Due to the RevGalBlogPals, Inc. in-person board meeting this week, I have not finished reading Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation by Latasha Morrison. I’m really liking the book and I don’t want to give my review short shrift. So I totally recommend it at this point and I will provide a fuller… Read More
RevGalBookPals: Love Big
I see a lot of requests for ideas for retreats, especially women’s retreats. Often the request is for quick or easy ideas. I try to keep an eye out for books or work that would make good retreat fodder- to be mulled, prayed over, moved by, and carry away back into “real” life. If you… Read More
RevGalBookPals: Why Religion?
The danger of reviewing books is that I have to decide how ignorant to appear in my reviews. Do I let you know how much a book made me rethink everything I ever knew? Do I crack open the door to say, “I blindly trusted XYZ and I have come to regret that decision”? How… Read More
RevGalBookPals: Forgotten Books of the Bible
The Forgotten Books of the Bible is a new study of the Five Scrolls—each of which has a central place in synagogue life, being assigned to the major festivals of the Jewish year, but which are largely overlooked in many Christian settings. They don’t appear often in lectionaries, and while they are sometimes included in… Read More
RevGalBookPals: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
A U.S.- based organization with a substantial worldwide audience cannot only focus on the issues of the United States. In truth, we might be well-served by looking toward more than one book reviewer, so as to broaden the base of what gets recommended beyond the publishing areas of the U.S. The gift of electronic publishing… Read More
RevGalBookPals: The Cross and the Lynching Tree
This my confession of American, white privilege of a certain age: when I was in seminary, I took classes on race and ethnicity, but at the same time- I assumed that the biggest fights that would happen in my pastoral ministry would be around sex, sexuality, and gender and money. My social and class location,… Read More
RevGalBookPals: Whatcha Reading?
I have a stack of half-finished books and finished books waiting for reviews. Trying to read in the present tidal wave of publishing is like trying to drink from a firehose. Our church book group recently read Jesus- Safe, Tender, Extreme. Published in 2010, we might have been late to this gentle book. It sparked a… Read More
RevGalBookPals: I’m Judging You
In the past week, I’ve struggled to finish a book, any book. I have half-read books all over the place, but they have too much plot or not enough, or I need more attention to learn from them, or I just can’t bring myself to care about the people or characters in the book. This… Read More
RevGalBookPals: Church Book Clubs
The congregation I serve has a book club of sorts. It began a few years ago when several fans of A Prayer for Owen Meany asked about getting together to discuss the book. We met at a Mexican restaurant for margaritas, chips, and book gushing. We then mentioned another book, maybe for the next month, and… Read More
RevGalBookPals: Making Love With Scripture
I just read a book that referenced the Reverend Dr. Wil Gafney (a RevGal!), Gangnam style, X-men, and biblical idolatry. To be clear, they didn’t all happen in the same sentence or even the same chapter. The book makes liberal use of #hashtags and the chat-speak notion of putting an action in asterisks *wonders if this… Read More
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