The Longing For Home - Review

Buechner Frederick, The Longing For Home, Harper Collins, 1996, 180pp.

I've decided to stick a few book reviews up on the blog.  Some of them were written a while ago.  
 
The Longing For Home is the kind of Christian book that only America seems to produce.  Would that we had an Annie Dillard or a Eugene Peterson. 

If I tell you that this is a collection of essays, meditations, poems and mini, sermon-type, reflections, it will probably put you off.  Don’t let it, please.  This is a book to do your soul good.  Deeply personal and acutely spiritual, it will move your heart and open your eyes.

The Author, Frederick Buechner (pronounced Beekner), is a Presbyterian Minister in his 70’s.  Taking as his theme the concept of home, the home that we remember and the home to which we are heading, he explores issues of family relationships, the inner-connections of community life, death, birth, the spirituality of creation, grace, hope, faith and love. 

Inevitably with such a collection some pieces have more merit than others but the overall standard is very high.  At times you can detect the odd bit of desperate editorial work to make previously existing, independent pieces fit into the theme but that’s the most minor of irritations.

I read the book in two sittings while on holiday.  I plan to read it again - for the sake of my soul.

The Ethics of Evangelism - A Review

Thiessen, E. (2011). The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defence of Ethical Proselytising and Persuasion. Milton Keynes: Paternoster.

Thank God someone is addressing this issue.  The very fact that so little has been written on the theme of the ethics of evangelism is itself an indication that we’ve got evangelism wrong.  The first priority of evangelism is to bear faithful witness, to communicate the message of Christ in a Christlike way; our primary concern is not results, success, effectiveness.  When we get these priorities wrong evangelism itself gets screwed up.

What we have in The Ethics of Evangelism is a careful and thorough if at times rather plodding attempt to address those critics who claim that proselytising is inherently unethical, that it is, among other things, disrespectful to seek to persuade people to convert.  The author is convinced of two things: that too often evangelism is in fact unethical and that it absolutely need not be.  It is desirable to seek conversions and it is possible to do so in an ethical way.

After a careful definition of terms Thiessen offers us a survey of motivations for proselytising followed by a reflection on the reasons why evangelism has become an increasingly controversial activity.  We are then given a number of examples of unethical proselytising before the author draws on the likes of Kant, Kung, Rorty and Rawls in an attempt to inform an approach to constructing a pragmatic ethic of proselytising.  Thiessen hopes this approach will win respect from people of all faiths and those of no faith – a bit optimistic this, I reckon.

The next section seeks to refute a range of objections to proselytising.  Thiessen takes on issues of epistemology, freedom, integrity, the individual and social nature of human being along with a range of broadly liberal misapprehensions as a way of clearing the ground for a set of positive proposals.  It is these proposals, a list of fifteen criteria for evaluating proselytising, that are the heart of the book and probably the most useful section for those engaged in evangelism including church leaders seeking to encourage their own congregations.

The book has many strengths.  I appreciate the exposure of special pleading and question-begging on the part of some critics of evangelism and the discussions of persuasion and interfaith dialogue were especially helpful.  Thiessen’s critique is consistently even-handed and carefully nuanced.  However, I am not convinced that The Ethics of Evangelism will have the impact that I would like it to have.  Unfortunately the style is hardly gripping and it falls between the stools of a genuinely rigorous academic treatment of the subject and one that seeks to have a broader appeal. 

Despite these reservations I welcome this book enthusiastically,  I hope that it will receive a wide readership, not least amongst church leaders.  I am convinced that the evangelistic malaise that has descended on our churches is due in no small measure to a loss of nerve on the part of Christians who are not comfortable with the very idea of evangelism let alone some of the approaches that were once popular.  We need to expose and eschew deceptive, manipulative, high pressure techniques and recover confidence in speaking of Christ in a Christlike way.  May this book help us along the way.

This review was originally written for Regent's Reviews and is reproduced here with permission of the editor.  Check out the web site to get a free pdf of a whole bunch of reviews. 

