in the church, anyone who accepts the theory of evolution has rejected biblical teaching and is therefore thought of as a heretic. To many outside the church as well as a growing number of evangelicals, anyone who accepts the view that God created the earth in six days a few thousand years ago must be poorly educated and ignorant--a fool. Todd Wood and Darrel Falk know what it's like to be thought of, respectively, as a fool and a heretic. This book shares their pain in wearing those labels, but more important, provides a model for how faithful Christians can hold opposing views on deeply divisive issues yet grow deeper in their relationship to each other and to God.




Praying the Agpia - The Prayers of the Hours


Book Description

This book, explains the many spiritual benefits of praying with the Agpia. It also discusses the numerous evidence for the use of the psalms throughout the day and its use in the apostolic era.




Crazy for God


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By the time he was nineteen, Frank Schaeffer's parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, had achieved global fame as bestselling evangelical authors and speakers, and Frank had joined his father on the evangelical circuit. He would go on to speak before thousands in arenas around America, publish his own evangelical bestseller, and work with such figures as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Dr. James Dobson. But all the while Schaeffer felt increasingly alienated, precipitating a crisis of faith that would ultimately lead to his departure—even if it meant losing everything. With honesty, empathy, and humor, Schaeffer delivers “a brave and important book” (Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog)—both a fascinating insider's look at the American evangelical movement and a deeply affecting personal odyssey of faith.




Psychological Insight Into the Bible


Book Description

Foreword by Walter Wink In recent years theologians and biblical scholars have begun to delve into the insights that come from the application of psychology to biblical texts. While these methods continue to be useful and popular, nowhere have the "foundational" texts in the field been collected. Wayne Rollins and Andrew Kille, who have both published and taught widely in the area of psychological biblical criticism, have assembled an excellent guide for those interested in this fascinating topic. Included in this anthology are articles from across the landscape, spanning over one hundred years and including such authors as Franz Delitzsch, M. Scott Fletcher, Max Weber, Walter Wink, and many other scholars.




Jumble Sales of the Apocalypse


Book Description

‘What do you do when the Second Coming is scheduled for next Wednesday? . . . Assemble at your nearest church? Make sure you’ve got clean underwear on? Confess those last sins? Send some goodbye texts to unbelieving friends? Take Paracetamol in case the rapture gives you the bends?’ Those and other neglected theological questions are rigorously examined in this book. With its gently satirical take on some of the weird ways in which people express their beliefs, it’s a book that will help you appreciate the true value of religion by exploring the comedy of its wilder excesses. Whether you’re a believer or a non-believer, fond of religion or a more than just a bit suspicious of it, you’ll find your assumptions are far from safe after reading it!