Customer Reviews

Speaking of Sin

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From telling of her baptism at birth by a Catholic Priest, to attending Methodist & Baptist Churches on becoming a tenn-ager, to being a Seminary student at Yale Divinity School, Barbara Brown Taylor skips & leaps from the worlds of pluralism, post-modernism, even secularism... to the worlds of Karl Menninger, to Paul Tillich, to her Episcopal priesthood. I heard echoes of her Mercer Lectures focused upon "Worship of An Awesome God." One of those became the last chapter of her, "The Luminous Web!"

Professor Taylor finishes her first chapter on the lost language of salvation: "to speak of sin in any compelling way, we need to go diving for the core experiences that word names... We may discover that sin is our only hope." She describes the multiple ministeries of the Washington Church of the Savior, compared to the AA group meeting in the basement of a small Presbyterian, to find that they had one thing in common. There was tne absence of self-defense. There seemed to be no need to place blame.

From three Hebrew words for sin, as "missing the mark..." she concludes: "My concern is that neither language of medicine nor the language of law is an adequate substitute for the language of theolgy." She includes multi-cultures, multiple philosophies and many faiths in her awesome coverage of "the Lost Languages of Salvation!" This may top all of her long list of gift books.

Chaplain Fred W. Hood
...

This book talks about the elimination of the word "sin" in our comtemporary language. She addresses what effect this has had on individuals and society. She has a powerful story to tell! I belong to a Unitarian Universalist Church and we practice a modern form of religion. We use wisdom of the past, science, sociology, current events, and our own personal experience to inform us. Due to our modern practice of religion, we have dropped religious language. I do believe in my faith's views and practices, but I think Barbara Taylor is on to something.

Not since Abraham Joshua Heschel's "The Prophets" have I found such a well written, engaging, "ah-ha" sort of book. If you are a pastor or leader in a church--or if you have any personal experience with sin--there's just no excuse for you not reading this book.

This book has been very helpful in my studies about "sin". Highly recommend it to anyone as both a personal or discussion tool.

Drew me in from the start. Ended up opening the book and reading it through in two hours without leaving my seat. Accesible read with down-to-earth language while totally engaging and thought provoking. As a preacher and teacher I am using it in many ways.

We used this book for a study group at my church. It is beautifully written, lucid, challenging, and evoked meaningful discussion.

Unfortunately, a different edition was received (from the one in the photograph), which had different pages and format. Although it was in excellent condition, this made it difficult to follow with the others in my group on the retreat weekend.

Good sound thought in this book, especially her call for Christian action rather than Christian thought, words and piety...

Not exactly a thought provoking, invigorating book, but worth the read nonetheless.

Good, but not her best---and she is really, really good!!

This book has a very good and insightful exploration of the meanings of sin and of repentance. Barbara Brown Taylor is right to remind us that if we forget what "sin" means, then words like "grace" and "salvation" will become hollow soon after. On that part this book gets 5 stars. Unfortunately, aside from a few passing references, she doesn't do a good job of explaining the Biblical teaching of what Jesus has to do with any of this. While somewhat ambiguous, she seems to take a "Jesus shows us the way" position; which is true, but is not the whole Biblical truth of "Jesus is the way". So on this part I give her only one star. At any rate, this is a very well-written book that will probably be helpful to all sorts of Christians, but I recommend it with reservations.