Review of Morna Hooker and Frances Young's "Holiness and Mission"

A renowned New Testament scholar and an eminent theologian deliver a series of lectures on Mission and Holiness, looking for lessons for today’s church from the remarkable growth of Christianity in the urban centres of the Roman empire.   Intriguing.

Morna Hooker, offers an account of mission in the scriptures from Israel through Jesus to the New Testament church.  She detects a common thread originating in the call to God’s people to be Holy as God is holy.   This Holiness is social holiness, a particular people living an ethically distinct life in the midst of other peoples, thus pointing to the reality of God and offering an embodied invitation to come, know and worship.  Words alone, whether proclamation or personal testimony, aren’t enough.  Witness is dependent on corporate godliness, ecclesial bodying forth of Christ the God-revealer.

According to Hooker, living the holy life in a city offers particular challenges.  The Bible is ambivalent about urban living.  From Babel through Babylon to Rome the city is a place of alienation, corruption and hubristic rejection of God.  Both Jesus and his followers meet the challenge of urban godlessness and in so doing offer a challenge to the cities that sought their death.  Yet in the vision of Zion restored and Babylon/Rome become the heavenly Jerusalem, scripture offers us assurance that God isn’t done with the metropolis.  So, the church today is called to meet the challenge of the city and to offer a challenge to the city by living otherwise, thus pointing to the promise of the city, God’s promise.

In her treatment of early church growth Frances Young also emphasises the significance of holiness, the quiet, distinctive, engaged presence of the first Christian communities.  She recognises that early Christian mission took many forms including demonstrations of power through exorcism and healing, remarkable confidence in the face of death and verbal announcement of gospel.  But it is the presence of Christian networks both like and unlike Roman institutions, quietly overlapping the structures of society and offering a place to belong, a sense of identity, practical care and a distinctive philosophy that gets most of the credit.  The church grew because it was an articulate, attractive anomaly.

Young then ventures beyond Constantine when the booster rocket of state of approval carried church growth into stratospheric dimensions.  She offers us a welcome, nuanced rendition of an oft told story – church moving from household to basilica, from lifestyle to religion, from radical alternative to the mainstream, from simplicity to flamboyant dazzle.  Mission becomes enculturation and growth through conquest; organic, grass-roots life becomes top-down establishment and as society is Christianised, the church is de-Christianised.

And the implications for today?  What is called for is an integration of verbal witness and embodied witness, rooted in social holiness.  We could do worse than allow Marshall McLuhan to provide commentary on Leviticus:  be holy as I am holy – the medium is the message.

All in all then not a bad little book.  Not bad, but not great.  I can find nothing with which to take exception in Hooker and Young’s exposition and I approve their central message but I’d hoped for more.  A book by these two commended heartily by James Dunne and David Ford is one that I was eager to read but one that taught me very little.  All too familiar.  I was much more impressed by the Kreiders’ Worship and Mission after Christendom which tells a similar story and offers a similar vision.  Still, I’ll probably use Hooker and Young as a set text for my first year course on mission.  It’s short, clearly written, reliable and makes some important points; ideal for those beginning to study missiology.  If that’s how you see yourself, go ahead but if you want more than an introduction I’d look elsewhere.

This review was originally written for Regent's Reviews and is reproduced here with permission of the editor.  Check out the web site to get a free pdf of a whole bunch of reviews.

Phronesis

Well, it was Phronesis what did it.  I've spent most of the past three months demonstrating my ability to multi-task.  In a sustained manner I have simultaneously being doing two things: 1) telling myself that it would be good to start blogging again and 2) not starting blogging again. (The adverts in Dec and Jan don't really count.)

My blog abstinence is not evidence that I have got my church calendar all to cock, confusing epiphany with lent.  It's nothing other than the old road to hell thing. Three months is quite a delay don't you think?  If that, is there are still any you's out there reading this stuff.  (Helloooooo!) I'm sure my blog is actually echoing like a big old empty cave….  ave ave ave.

