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Reviews and Resources Bible Society TransMission autumn 2000 way that the BRF volume might, but benevolent i�fluences on North with a different emphasis. Atlantic culture that have become None of these books helps us unrecognisable to us, and therefore to understand that preaching needs to lost to our sensibilities - influences eviews begin with a patient and attentive that have traditionally helped us form listening to Scripture, as well as our sense of value of ourselves and present urgent realities, in the hope of each other. Without these positive that we may be confronted by the call influences the soul becomes lost to &Resourees of God. Preaching is an event, as the self, culturally expressed through opposed to a few notes scribbled the pursuit of violence and down on paper. It should open up a consumerism. new world of possibilities: a world we Williams identifies these haven't yet begun to imagine. And, in losses by encouraging the reader to "ideal" (sicl books has been unleashed a missionary context, it should (to imagine certain crucial areas of Preaching on the upon us, with the aim of aiding us in paraphrase Walter Brueggemann). human and social development as Common Lectionary: the preparation of our sermons. become a moment when the gift of cultural icons. The images of A Resource Book For a context of mission, this God's life is disclosed to those who childhood and choice, of charity and has been a largely irresponsible are tired, alienated, and dominated by of remorse are constructed as irons by Joyce Critchlow undertaking. I dare say they have the world's ideology. through which the reader might gaze (SPCK; ISBN 0-281-05256-5; found a ready market, but will they Where might we begin to find to discover the effect that a bereft 162pp + xviii; £9.991 help the Church to urgently recover help in this task? Two books culture has on its own development preaching as a vehicle for the gift of immediately spring to mind. They both and sense of self. By examining the Reaching for the prophetic imagination? Not from what contain examples of preached image of childhood, it becomes clear I've seen. sermons. Don't try to reproduce them that in our culture the child is a Infinite: A Collection Both Critchlow and the BRF yourself, because you can't! They are consumer and therefore an economic of Meditations and volume take the appointed readings too distinctive and individual. But they subject; one targeted by advertising to for each Sunday and comment on do show you how two people have make immature choices and to take Prayers based them. Critchlow's method is to provide wrestled with the biblical text, listened uninformed risks. The loss of on the Revised a "focus verse" and then link the three deeply and patiently to their context, childhood years, when freedom was readings. Already, the discerning and opened up a previously available to make wrong choices Common Lectionary reader will have anticipated the unimagined world. Both also provide without responsibility, also represents by Edmund Banyard warning signs. The distinctive illuminating introductions to the a loss to our culture in that the (NCEC; ISBN 0-7197-0969-5; theological identity and emphasis of practice and purpose of preaching. wisdom of the grown adult is one 186pp + vii the individual readings are wedged The first is Open To Judgement: whose value as a choosing agent has into a predetermined framework. It Sermons and Addresses by Rowan been impaired. The Ministry of the also harks back to a tired, 1960s­ Williams (DLT 1994); and the second is The second chapter looks at inspired theme-based approach. Limping Towards the Sunrise: the issue of rivalry in our society and Word: A Handbook There's scant evidence of a serious Sermons in Season by Richard the apparent loss of skills to for Preachers on the and passionate wrestling with the Holloway (St Andrew's Press 19951. individuals to manage conflicts of biblical text, and some of the Here you will find the serious even interest or desire. The ease with Common Worship illustrations verge on the cringe­ obsessive attention of two sensitive which these differences are resolved Lectionary inducing. Critchlow also provides an artists, by whom we all need to be through violence is a ready indication introduction to the approach and nourished in a world of tiredness of the loss of another cultural icon - edited by Naomi Starkey, contributors technique of preaching that is both and alienation. charity. In order to rediscover the include Gill Sumner, John Proctor and patronising and embarrassing in its Simon Reynolds negotiating skills necessary to Dom Henry Wansborough OSB superficiality. address this competitiveness, there is (BRF; ISBN 1-84101-117-7; The Revd Simon Reynolds is The BRF collection, by a need for charity, a need to be 442pp; h/b; £20.00I Assistant Curate of St Thomas contrast, takes