Customer Reviews

Where the Edge Gathers: Building a Community of Radical Inclusion

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This book is fantastic! Bishop Flunder powerfully explains why the church is called to show the radically inclusive love of Jesus Christ ESPECIALLY to people on the margin. Marginalize persons are those out of the mainstream, those who have been culturally judged as being something less, second class, not good enough for full inclusion. It is people on the margin that are most called to authenticity and transparency. It is those of US on the margin that will demonstrate to the rest of the church and the world how powerful God's grace and love is. If you are struggling to come out because of the cost, you must read this book. Come out! Come out! Come out!! If you are struggling with how your church community should include and incorporate those on the margins, you must read this book. The Bishop also talks about how we should move beyond affirmation and inclusion to accountability and responsibility. It's not enough to be loved and affirmed, those of us on the margin must claim our full rights, full inclusion; this means we take roles, duties, and are held responsibile and accountable to community. There is also a great argument included for same gender loving unions/marriages and how the church especially should be in support of these.

A most eloquent account against the steadfast obduracy of the Christian fundamentalists as reflected in their deadly scriptural abuse based on prejudice - and indeed deadly prejudice based on scriptural abuse.

One little weakness about the book is that the author used obscure language almost throughout the volume (most especially the first part on "community") and I had quite a hard time reading and getting what she exactly meant. But after having figured out her messages I couldn't want to stop. I'd rather she had written it in plain, simple everyday English.

This book is essential for people who suffer from unjust mockery and/or rejection from the church not because of what they did, but simply because of who they are.

I read this book in conjunction with a graduate course (Refuge in the City) taken at Pacific School of Religion (part of the Graduate Theological Union in the Bay area), a course, in fact, taught by Yvette Flunder. This woman is larger than life and the effects of her selfless ministry fans out and informs all those who are around her. "Where the Edge Gathers" summarizes some of the theological, cultural, and ecclesial foundations of a radical kind of ministry that first identifies the most vulnerable, the neediest, and the most marginalized and then provides some details on how to identify, begin, and then sustain this kind of ministry that provides help and assistance through ways that are both dignified and demanding. Accountability and responsibility are factors that are often missing in conventional ways of doing ministry to the needy and thus the continuation of the cycles that helped put people in vulnerable places in the first place. The book, like the author herself, challenges anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ in new and compelling ways to see what true ministry is all about and is summarized by this simple but profound statement: unless you're transforming lives, you're not doing ministry!
The second half of the book includes a series of sermons by the author which, in and of themselves, are worth the price of the book. Bishop Flunder not only speaks with a prophetic voice in support of all marginalized people, but she convincingly invites people to see just who the marginalized are in the first place and thus give a new urgency and perspective to the call for justice for all people.

A challenging read for anyone call to serve and desires to do so
unashamedly and unapologetically