Of course this is not the first time I have had extended blogging down time.  When this has happened before something or other has come along and got me at it again, something like a cracking film or a stimulating lecture or a mundane insight that seemed utterly brilliant at the time.  This time though, as I said, it was Phronesis what did it.  By 'eck they're good!

Went to see them a couple of nights ago at Band on the Wall, Manchester's splendid live music venue.   How good are they?  Well if you kind of quite like jazz but are absolutely sure you don't get the stuff at the more creative/avant garde end of the spectrum Phronesis are the band to change your mind.  Talk about energy!  Talk about imagination!  Talk about swinging!  Talk about tight!  Piano that is by turns lush, frantic and icily spare.  Drumming that really really really does use the kit as a melodic instrument.  And bass playing that actually made me change my mind about bass solos.  No, really. 

If you want a listen I'd start here or better still go hear them live.

Of Gods and Men

Just got back from seeing the best film of the year, Of Gods and Men.  I learned lots of stuff.  I learned that it snows in Algeria.  I learned that old men have beautiful faces.  I learned that monks can be heroic.  I learned that multiple endings can be done better than in Return of the King.  I learned that intelligence, emotion and good theology can hang out together.  I learned that a film can be a brilliant sermon - without being at all preachy.  I learned you CAN do simple and profound.  I learned that this particular film does what it says on the can - it's deeply human and utterly divine.

Winter's Bone - Chillingly Good

Once again it's taken a film to kick my bum back into blogging.  (The advert that was my last post doesn't really count.)  Said film?  Winter's Bone (Directed by Debra Granik; starring Jenifer Lawrence) A very good film indeed. 

A teenage girl searches for her missing father while caring for her mentally ill mother and her young brother and sister.  Dad's due in court and the family house and small holding will be forfeit if he fails to show.  There's your narrative mainspring which is wound up just tight enough to move the film along.  But it's stuff other than the story that do it for me.  This stuff:

• It is thoroughly human in ambition and scale.  This is a film a bout people.
• It handles its setting, the bleak back-woods of the Ozark Mountains, in way that breathes mood and atmosphere into the story from start to finish.  Place matters here; it's Hardyesque.
• It is utterly menacing without being remotely spooky.  Menacing but mundane.
• It is concerned with both human evil and human good and skilfully renders both facets of our shared condition.
• It knows that individual human qualities matter, but so do family, community and wider society.  Deprivation and neglect grip people and squeeze them into often ugly moulds but personal virtue can still be potent.
• Its heroine, around whom the entire film revolves, is utterly engaging and superbly rendered. 
• It has an unexpected centre-piece scene that has a Shakespearian air of horror.
• Its child actors are good enough not to spoil the show.
• It includes what I reckon is the best bit of chain saw action in any film I've seen.
• It knows full well that when it comes to terror, less is more.

Inception

Inception is a very good film but it's not a great film.  Inception could have been a truly awful film. 

You can easily imagine the production process setting out to tick as many boxes as possible.  Love story? Tick.  Car chase? Tick  Cool special effects? Tick.  Psychological drama? Tick?  Dash of James Bond?  Tick.  Leading man who can be relied upon to provide a solid performance?  Tick.  Cameo from loveable old English actor for added likeability? Tick.  Cameo from much respected senior English actor for a bit of added gravitas?  Tick.  Sexy female lead?  Tick.  Youthful central character for the younger audience to identify with?  Tick.

The astounding thing is that despite this, the film worked on so many levels (no pun intended) all at once.  It could have been a complete mess.  I could so easily have been left wondering, "Why on earth didn't you make your mind up what kind of film you want to be."  Could have, but wasn't.  Thriller, action movie, special effects fest, love story.  Yes, yes, yes and yes.  All of these in one very effective and coherent package just148 minutes long.  Top notch directing. 

So why not great?  The central theme of the subconscious. 

