The "church" in the title of this book is Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and the "ghetto" is the Cabrini-Green public housing project a mile west of the church. The author, James Wellman, is a lecturer in the Comparative Religion Program of the University of Washington, who served from 1993 to 1996 as a member of the staff of Fourth church, directing the young adult education program.
If you are a teacher or a preacher of Christian faith, or if you are simply in need of a persuasive argument that God is still in charge of your life and everything there is, you should get a copy of this book.
B. A. Gerrish obviously enjoys his role as a dogmatic theologian, whose task, he says, is to stand between the old tradition and the modern day and mediate between them.
This is a rich and nuanced study of voices on both sides of the well-known right-left division of American Protestantism, with special emphasis on the PC(USA). Richard Hutcheson and Peggy Shriver personally represent the "evangelical" and "liberal" wings of the church, respectively.
I approached this assignment as an academic chore and was delightfully surprised to have an enriching spiritual experience. Troeger knows what it is like to minister as a pastor, and he scratched where many of my fellow pastor/preachers and I are itching.
The third edition of Presbyterian Polity for Church Officers by Joan Gray and Joyce Tucker is an improvement of a resource that has been essential for Presbyterian leaders since it first appeared in 1986.
If you are looking for a book to use this fall with your adult education class, look no further! This is a wonderful resource that lends itself to an eight-week class on "How a Church Can Engage the World."
Tex Sample's volume on electronic culture and Christian worship is popular in the best sense: it is clear, concrete, accessible and not too long. Believe Leonard Sweet's book cover blurb: "It's the next best thing to Tex Sample live!"
"The Trinity are a grammar problem," according to an answer once noted on a theology exam. The authors of this remarkably useful book suggest it has too often also been a worship problem and they assume the task of showing how we can more adequately speak to and about the Trinitarian God in worship.
John S. McClure and Nancy J. Ramsay, eds.
Cleveland. United Church Press.1998. 162 pp. Pb. $15.95
ISBN 0-8298-1282-2
Reviewed by Gail A. Ricciuti
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