When morning came, there was Leah! 

★★

I met Mickey, this book’s author, on a public forum at Goodreads.com, where he insisted on spouting the most insane, impossible story of his Christian conversion. God gave him a new heart. No, I mean it, a real one. God sucked the old one out and replaced it with a new blood pump.

Mickey doesn’t know it, but I watched him for months, telling his story and enduring the ridicule. I can’t believe his story … I’m just not wired to swallow that kinda thing … but whatever the heck happened to Mickey that day, it left an impression. He may have been a hell raiser before his conversion, but today he’s an absolute saint for what he puts up with on Goodreads.com, and never loses his cool. My curiosity sparked, and I offered to review a book he had written.

Turns out he’s more than a saint. He’s the prophet Elijah, and he’s got a message for us. For one thing, we shouldn’t bother reading most of the New Testament. Stick to the Gospels and stay away from the Satanic influence of Paul. Mickey’s writing style is a bit unorthodox, and the punctuation questionable, but I’m not sure I’d have it any other way … somehow it sets just the right tone.

I was captivated for about 40 pages, while Mickey recounted stories of his childhood. Setting the stage, I assumed, for what was to come: a miraculous conversion experience. Reading the book is a bit like sitting on a log around a campfire, listening to grandpa reminisce. But the storytelling grew old, and I began to wish he’d get on with the supernatural stuff, so I was more than ready when the book turned preachy. Finally, we must be getting to the point! Okay, Mickey, I’ll swear off Paul, if you’ll tell me what happened to you! But the preachy stage came to an end, and the reminiscing began again. Along the way I learned how to drive safely, how to roast hot dogs, I learned just about everything except what I hoped. Mickey’s miraculous baptism by the Holy Ghost blew by in a couple sentences without fanfare, and the storytelling began to meander again without direction until it simply petered out on the final page as if he ran out of breath and decided to call it a night.

Mickey, you seem like a fascinating guy, it would be fun to stoke the campfire together, but your book doesn’t go anywhere.

The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old. She died at Kiriath Arba. 

★★★★

This little booklet serves as a basic textbook to introduce the Bible in the Dickinsen Series Program of the Massachusetts Bible Society. It’s intended for class session, recognizing that there may be two levels of learners in each class: some may be taking the course out of general interest only, while others may wish to pursue a Certificate of Biblical Literacy, requiring more in-depth exercises, and earning Continuing Education Units. The four books in the course include:

[1] What is the Bible?

[2] Introducing the Old Testament

[3] Introducing the New Testament

[4] The Bible in Context (a look at the culture and surrounding events of the various times in the biblical narrative)

Book one (today’s topic) is sort of a “What’s the big deal?” treatment, introducing the two Testaments, what’s hidden in the Bible, how it was put together, why there are so many translations, and why people argue so vehemently over words like “inerrant” and “inspired.” Above all, this introduction stresses tolerance and understanding for the different ways of reading scripture. It encourages you to examine your own beliefs objectively so that other opinions about the Bible can be appreciated (remember, it’s written to be used in class discussion), and it serves as a great lead-in to the coming volumes.  Robertson’s writing is engaging, written with humor and lots of little anecdotes. It reminds me a little of the “Dummy” instruction series. But as friendly as it is, it’s like any textbook: If ya don’t do the exercises, ya don’t get the benefit.

For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.

//Here’s one for you guys who think the universe is really thirteen or fourteen billion years old. Hogwash, right? My Bible says the world began in the year 4,004 BC. That’s just 6,016 years ago, folks.

Of course, the book of Psalms indicates that for God, a thousand years goes by like a watch in the night. A few hours.

Lamentations 2:19 describes the first watch, presumably from sunset to 10 pm. Judges 7:19 describes the second, from 10 pm to 2 am. Exodus 14:24 gives us the third, the “morning watch,” from 2 am to morning light. So there are roughly four hours in each watch.

Now, let’s do a little math. Apparently, 1,000 years for God goes by in four hours, and the number of four-hour periods in 1,000 years is 2,190,000. God’s time runs 2,190,000 times faster than our time.

So the universe began 6,016 years ago, from God’s perspective? How long is that in “human years?” 6,016 X 2,190,000 = 13.2 billion years.

Hey, maybe our scientists got it right!

(Corollary: Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. That means he died at the ripe old age of three hours and fifty two minutes. Well, every theory has its problems.)

★★★★★

Latin re-ligio: To relink, to reconnect.

Buy this book! If I do a “best of 2012” summary this January, I guarantee this one will be near the top. Heart and head both feel satisfied as I turn the last page.

This is what progressive Christianity is all about. It will toy with your emotions, lift you to the heights of compassion, and fill your soul with awe for the beauty and mystery of life we share. God is in this book, until you set the book down and discover He has wiggled out of its pages and into your soul. Perhaps God was inside you all along, waiting to be reawakened?

Many of us do need reawakening; religion has become a turn-off for many. In no other area of life is the denial of progress held up as a virtue. But according to Felten and Procter-Murphy, stagnation, not change, is Christianity’s deadliest enemy. Vital faith is dynamic, flowing, and moving. Progressive Christianity, by its very name, is about progress. Rethinking the meaning of Christology, atonement, and the Incarnation is part of the journey. Losing interest in the Rapture is a necessary side effect.

“Living the Questions” is an enigmatic title, and the book begins with this insight: “To not ask questions is tantamount to forfeiting one’s own spiritual birthright and allowing other people’s experience of the Divine to define your experience.” It ends with the reminder that “those who embrace mystery are free to interpret the Divine in new and fresh ways.” In the pages between, however, we travel back in time to the Jesus of history, a man of vision and compassion, and a this-worldly concern largely ignored by the creeds of the religion that sprouted in his name. The essence of Jesus’ ministry might be distilled down into one word: compassion.

Then we’re reintroduced to God who, through the scriptures, is Mother, Father, the Wind, a Rock, and finally just Love. God, says John Shelby Spong (who along with Fox and Crossan is quoted liberally in these pages) is the life power itself, the power of love itself, the “Ground of Being.”

One final note: I’m not a poetry reader, but the occasional sprinkling of poetry by Cynthia Langston Kirk was mesmerizing … I suspect in part because the atmosphere of the book primed me to appreciate the poetic.