While the film plays around with dreams and the virtually inaccessible depths of the human mind in an intriguing way it doesn't seem to me to present any particularly new big ideas.  Some people have made comparisons with the Matrix.  The Matrix was better.  Whereas both films examine issues of perception and reality the Matrix was far more zeitgeisty.  The notion of the subconscious has indeed been a world view shifter.  But it's a concept that's been around for yonks and has probably already done most of the shifting it's going to do.  Artificial intelligence and the relationship between humanity technology, truth and reality on the other hand; loads more mileage.

Then there's the film's particular vision of the subconscious.  Seems to me that most people's mental nether regions are probably considerably darker and weirder than the film allows.  It's nowhere near as dark as The Dark Night.  Perhaps Terry Gilliam should be given the sequel - and told to forget the 12A rating.

So, while I found the film entertaining, moving and intriguing - not quite the full five stars.  Still the best film I've seen this year though.

Blue Like Jazz

Just spent most of the weekend sitting by a river at the foot of Wales' highest waterfall reading Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz.  I'm writing this because I can't make my mind up about the book.

Miller can clearly write.  I found myself laughing out loud more than once.  I think this opener to his chapter, Magic gives you the flavour,

When I was a child my mother took me to see David Copperfield the Magician.  I think she had a crush on him.  It was the same year he made the Statue of Liberty disappear on national television.  Later he made a plane disappear and later still he got engaged to Claudia Schiffer.

On the other hand he's a bit too fond of certain stylistic cliches.  Like the one where you start a chapter with a seemingly insignificant anecdote as a way into your subject then complete the circle at the very end of the chapter by coming back to some aspect of the anecdote as neat closer.

Miller's insights on human nature and Christian spirituality are often spot on.  Trouble is most of these arise out of rather too much petty introspection for my liking.  Is he self-aware or self-obsessed?  Not sure.

The chapter on evangelism, where Miller and his mates turn the idea of confessing your sins on its head, is sheer genius.  The one on marriage though struck me as pretentious faux intellectualism.  A bit like using the worked faux.

I loved his liberal cultural attitudes.  Couldn't help wondering though why his basic theology is quite so unreconstructed-conservative-evangelical.  Way too sin-centered to my mind.  Also he keeps banging on about the Devil.  The whole book bounces back and forth between a refreshing world-affirming perspective and good old-fashioned fundamentalist dualism.  Also, too much time spent slagging off the Republican party.  Not that the Republicans under Bush didn't need slagging off, but it did get boring.  Too many of the people he describes are cute or beautiful.  And way too much about smoking pipes.

There are lots of  good stories, personal stories, of course.  Sometimes though I did find myself wondering if they were true.  I had the sneaking suspicion they must have been embellished.  Maybe though that says more about my failings than Miller's.  We always spot faults in others (real or imagined) that we know we are prone to ourselves.

The book is a collection of essays/reflections on a range of life issues from the perspective of Christian spirituality.  It clearly has evangelistic as well as didactic intent.  I can imagine it working for some people.

It's always a good sign when I irritate my wife by repeatedly asking her to put down her Reginald Hill while I reader her a paragraph.  Did this quite a bit.  Also kept wondering what certain friends would make of it.  Wondered this so much that I'm going to buy a copy for a couple of people in the hope that they might read at and give me their feedback.

When all's said and done I reckon the most important thing is that the book got through to me.  Helped me connect with God.  So I really ought not to complain.  Maybe it's because I liked it so much that it irritated me so much.  Tends to work that way with people as well as books, don't your find?

Anyhow there you have it.  That's what I made of Blue Like Jazz.  (Oh, yes that's another thing, there's virtually nothing about Jazz, which can't be good.)  If you've read it, I'd be really interested to know what you think.  Go on, help me out, make a comment.

Avatar Unmasked: Dualism is Alive and Well On Planet Driscol

The Mars Hill reformission Rev turns film critic, offering his own insights into who really directed Avatar.  Here's his review.  And here's some other opinions from Jason Cocker and from Jason Clark

Marshall Hits Big Time as Music Critic

I'm dead chuffed to discover that my mini reviewette of Billy Cobham's gig at Ronnie Scott's some 18 months ago has been picked up by the drummer's official web site.  It's been sitting there for quite a while now  serene and proud alongside a proper, grown up review from The Times Online.