all three readings present for and in another. with Emmanuel, Exeter. Writing in one of the earlier editions of appointed for each Sunday and As the theme of the third this journal, Professor David Ford comments on them in their own right. chapter evolves, a rather depressing expressed the hope that those us who The quality of exegesis is, on the picture emerges and any sense of an preach regularly will "see the sermon whole, good. True, there's not much Lost Icons: icon as a vehicle of hope diminishes. as a major art-form, to be given the here that you wouldn't find in a good Reflections Williams effectively describes a sort of dedicated and even obsessive commentary- or in the recesses of profound loss of identity of the self attention that we find in serious your memory and imagination. In on Cultural and a lack of remorse for the fact that artists". It was a hope rooted in a places there are some refreshing Bereavement its presence negatively impacts the belief that such preaching enables a insights on the biblical text. I agree lives of others. However, this loss of by Rowan Williams community to be comprehensively, wholeheartedly with the Bishop of hope is more than adequately (T& T Clark 2000; ISBN 0-567-08722-0; imaginatively and intelligently shaped Salisbury's commendation of the book addressed in the final chapter, when 190 pp; £12.951 by the ideas, images and stories of the as a tool for those preparing to worship: Archbishop Williams shares his Bible. It was a hope further amplified it would certainly equip lay people to This beautiful essay by Rowan theological interpretation of some by Professor Susan White in be more expectant and informed Williams offers a penetrating insight fourteenth-century Christian subsequent editions. On the evidence about the scriptures they will hear. into what he describes as our iconography. These beautiful and of these three books, it seems that Finally, the Banyard volume is "cultural bereavement" -the loss of inspiring icons do not "look like" this is not a hope shared by the not a collection of preaching notes. It patterns in our imagination which anything; the divine reality can never commissioning editors of Christian simply uses the lectionary as a have profoundly affected our ability to be rendered in material terms "for the publishing houses. Since the starting point for originally composed understand ourselves in relation to a truth is not in the icon but in what is introduction of the Revised Common prayers and meditations. Again, they divine Other. Through a balanced yet not seen, only in what is imagined". Lectionary, a deluge of "essential" or may prove useful to worshipers in a pacy argument, Williams identifies This truth is not lost at all, and indeed, Ill Bible Society TransM ssion autumn 2000 never can be. It is found in the (1982), the Revd Martin Luther King theology for the Black Pentecostal Becktord draws from the presence of the ever-present "Other" (1963), and Pope John Paul II (1983) - Church in Britain, a theology which painful history of Black religion­ - the Other who does not compete or all excellent choices. reflects on the Bible in the light of inspired attacks on slavery in Jamaica bargain, the Other who is beyond With its many other shorter Black experience and socio-political that included violent rebellions, but violence and seeks no advantage - quotations and anecdotes, the book is issues, and leads to liberating also less obvious resistance. Behind the Other who is so recognisable in testimony to decades of noting and and reconciling action (emancipation­ the persona of the docile, compliant our cultural losses. keeping these. Most work well, with fulfilment) in the world: a Dread slave was oftena skilled saboteur, This gifted master of some supplemented by Rogers' wry Pentecostal Theology. and elements of African culture and contemporary Christian thought has remarks. All this makes the book very Beckford quotes Joseph religion went on proving a basis for succeeded in drawing his wide readable. But it is also often Owens' definition of "dread". "Dread such resistance which continued into audience into a deeper understanding unsatisfying, as large issues receive is an experience: it is the awesome, the post-slavery, colonial era. In of the society in which it lives. I believe only cursory discussion and a fearful confrontation of a person with particular, various forms of his book is immensely important to thought-provoking quotation or two. a primordial but historically denied Ethiopianism idealised Africa and any agent that seeks to reawaken the Rogers comments, "[In] most racial selfhood." "Dread", adds identified God and Christ with the Christian soul and restore the image of discussions in public life there are Beckford, "is the Black experience1of struggle of the Black oppressed rather a divine influence upon our culture.
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