Customer Reviews

No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library)

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There's hardly a hotter spiritual topic than angels. Ask a group what they think about angels and hands shoot up with a host of things to say about personal hopes, favorite movies and books, beloved images and accounts about holidays, family stories -- on and on. I just did this with a mixed-age group of teens and adults (asking them about the ideas in Susan Garrett's new book) and I know what an energetic discussion arises.

So -- think about this book, first, for your own enjoyment and enlightenment. You'll learn a lot, essentially from a mainline Christian perspective. Susan is professor of New Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (and previously taught at Yale and Emory) so her major focus here is Christian and heavily involves the New Testament. Although angels are far broader than Christianity, she was smart to focus this book in her own area of expertise.

But, then, after you've enjoyed it -- think about using this book for two months of really lively discussion in a small group. Susan writes with authority. She not only knows her stuff; she also knows how to write about it in an engaging style.

What will surprise you is that, when exploring popular themes like "guardian angels" or "the angels of death" or "angelification" (whether we can turn into angels when we die) -- she finds that the 2,000-year record of Christian reflection is usually more complicated than we may have assumed. There's more openness, in other words, than many of us may have guessed.

Her overall theme is that, when we find ourselves drawn toward stories of angels, we're probably wrestling with deep needs in our lives. These may be spiritual needs. We may be encountering death. We may be anxious or hopeful or exploring new vocations in our lives. But, there's probably a link between our interest in angels and what's going on in our lives. It's worth asking these deeper questions about what angels mean to us -- as well as what angels have meant in the biblical and historical record.

That's what makes this such a great book for group study. You'll find a mention somewhere in this book about most of the famous popular culture depictions of angels -- from "It's a Wonderful Life" to "Left Behind" -- but you'll also find wisdom that will touch your life.

Finally, I'm aware that there are enough angel books on the market to stack them up and build a church out of them. I haven't read all of them, but I've looked at a good share of them. Compared with other angel books, this volume is essentially limited to a Christian approach, but it's very solid in what it shares with readers -- and it extends lots of intriguing threads outward. Angels and angelic beings are hugely important in other world religions. So, I can also recommend this book to small groups made up of diverse readers, perhaps in a public library or even in a more deliberately interfaith setting, as a great text to share in a mixed group. Yes, Susan's expertise is Christian. But she raises the right questions and themes and members of other faiths can grab those threads Susan extends and share from their traditions as well.

In short: You'll learn a lot about yourself, a lot about those mysterious realms we all enjoy exploring -- and you'll have fun in this enlightening experience.

This is a great book. It is far more than a textbook review. Not dry and over informational at all! I will recommend it to all of my friends.