This world wide web thingy certainly has a way of occasionally giving you the illusion that you are more important than you actually are.  I like it. Though I'm not entirely sure it's good for me.

The Book of Eli

Films make me blog. I’ve just been to see The Book of Eli. Here’s some meaning that me and the Hughes brothers came up with.

The words of The Bible are beautiful, potent and good for humanity. So are the words of The Koran, all other sacred texts and the works of Beethoven. Even cheap music has the power to sustain and enrich. You can’t be a hero without being violent. A surfeit of stuff blinds you to what’s important. Salvation normally comes from a lone individual. When making a “post-apocalyptic” film you have to include a shot of a ruined, iconic, American building. Politicians use religion to control the populous – don’t trust ‘em. It is really important to follow where your convictions lead and to do so with determination and discipline. Women are normally peripheral, feeble and insignificant.  Treasuring The Bible is one thing but what really matters is living out its message.  Ultimately the message of The Bible can be reduced to the Golden Rule.  Old people know some important stuff. Go West. If you are going to have a twist in the tail it will only work if doesn’t make a nonsense of all that went before.

Avatar

• Story – largely predictable, but somehow gripping.
• Characters – often stereotypical.
• Dialogue – functional, occasionally corny.
• Cinematography – utterly entrancing.
• 3D – the best yet, by far.
• Filmic references – Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Dances With Wolves, Alien, Apocalypse Now, Pocahontas, Lord of the Rings.
• Spirituality – Gaia/popularised Native American/broadly “Eastern”
• Message – pro environmentalism, pro-science, anti-big business, anti-industrial; anti-military.
• (Not so) Hidden Message – the myth of redemptive violence.
• Lasting impression – an utterly engrossing romp through a brilliantly imagined, stunningly rendered, completely believable exotic world.
• Recommendation – see it, don’t wait for the DVD, see it in the cinema, see it in 3D.

Billy Cobham at Ronnie Scott's

Just got back from a weekend in London which included a great night out at Ronnie Scott’s.
The headline act, The Billy Cobham Band, were fantastic. Hadn’t come across Billy Cobham before even though he’s been around since the 60’s, but then, Weather Report aside, I’m not a huge fan of the fusion/funk end of the Jazz spectrum. I confess to being a bit disappointed when I noticed that the line up didn’t include a sax and more than a little worried when I noticed it did include a steel pan. So much for my prejudices. Junior Gill was superb and fitted in seamlessly.

The band as whole were tighter than whatever it is ducks themselves use as a simile for being tight. And talk about presence! Like a nuclear submarine deep below the polar ice-cap: thrumming with energy and effortlessly cool at the same time. This was live music as it’s surely supposed to be, an event, of the moment, a happening.

I’m not sure I’ll be buying any Billy Cobham albums. There’s other stuff I’d rather give my time and money to. But as a live set this will take some beating. It’s good to go out for a night and to walk back excited by what you’ve just heard.

Full line up: Billy Cobham – drums; Jean-Marie Ecay – guitar; Fifi Chayeb – bass; Junior Gill - steel pan; Christophe Cravero – keyboards and violin(!); Marco Lobo – percussions.

Here's a clip of Billy doing his stuff back in 1987.

Mack the Knife (Ella Fitzgerald)

Been listening to this a lot recently. Object lesson in how to screw it up and at the same time get it so, so, right. Pure genius! If you can listen to this without smiling, get a shovel, go into the garden and bury yourself ... cos you're dead already. OK so the visuals aren't much to write home about! But who cares.

Free Theology Books For Willing Bloggers

If you are opinionated and like theology you might want to look here.

Dean Spanley

Friday was my annual pre-Christmas chin wag, food eat and wine drink with my friend Rob.
Always a good night, this one was a cracker. The added magical ingredient was a visit to Manchester's wonderful independent cinema, Cornerhouse, to see Dean Spanley.

