What we are reading at Southwest Book Give-Away
Apr 22, 2010
Below is a selection of book titles provided by Seminary of the Southwest faculty members. Some of these books are assigned as class reading for seminarians while others are personal choices that our professors are reading, with subject matter ranging from trends in religious studies, to new developments in pastoral care. These selections are intended to provide a glimpse into the head and heart of Southwest, offering an introduction to the ideas at the center of dialogue happening on campus each day.
Anyone who makes a gift of any amount to the Southwest Annual Fund before May 31, 2010 will be entered into a drawing to receive one book of their choice from this list of publications. Winners, if they so choose, will also be put in touch with the faculty member who recommended their selection for a conversation via phone or email about the work.
To view a PDF of the reading list that includes photos of the faculty or to make your gift to the Southwest Annual Fund now, click the appropriate links below. A text-only version of the reading list begins just following these links.
Click here for a PDF version of the reading list.
Click here to make a gift to the Southwest Annual Fund.
Faculty Reading List
The Very Rev. Douglas Travis
Dean & President
The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
by Ernest Kurtz & Katherine Ketcham
Largely premised upon principles discerned in Alcoholics Anonymous, this book focuses on the importance of story and storytelling in seeking assurance that we are loved by a "higher power" even as we are clearly seen in our imperfection and granted the power to be transformed.
The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
by Richard Rohr
Rohr is one of my heroes, a Franciscan friar who articulates as well as anybody living the path to perceiving and living in the presence of God and experiencing the resulting transformation.
Extraordinary Leadership: Thinking Systems, Making a Difference
by Roberta M. Gilbert, M.D.
Gilbert takes the somewhat complex thought of Murray Bowen and Edwin Friedman and summarizes it to make it easily accessible.
The Rev. Dr. Alan P.R.Gregory
Academic Dean and the Frederic and Alma Rather Duncalf Professor of Church History
Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century
by Karl Barth
A superb discussion of theology in the 18th and 19th centuries; shows what it means to read critically and yet with sympathy and respect.
Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory
by Marjorie Hope Nicholson
A fascinating history of 17th and 18th literature and aesthetics documenting the changes in sensibility that produced our predilection for the vast, irregular, wild, and dangerous in nature.
Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
by Terry Eagleton
Eagleton bloodies the noses of Dawkins, Hitchens, and other fashionable atheists, with brilliance and hilarity. More seriously, he offers a fine and provoking account of Christianity itself, perhaps the best I've read from a non-Christian. Eagleton's socialist passion leaves him standing very close to the Kingdom of God.
Dr. Jana Strukova
Assistant Professor of Christian Education & Formation
The Nuts & Bolts of Christian Education
by Delia Halverson
Teaching as a Sacramental Act
by Mary E. Moore
The Teaching Ministry of Congregations
by Richard R. Osmer
Dr. Scott Bader-Saye
Helen & Everett H. Jones Professor of Christian Ethics & Moral Theology
Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire
by William Cavanaugh
This small book examines consumer culture in fresh ways, arguing that the main problem is not greed, but the culture's "ability to turn virtually anything into a commodity." He writes, "Consumerism is not so much about having more as it is about having something else."
The Truce of God
by Rowan Williams
This is a book about peace, fear, simplicity, contemplation and (as is often the case with Williams) just about everything else. Though originally written in 1983 it remains a timely work for a post-9/11 world.
Sex and Love in the Home
by David Matzko McCarthy
McCarthy situates the conversation about sex, marriage, and family in the context of social vocations such as households and neighborhoods. He writes, "Theologically speaking, family is grounded not in an interpersonal enterprise, but in a vocation that cannot be pursued alone."
Dr. Anthony D. Baker
Clinton S. Quin Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology
Holy Terror
by Terry Eagleton
This is a philosophical study about terrorism in western civilization that we are currently having students read.
The Politics of Discipleship
by Graham Ward
This work that I am currently reading gives an account of the church as a body capable of meeting and challenging a postmodern world.
