Words of hope: Seeking a path of faith in a divided world
Stephen D. Reese (Smyth & Helwys, forthcoming)
In my first project of spiritual writing, Hope for the Thinking Christian: Seeking a Path of Faith Through Everyday Life, I asked whether I could articulate a defensible statement of my own faith understanding and the way it has played out in my daily life. I hoped to demonstrate that questions of faith can be sincerely engaged by those who are not professional faith leaders. These are the deeper questions that everyone has thought about at some level—those rooted in the experiences of everyday life. In this volume the question remains largely the same: How is God’s faithful love working itself out in my life? I first broaden out to a larger perspective to show that, even though deeply personal, living out a faith journey can’t be separated from the community and society where it’s practiced. So, I first consider the polarized socio-cultural context--how the brand of Christianity itself has been politicized and damaged by the forces of extremism. Then I reflect on the level of faith community itself (including the denominational conflict within my own community of Methodism), leading many to withdraw from organized religion altogether, declaring themselves “spiritual but not religious.” Connecting these two levels to a third, I then share, as in the previous volume, a number of more deeply personal reflections on specific faith challenges.
Hope for the thinking Christian: Seeking a path of faith through everyday life
Stephen D. Reese (Smyth & Helwys, 2010)
In this book I reflect on my own spiritual life and wrap it within a broader conversation about the role of religion and faith in modern society. In that respect, it is a form of journalism, as I take these highly personal reflections, developed over the course of several years, and express them publicly in a way I hope others will find accessible. Although distinguished from my other writing, I consider this project an extension of my scholarly imagination. For reasons I describe in the book, it's the most difficult kind of writing I've ever done but, in some ways perhaps, the most important and rewarding.
“Deserving of a wide audience, Stephen Reese is a gifted man whose pure heart is evident in every paragraph. His style is gentle and thorough (without being too professorial). I liked best his careful use of scriptural allusions and know of no Bible scholar who could have done it better.”— Bob Lively
Author, counselor, teacher-in-residence at
First Presbyterian Church of Austin
“There’s almost a claim that the head has to be scientific but the heart has to have faith. The culture wars are waged around this very issue, but Stephen’s view just obliterates that.”—Dr. Michael Jinkins
Pres., Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in the Austin American-Statesman
More about the book:
Where does the thinking Christian fit in the Body of Christ and community of faith? That question has become more critical as the world-wide call of fundamentalism has encouraged a style of absolutist belief, tribalism, and self-righteousness at odds with tolerance, community, and a rewarding life of the spirit. Meanwhile, in the communities of our daily lives--whether work, home, or family--diversity of belief has become more the rule than the exception. Surveys show that the ranks of the unaffiliated believers have grown, especially among young people, and Americans are less likely than ever to follow the faith tradition they were raised with-to have their beliefs handed to them. That makes it all the more important that we think the faith journey through, rejecting false absolutes in favor of tolerance and openness to the grace and mysteries of God in daily living. In this book the author opens a dialog with Christians and other thoughtful believers who hunger for a rewarding spiritual life but have difficulty getting past both the fundamentalist rhetoric and the secular alternative, with its often anti-religious response. In working through his own response as a thoughtful believer to the question "Where do I fit?" he engages this dialog at the intersection of theology and personal spirituality. These devotional reflections explore the faith journey we all take through "everyday life," confronting the challenge of staying spiritually intentional in a busy world of demands from work and family. The author explores the special difficulty faced by men in being vulnerable and open about their faith and inner life. Paul's message of God's "power made perfect in weakness" describes a basic principle of Christian discipleship, but the false certainties of belief, politics, and professional competence, make living that principle difficult.