An endearlingly loopy ensemble piece about reinarnation, grief, hungarian wine, fatherhood/sonship and dogs, Dean Spanley is the quintessential deeply moving and gently funny low budget film. The icing on the cake is Peter O'Toole's performance as the deliciously grumpy and emotionally repressed Fisk senior.

This is a near perfect Christmas film. Forget Australia, don't even think about Four Christmases, do yourself a favour, see this instead.

Theology Podcasts

A while ago I posted on the delights of podcasts. Just in case anyone else out there is as sad as
I am and uses their ipod to listen to philosophy and theology I thought I’d give a plug to a couple of podcasts that I’ve enjoyed recently.

First of all thanks to Dave Mackinder for putting me onto Phil Harland’s Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean which provides an entryway into social and religious life among Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians, and others in the Roman empire.

Then there’s the popular Godpod from St. Paul’s Theological centre based at Holy Trinity, Brompton. Here Graham Tomlin, Mike Lloyd and Jane Williams get together to discuss questions sent in by listeners and form time to time to interview significant thinkers and church leaders such as Tom Wright, Alistair McGrath, Andrew Walker and Nicky Gumbel. One of the aspects of Godpod that really works for me is the format. I am increasingly convinced that overheard conversation between suitably informed and articulate people is a much neglected way of learning whether in church or more academic settings. Another definite plus is the commitment to speak theologically (and with a sense of humour and fun) to the wider church.

Burn After Reading

Went to the cinema last night for the first time in weeks. We’ve been giving over all our screen time to
The Wire. Chose to see Burn After Reading. I’m a fan of the Cohen brothers but didn’t go with huge hopes as the reviews seemed to be divided down the middle.

As it happened I liked it a lot, it’s a cracking little film, a carefully crafted and deftly rendered black comedy. It has an adventurous approach to narrative, not so much the by now familiar interweaving of the lives of seemingly disconnected characters but the way in which it sets off looking like traditional story telling with characters and situation introduced only for them to be abandoned for what seems like an age while other characters and a seemingly unrelated story line is set up on its own terms. This makes the final resolution very satisfying. It also has the single most shocking moment I’ve seen in a film since the underwater head in the boat in Jaws. I just didn’t see it coming – any more than I thought Brad Pitt could be funny.

OK it’s not No Country for Old Men; it’s much less ambitious, more circumscribed but none the worse for that. Definitely a Cohen hit.

The Wire

WARNING! I HAVE BEEN CAREFUL TO AVOID SPOILERS IN THIS POST BUT I CAN'T SPEAK FOR THE COMMENTS

I am in mourning. I am at a loss. The future looks bleak. Last night I finished watching the final episode of the final
series of THE WIRE. Woe is me. What will I do?

For all the poor, benighted, uninitiated mopes out there The Wire is a cop show – like no other. Set in the bleak streets of Baltimore it follows the attempts of a small circle of po-lice (local pronunciation) and their attempts to build a series of cases against the city’s drug barons. And it does so with shining brilliance. It is better even than the West Wing. Yes that might be sacrilege but I truly believe it. Stone me if you want; here I stand.

What’s so good about the show? Loads of things. Here’s some of them:

The courage to go for the slow burn. The story is given time to breathe, to grow, to mature like the finest of Irish Whiskeys (it has to be Irish). I nearly gave up on series one after three episodes – sooooo glad I didn’t. Similarly I was convinced that series five was the weakest of the bunch right up until the final two episodes - now I reckon it’s the best of all.

The readiness to kill off central characters.

The ability to see humanity in the most inhuman of humans. Watch it and I promise you will find yourself sympathising with, rooting for and admiring the most immoral, brutal and despicable of people. You know, the kind that makes the characters from Reservoir Dogs look like Teletubbies. I now understand for the first time the attraction of gangsta culture.

The stonkingly good theme tune (Tom Waits’ “Down in the Hole”) covered in a variety of styles by a different band each series. My favourite take was that of THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA in series one.