The Rev. Micah T.J. Jackson
Bishop John Hines Assistant Professor of Preaching
When God Speaks Through Change
by Craig Satterlee
This is one of the required books in my Homiletics Lab. It looks at the task of preaching in times of congregational transition, including but not limited to pastoral transitions, times of tragedy, demographic changes, and tensions between congregation and culture.
Dr. Steven Bishop
Associate Professor of Old Testament
Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews
by Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson
Madigan and Levinson are both professors at Harvard and represent a Jewish and Christian reading of Old Testament texts and contemporary belief in resurrection by both Jews and Christians. Written for a general audience, the book does not water down differences between these faiths but it does highlight the common background of our faiths. They suggest that the belief in resurrection did not simply appear in the Second Temple period but is present in a nascent form throughout the Old Testament.
Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism
by Jonathan Klawans
Klawans is a professor at Boston University who challenges conventional scholarly opinion about the nature of sacrifice in Ancient Israel and the presentation, in scholarly work, of Jewish attitudes toward the Jerusalem Temple, purity and sacrifice. This book re-opens the discussion on the nature of sacrifice from an anthropological and theoretical perspective. I expect that this work will become a standard text for the study of scholarly representations of purity, sacrifice, the Temple and early Judaism.
The Rev. Nathan G. Jennings
J. Milton Richardson Assistant Professor of Liturgics & Anglican Studies
For the Life of the World
by Alexander Schmemann
This classic is still just as meaningful and important as it was when it became one of the foundational documents of liturgical theology a quarter of a century ago. It also speaks across the ecumenical divide between Orthodox and Anglican.
A Secular Age
by Charles Taylor
Yes, I am still working through this book. Nothing compares with the magisterial sweep of Taylor's mature thought. This text is thought provoking, challenging and pastoral at the same time.
The Rev. Dr. Donald E. Kenny
Director of the Booher Library
The Shack
by William P. Young
A popular book with unusual and thought provoking images of God and how we respond to God in tragedy.
God is Back. How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World
by John Micklewait and Adrian Wooldridge
This work by two senior editors of the journal The Economist look at how the revival of coverage of faith throughout the world makes a difference to our lives.
The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge
Ernest J. Villavaso, Jr. Professor of New Testament
The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God's Righteousness
by Katherine A. Grieb
Bible in the Public Square: Reading the Signs of the Times
Edited by Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and Jonathan A. Draper
I have assigned these two books for my course on Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet
by Christian Wiman
The editor of Poetry magazine, Christian Wiman, writes beautifully about poetry and religion.
Dr. Corinne Ware
Assistant Professor of Ascetical Theology
Short Term Spiritual Guidance
by Duane Bidwell
I am having my class read this as a resource designed to help clergy know how to manage this important ministry of the church.
The Palliser Novels - Can You Forgive Her?, Phineas Finn, The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Redux, The Prime Minister and The Duke's Children
by Anthony Trollope
I'm making my way through these novels, because I enjoy the literary change that they provide.
Dr. Russell E. Schulz
Associate Professor of Church Music, Organist and Choirmaster
A Song to Sing, a Life to Live: Reflections on Music as Spiritual Practice
by Don Saliers and Emily Saliers
Don Saliers is Professor of Theology and Worship at Candler/Emory and Emily Saliers is his daughter and one of the Indigo Girls, a folk-rock duo known for liberal social activism. Regarding the life of Christian faith, Don might be characterized as a sensitive insider and Emily as a sensitive outsider. The glue that holds the discussion together is music. It's fascinating.
The Still Small Voice
by Patricia Blaze Clark
This is a collection of hymn-texts by Pat Clark, a 1995 graduate of Seminary of the Southwest. During the last dozen years of her life Pat wrote prolifically and this book is a delightful and nutritious slice of that banquet. She never forgot who would be using her work; she respected them/us and provided something of real quality and character.
Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond
by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge
Okay, we baby-boomers have been providing an enormous market for this kind of book. The authors are a windsurfer/cook and a faculty member at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. They have plenty of interesting things to say about how to stay in shape-in mind, body, and spirit.
