
RECOMMENDED RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL BOOKS
2004-January to June

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The current month's
recommendation is located elsewhere.


"What Christians Think about Homosexuality: Six representative viewpoints"
Amazon.com describes this book: "An objective description of all
Christian points of view on Homosexuality, what the biblical and theological
bases for each are, how they are criticized and how they answer their critics."
Rating: The book received five stars, the maximum rating, from all six
customer reviewers. This is an usually high rating.
Our comments: At least one national survey of conservative Christians has
shown that the debate over equal rights for homosexuals
-- including the right to marry -- is of more concern
than any other "hot" topic with religious or moral
content. Many information sources give only one viewpoint on
gay/lesbian/bisexual rights. Our web site compares and contrasts the most common
position taken by very conservative Christians with that promoted by almost all
gays, lesbians, religious liberals, secularists, mental health professionals and
human sexuality researchers. These two positions differ greatly on whether
homosexuality is a behavior or an orientation; chosen or unchosen, fixed or
changeable; normal and natural for a small percentage of adults or intrinsically
abnormal and unnatural; immoral or morally neutral.
This book goes way beyond other sources of information on homosexuality. Holben
describes six different and contrasting viewpoints widely held by Christians,
which he titles:
- Condemnation
- A promise of healing
- A call to costly discipleship
- Pastoral accomodation
- Affirmation
- Liberation.
The same range of viewpoints are found in most other religions,
with conservative wings tending to the lower numbered viewpoints, and liberal
wings promoting the higher numbers. So too with many Agnostics, Atheists,
Humanists, secularists, etc.The author does not reveal his own belief about
which viewpoint is "correct." He does not endorse any of them. One
reviewer noted that: "An interesting feature of the book is that positions
'speak' to each other, countering and clarifying arguments."
Excerpts from reader's comments:
The book also contains a map of the empire of Constantine
and Julian, a chronology, a list of major historical figures, notes,
bibliography and an index.
Author: Jonathan Kirsch, a book columnist for the Los
Angeles Times. He is the author of a number of best-selling books, including
"The Harlot by the Side of the Road," and "The Woman Who Laughed at
God."
Title: "God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between
Monotheism and Polytheism"
Edition: Only hardcover, so far
Publisher: Viking Press
ISBN: 0670032867
Release date: 2004-MAR
Pages: 336
Cost: List: U.S.$25.95. Amazon.com sells it for $18.16. Amazon
Marketplace has a number of vendors that sell surplus new and used copies for
less.
As of 2004-JUL, Amazon offers free shipping for orders to U.S. addresses in
excess of $25.00. You simply select "Super Saver Shipping" when you go to
the Amazon checkout.
Read
reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store


"If Grace is true: Why God will save every person"
About the authors and their spiritual journeys:
One of the authors, Philip Gulley, is a Quaker minister and author. The other,
James Mulholland, is a theologian who has been involved in both the American
Baptist, United Methodist, and Quaker denominations. Both were taught as
children that only a small percentage of humans would be saved and attain heaven
after death. The vast majority will be sent for endless punishment in Hell for
all eternity. They retained this belief into adulthood. Then one of the authors
-- they don't identify which -- had a spiritual crisis when asked to deliver the
eulogy for a woman who had died in her late 30s. She was deserted by her father
at the age of three, was abused in her family of origin, abused and finally
abandoned by her husband, suffered the death of her child, and became involved
in alcohol and other drugs. Then she began to turn her life around. She moved to
a new town, found a job, bought a car, bought a house, and decided to start
looking for a church to attend. A few months later, she died of a heart attack.
The author's faith was shaken. Surely God would not "invite Sally to his
home, then slam the door as she stood at the threshold. It seemed like a cruel
joke." He started on a spiritual journey which ended with his conviction
that all will be saved and attain heaven. This is the religious concept of
Universalism -- long a Christian heresy. That conviction led to this book.
Amazon.com offers the following editorial review of this book:"What happens after we die? Philip Gulley and James
Mulholland grew up believing that only a chosen few would be saved and go to
heaven, while most people would be damned. Even while studying to become
pastors, they maintained this traditional view of human destiny. But as they
experienced the pain and joy of their parishioners, each of these pastors
began to hear a small but insistent voice speaking to them of God's
boundless love and extravagant grace, calling them to a new understanding of
divine will and human destiny. As each sought to be faithful to their
experience of a loving God whose grace is unlimited and unconditional, both
men arrived separately at the same truth: God will save every person....Now I have a new formula. It too is simple and clear. It is the most
compelling truth I've ever known. It is changing my life. It is changing how
I talk about God. It is changing how I think about myself. It is changing
how I treat other people. It brings me untold joy, peace, and hope. This
truth is the best news I've ever heard, ever believed, and ever shared. I
believe God will save every person."
Authors: Philip Gulley & James Mulholland
Title: "If Grace is True"
Edition: Paperback
Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco
ISBN: 006251704X
Release date: 2003
Pages: 240
Cost: List: U.S.$16.07
As of 2004-mar, Amazon offers free shipping for orders to U.S. addresses in
excess of $25.00. You simply select "Super Saver Shipping" when you go to
the Amazon checkout.
Read
reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
This essay continues below.