The incredible skill of the writers, directors and actors. I can still hardly believe the scene that had me feeling nauseous at one of the most graphic beatings I have ever seen on the screen. And then, literally the next second, laughing out loud at a one-liner from the perpetrator’s accomplice. Either I’m truly sick and depraved or this is genius.

Surprising plot twist upon surprising plot twist.

The acute insight into the power of corrupt and insidiously corrupting institutions and how they thwart the good intentions of deeply flawed but well meaning idealists. It’s Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society writ large. The dilemmas are even better drawn than those in Bartlet’s White House . The police department, the trade unions, the political establishment, the school system and the press all get the treatment.

And above all? Well, above all the ability convincingly to combine uncompromising realism and genuine but oh so fragile hope for the future.

If you’ve got the stomach, watch it. You will hurt when you get to the end, but better to have loved and lost …

Preaching As Testimony, Anna Carter Florence

This is a postmodern, feminist homiletic that almost made it into my list of the top three books on preaching. Almost,
but not quite.

Here is Florence’s proposal: “For postmodern Christians preaching in the testimony tradition is a vibrant and powerful way to proclaim the liberating Word of God into a new context.” (xxvi)

And here’s how she defines her terms: testimony - “both a narration of events and a confession of belief: we tell what we have seen and heard and we confess what we believe about it.” (xiii); preaching in the testimony tradition: “the preacher tells what she has seen and heard in the biblical text and in life and then confesses what she believes about it.” (xiii)

In making her case Florence tells the stories of three of the many neglected women preachers of the past: Ann Marbury Hutchinson, Sarah Osborn and Jarena Lee. She then draws on the theological and hermeneutical proposals of Paul Ricoeur, Walter Brueggemann, Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Rebecca Chop.

The book concludes with two practical chapters. The first of these is superbly written. It makes very imaginative and stimulating use of both Mary’s response to the annunciation and Peter’s response to the other Mary’s testimony of the resurrection as a way of addressing the fears and struggles of being and becoming a preacher (one who lives in and lives out of the Word). The second offers some very specific and imaginative suggestions for how to encourage a deep engagement with the text – such as carrying around a copy of the text to read in the various places we usually find ourselves throughout the week and then taking it to a place with which we are unfamiliar, in which we are uncomfortable, and reading it there.

Here’s why I liked the book so much:

1. Florence takes on board issues about universality, power and truth claims raised by postmodernity. In particular she addresses questions about the authority of preaching ultimately locating this in the personal commitment/engagement of the preacher; as preachers “we must seal our lives to our words.” (xviii). Striking that a feminist author should point out that if we take etymology seriously, then to bear witness in this way takes balls – testimony…testis…testes.
2. The reminder that testimony has often been the characteristic mode of speech in marginal communities, those that do not have recourse to authoritative legitimation of their words beyond their own particular, embodied witness. Echoes here of two other books I like a lot Brueggemann’s Cadences of Home and McClure’s Other-Wise Preaching.
3. The way in which the book is itself testimonial. Florence writes with conviction and guts; she moves, she invigorates. This is a book that can stir up the love of preaching by humanising it, by insisting it be embodied by the preacher.

Here’s why it didn’t displace Fant’s Preaching For Today, Brueggemann’s Finally Comes the Poet or Long’s The Witness of Preaching (all of which have things in common with Florence) from the top of my list.

1. I could never quite get away from the feeling that this book started out as a specifically feminist homiletic that ended up broadening out into a thesis with implications beyond feminism per se. While Florence acknowledges this process I’m not sure the she manages the metamorphosis as well as she might have done; I kept on feeling the join between the two as I turned the pages.
2. I’m still not sure what difference this makes in practice to the one who listens to sermons. I really, really could have done with some examples of what an actual testimonial sermon sounds like, preferably in the form of a URL to take me to some audio files of Florence preaching (the reflections on the annunciation and the resurrection where soooo tantalising). Or, failing that, I would have made do with a couple of sermon transcripts.

As it is then Preaching As Testimony doesn’t hit the very highest of heights but it definitely gets into my top ten.