About Books, 2

The Labor Day weekend came and went way too fast.  It was a nice break, though.  This part of Texas saw a slow, soaking rain on Saturday, exactly what we needed.  Today it’s back to classes where, this week, the subjects are:  

(1) African religions (which I know next to nothing about)

(2) Pauline chronology (which is harder to handle than a greased pig, not that I have or plan to)

(3) Overviewing the life of Jesus (Why didn’t we do this in any of the Bible classes I attended growing up?)

(4)  Surveying Numbers and Deuteronomy. (Survey courses are tough in that, in order to keep pace, you’re constantly deciding what not to cover).

Now back to the book list:

2.  One book that you’ve read more than once:  Again, I just have to mention two books.

Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue, by Edwin S. Friedman.  I still don’t exactly understand Bowen theory.  But I’m convinced it contains a lot of truth.  I have Ken Danley to thank for telling me about this one.  Thanks, Ken.

And then there’s Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions, by Huston Smith.  In a Genesis class at Harding Graduate School, Dr. Jack Vancil referred to this book with obvious admiration.  I wrote down the author and title in my notes.  A few months later, I came across a paperback copy in a used bookstore in Memphis.  It’s been with me ever since.  This is the sort of book that a modern-day Paul would want to read before preaching a modern-day Mars Hill sermon.  All genuinely-religious outlooks have more in common with each other than they have with philosophical materialism.