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Holy Writ as Oral Lit
I found this book to be quite fascinating. Alan Dundes is one of the world's
leading authorities on folklore. He is a professor of anthropology and folklore
at the University of California.
Conservative Christians normally view the Bible as "God's Word" and believe that
God inspired its authors to write
inerrant text. Many believe that Moses wrote the
Pentateuch -- the first five books of the Bible -- from personal experience.
They also believe that many of the Gospels were written by disciples of Jesus
who took part in his ministry. Mainline and liberal theologians
generally believe that much of the material in the Bible originally circulated
as folklore -- that is, as orally transmitted literature -- before it was written
decades later by authors who were not witnesses of the events. They believe that
the stories were, in some cases, later modified by copyists, editors, and
redactors into the form that we see today.
Dundes does not argue that the Bible contains folklore. He believes that it
is
folklore. He notes many cases where the same event or belief is explained in
multiple locations. Each description is different from the other, in the numbers
used, the names employed, and sequence. These natural variations are a strong
indicator that the written text was originally derived from folklore.
Author: Alan Dundes.
Title: "Holy Writ as Oral Lit"
Edition: Paperback
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0847691985
Release date:
Pages: 129
Cost: List: U.S.$21.95
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reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store


How the idea of religious toleration
came to the West
The following is an excerpt from the American Library
Association's Booklist review: "Americans who regard Islamic
fundamentalists as peculiarly intolerant have much to learn from
distinguished historian Zagorin, whose insightful research reminds us that
for centuries no religionists persecuted heresy more ferociously than did
Christians. In an analysis rich in narrative detail, Zagorin recounts the
difficult and often perilous labors of the sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century advocates of religious toleration, who challenged the
West's terrible tradition of coercive orthodoxy. Though most early reformers
valued dissent only long enough to create Protestant versions of the
Catholic Inquisition, Zagorin's chronicle shows why followers of Luther and
Calvin ultimately faced difficult questions about the state's traditional
role as guardian of creedal uniformity."
Amazon.com's review states: "Perez Zagorin takes readers to a
time when both the Catholic Church and the main new Protestant denominations
embraced a policy of endorsing religious persecution, coercing unity, and, with
the state's help, mercilessly crushing dissent and heresy. This position had its
roots in certain intellectual and religious traditions, which Zagorin traces
before showing how out of the same traditions came the beginnings of pluralism
in the West....A far-reaching and incisive discussion of the major writers,
thinkers, and controversies responsible for the emergence of religious tolerance
in Western society--from the Enlightenment through the United Nations' Universal
Declaration of Human Rights--this original and richly nuanced work constitutes
an essential chapter in the intellectual history of the modern world."
Author: Perez Zagorin.
Title: "How the idea of religious toleration came to the West"
Edition: Hardcover
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691092702
Release date: 2003-OCT
Pages: 371
Cost: List: U.S.$29.95
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reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store


Lost Christianities:
The battles for scripture and the faiths we never knew, by
Bart D. Ehrman
If you ask the average Christian to explain the history of the Christian
movement, they will probably describe how the apostles created a unified faith.
Then, starting during the Middle Ages, it began to fragment into the thousands of Christian faith
groups that we see today. But the historical record indicates that there was
an amazing diversity of belief within Christianity from its earliest decades.
Only one group, Pauline Christianity, survived to form "proto-orthodoxy."
It later became the Christian faith.
Elaine Pagles of Princeton University comments: "This book offers a
fascinating introduction to an astonishing range of 'lost Christianities' that
flourished at the time when the Christian movement began. Bart Ehrman has the
rate gift of communicating scholarship in writing that is lively, enjoyable and
accessible."
Elizabeth Clark of Duke University comments: "Highly readable and based on
up-to-date scholarship. Ehrman's book provides an excellent introduction to
early Christianity's diversity and the means by which early orthodoxy and the
New Testament canon, developed from it. This lively study will prove eye-opening
to a wide variety of readers."
Amazon reviewer Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty wrote: "If you like mysteries, true
detective stories, and historical controversies, Professor Ehrman's newest book
is just right for you. It is about early Christianity, or more accurately, early
'Christianities.' Why the plural? Simply because in the first centuries after
Christ, there was no one single group which could be called the authentic
'Christian' religion. There was, instead, a diversity of Christian groups, each
with its own beliefs, practices, and sacred texts. There was no New Testament.
There were many other books, gospels, epistles, and so forth, other than those
that would eventually become the New Testament as we know it today. These other
books were widely read and fervently followed by various groups of early
Christians."
Editor: Bart D. Ehrman
Title: "Lost Christianities: The battle for scripture and the
faiths we never knew"
Edition: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195141830
Release date: 2003-SEP
Pages: 336
Cost: List: U.S.$21.00
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reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store


This graphic lists the most popular religious & spiritual books
currently being sold by Amazon.com:

Copyright © 2004 incl., by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally written: 2002-JAN
Latest update: 2004-SEP-08
Author: B.A. Robinson

