Home    ·   About Us    ·   Church Staff    ·   Church Officers    ·   Calendar    ·   Newsletter    ·   Directions    ·   Contact Us

GLORIFYING GOD

Services
Worship Bulletins
Sermons
Music

GROWING AS DISCIPLES

Sunday School
Bible Study
Book Discussion Group
Women's Prayer Breakfast
Presbyterian Men
Fellowship Suppers

CARING FOR PEOPLE AND CREATION

Campus Ministry
Green Congregation Covenant
Shelby Emergency Assistance
First Light
Living River
Safe House
Christmas International House
Campus Ministry Association
Annual Art Show

2009 Book Discussion Group

January 25, 2009

America’s Revival Tradition and The Evangelists Who Made It by David T. Morgan, retired University of Montevallo Professor of History, "traces the path of revivalism in America’s history, beginning with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield in the eighteenth century and ending with the modern-day televangelists" (Rebecca Dempsey, www.writersforum.org). According to the publisher's website (www.lulu.com), "The religious revival meeting has been a vital part of American culture from the colonial period to the present. Begun by Puritan preachers in the 17th century, it has persisted through the years and decades of our history. This book is about the evangelists who created and perpetuated that revival tradition--from Jonathan Edwards to Billy Graham and the televangelists of our day. The focus is on the evangelists and their unique contributions, but at the same time the book reveals the respective flaws of those dynamic preachers of the Christian gospel."

February 22, 2009

Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism by Kevin Phillips, well-known political and economic commentator, "describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets. America's current challenges (and failures) run striking parallels to the decline of previous leading world economic powers-especially the Dutch and British. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy regimes are all chilling signals that the United States is crumbling as the world superpower"
(www.barnesandnoble.com).

March 29, 2009

Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh "explores the crossroads of compassion and holiness at which the two traditions of Christianity and Buddhism meet, and reawakens readers' understanding of these disciplines"
(www.barnesandnoble.com).

April 26, 2009

In Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith, author Suzanne Strempek Shea sets out on a trip to visit a different church every Sunday for a year. The impetus for her journey is the passion she sees in mourners after the death of Pope John Paul II. Although she has not been an active church member for many year, she longs to recapture a faith like that of the mourners. Her pilgrimage takes her through the full spectrum of contemporary Protestant Christianity in the U.S. The story of her colorful road trip captures the diversity of the houses of worship she visits.

May 31, 2009

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, states in the introduction, "This is a book not about the decline of America but rather about the rise of everyone else." The Indian-born Newsweek International Editor argues that "America's strength will lie in freedom and diversity--and the post-American era may not last all that long, since America's population is growing, and growing younger, while the demographics of Asia and Europe are largely pointing to older populations and, in time, fewer workers" (www.barnesandnoble.com).

June 28, 2009

The Limits of Power by Andrew J. Bacevich, an acclaimed conservative historian and former military officer, "offers a historical perspective on the illusions that have governed American policy since 1945. The realism he proposes includes respect for power and its limits; sensitivity to unintended consequences; aversion to claims of exceptionalism; skepticism of easy solutions, especially those involving force; and a conviction that the books will have to balance." (www.barnesandnoble.com).

July 26, 2009

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, is a memoir "about her own journey toward spirituality and the way her faith has influenced her life. . . . Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers." At once tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny, Traveling Mercies tells in exuberant detail how Anne Lamott learned to shine the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life, exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope" (www.barnesandnoble.com).

August 30, 2009

In Christianity for the Rest of Us, author Diana Butler Bass, who holds a Ph.D. in church history from Duke University and is currently senior fellow at the Cathedral College of the Washington National Cathedral, refutes the received wisdom that only evangelical mega-churches are thriving. Summarizing the findings of a three-year study funded by the Lilly Endowment, Bass showcases ten mainline churches that are florishing, including Redeemer United Church of Christ in New Haven, Connecticutt, and Saint Mark Lutheran in Yorktown, Virginia. She examines ten practices that characterize these vital mainline churches. She argues that these churches have avoided typical political divisions, focusing on acts of service rather than structural change.

September 27, 2009

In Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor recounts the journey that finally brings her to leave the church after a twenty-year career and teach at a small college in Georgia. As the book cover says, "Taylor describes a rich spiritual journey in which God has given her more questions than answers. As she becomes part of the flock instead of the shepherd, she describes her poignant and sincere struggle to regain her footing in the world without her defining collar. Taylor's realization that this may in fact be God's surprising path for her leads her to a refreshing search to find Him in new places. Leaving Church will remind even the most skeptical among us that life is about both disappointment and hope -- and ultimately, renewal."

October 25, 2009

Founding Faith:How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty by Steven Waldman, well-known journalist and co-founder of beliefnet.com, focuses on the religious legacy of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams and Madison. Although their religious views differed widely, they were all intent on creating religious freedom in the new government. Waldman makes clear that America was not primarily settled by people seeking religious freedom and that the separation of church and state resulted, paradoxically, from the efforts of 18th-century evangelicals, not from the activism of secularists.

November 29, 2009

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century, was first published in German in 1937 and has become a classic of Christian thought. A German Lutheran pastor who opposed the Nazis from the outset, Bonhoeffer was eventually imprisoned in Buchenwald and hanged in 1945. The book has been described as a "compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel" (Michael Joseph Gross).

December 27, 2009

The Testament of Gideon Mack, a novel by James Robertson, purports to be the memoir of Gideon, a Scottish Presbyterian minister who never believed in God. Gideon becomes increasingly troubled about his lack of belief, and an accident while rescuing a neighbor's dog sends him tumbling into a local gorge. Presumed to be dead, he shows up three days later, claiming to have been rescued by the devil. Gideon again vanishes, and the "testament" found on his body is the "story" of the novel. When an interviewer asked Robertson why the book posed so many questions, he replied, "The questions are there because I think they are questions we should all ask ourselves. No matter how rational one is, it seems to me to be very hard to imagine oneself simply not existing. From this strange human characteristic — imagination — many of our ideas about religion and life after death — the supernatural — derive. But even if one accepts the idea that God and other supernatural entities and the worlds they inhabit are merely inventions of the human imagination, the question remains: Why have we needed to invent them? Even the most convinced atheist must try to understand his or her place in the universe. What relationship do we, as individuals, have with the rest of creation, and not just with the world in which we live, but with times past and future?