Customer Reviews

Preachers and Misfits, Prophets and Thieves: The Minister in Southern Fiction

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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In what may be a unique approach, this book explores how Southern fiction depicts ministers and how such depictions help us real people understand ministry in the South. Rather than over-stretching case studies or sanitizing personal anecdotes to illustrate his points, Ramsey allows characters from Southern fiction to lead him to his points. Some chapters focus on different roles the minister must fill: preacher, evangelist, pastor, priest, prophet, institutional salesman. Other chapters focus on the roles some ministers sadly choose to fill: con man, seducer, thief. Drawing on characters from novels and short stories by such authors as Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Will Campbell, and Clyde Edgerton, Ramsey offers images of ministers that will not easily be forgotten. The lessons learned from the mistakes and successes of these colorful characters will not be easily forgotten either. Of course, some folks might wonder if made-up stories can offer sufficient guidance for those wanting to know more about ministry. Jesus sure thought so. In my book, that puts Ramsey in good company. In Ramsey's book, readers will find more truth about ministry than in any work which ignores fiction.

An inherent weakness in this type of book, of course, is that it's never as fulfilling to have someone else tell you about a story as it is to read it for yourself. Ramsey works well with this weakness, though, offering concise summaries and imagination-grabbing excerpts. I cannot see anyone reading this book without heading for the local library to read more about the colorful characters met in these pages.

Ramsey himself is a "perfect storm" as the author: a wellspring of Southern cultural knowledge coming from a lifetime in the South, a couple of decades of experience as a minister in Southern churches, and a shrewd critic of Southern literature.

This book is elegantly conceived and written, using Southern writing and the writer's own wisdom and wit to encourage best practices and critique worst practices of ministry, while also providing a great feel for what ministry is like in the American South. It will go into my top five book list on ministry.

I found myself highlighting lots of helpful sentences and great one-liners. My favorite is "Southern writers...have long cast their lines in ponds well stocked with bottom-feeding ministers." Indeed!

A first rate book, full of wisdom.

This is an excellent book. The illustrations were very fitting and the lessons taught were helpful to pastors who desire to be at their best in serving their congregations.

Once I read this book I immediately passed it to my pastor asking that he read it and then make a decision, if he could, of just where his ministry was and where he was headed in his ministry.