Some Plans for Next Year

I’m making big plans for 2007. If all goes according to schedule, I’ll be taking trips to Connecticut (my daughter’s graduation), Colorado (family get-together) and California (professional meeting).

By virtue of my job, I get to visit and teach at a lot of churches in the Texas panhandle. If anything, I’ll be doing even more of that next year. One speaking gig I’m especially looking forward to is October’s “Friends Day” at the Comanche Trail Church of Christ here in Amarillo.

Starting in the fall, the Religion Department is hoping to offer two semesters of “Elementary Biblical Hebrew” at Amarillo College. I just hope my Hebrew holds up well till then.

And I’ll be reading. Here are some of the books, and a little bit about why:

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

I bought a copy of this book as soon as it came out. I heard about it on this radio talk show and was intrigued. It’s still sitting there on the shelf. Meanwhile, folks have been raving about it.

For me, reading fiction is sort of like waxing my car. I’m not drawn to it, and don’t do it very often. But once I get started, I like it and always feel like it was time well spent.

Michele’s constantly goofing on me because I rarely read fiction. She sees it the way I see non-fiction. Why would someone want to read the other? She’s been known to read some slightly-racy stories. So for those book debates that she usually wins, I’m fond of a standard retort in which I ask her about “Love’s Luscious Lust.” (Disclaimer: If there is such a title, Michele hasn’t read it. . . . I think).

A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future, by Roger S. Gottlieb

Several years ago, I got lost and found myself at the intersection of Christianity and conservation. Not that I’m much of an activist. I’m not. But I did use a little of my preaching-teaching time to put environmental issues in a theological frame (as opposed to a radicalized political frame). I want to read this book because it’s advertised as the “first comprehensive account of religious environmentalism.” Ooooh. (That other sound you hear is Michele scoffing in the background).

Evil and the Justice of God, by N. T. Wright.

I first met Tom Wright back in 1991. At a session on Romans during the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, the two people who sat down on either side of me were him and Gordon Fee. I felt like a dime between two silver dollars.

Anyway, when Wright delivered the Schaffer Lectures at Yale in 1996, the Divinity School and Religion Department were places where people like Wayne Meeks and Abe Malherbe would have had a lot more to say about Paul than Jesus. However, if others in New Haven had been lecturing about Jesus, I dare say it wouldn’t have been the sort of thing that Wright delivering.

On top of all that, he concluded his third and final lecture with something like an altar call for academicians. I thought I was dreaming and kept waiting for someone to stand up and say, “Hal-le-LU-jah!”

To his credit, and in his funny sort of way, Leander Keck followed Wright at the lectern and said, “Finally, someone who thinks that Jesus stood in a tradition.” (Remember the Jesus Seminar?) If ever there was an academic tour de force, Wright’s lectures at Yale were it, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Someone has said that Wright writes faster than most of us read. I’m doing my best to keep up.

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, by Parker J. Palmer

This one came out in the 1990s and established a good reputation for itself. Not long after it was first published, several of the faculty at a community college where I was an adjunct were reading the book and having regular get-togethers to discuss it. It was all the rage, and I’ve been interested in it ever since. It’s past time for me to read this one.

So where are you going next year? (If you get to go overseas, I’ll probably post your comment. But I don’t want to hear too much). Any gotta-read books?