How are we to make sense of the Bible in the context of the modern world? In this book, you will discover a new way of perceiving the world; a way in which the biblical view of the world can be seen as just as true-for-us as the modern scientific view of the world. The World Perceived explores how we think about the world, how we perceive the world, and how we choose to live our lives in-the-world. Using phenomenology as a philosophical framework for the construction of a biblical theology of appearances, the author illustrates how the biblical description of reality is of far greater relevance to us than are the descriptions of reality given to us by modern science and popular science writers. By exploring the epistemological bases of both science and theology as a forms of knowledge along with the assumptions implicit within both worldviews, The World Perceived invites the reader upon an intellectual journey into the world of phenomenal reality. The author makes a strong case for the validity of the biblical description of the world and reality by demonstrating how the modern scientific description of the world and reality are in no way superior to the biblical description. Using three examples of conflicting scientific and biblical descriptions of the world (i.e., the geocentric versus the heliocentric conception of the universe, creation versus evolution, and absolute time versus relative time) The World Perceived demonstrates the Bible's relevancy to the modern world, which is often hostile to both religion and the Bible, like no other book on the market today.
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About the Author
A. J. MacDonald, Jr.-thinker and social critic-is a layperson in the Catholic Church. A student of theology and philosophy for many years, he currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.
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About Me: A.J. MacDonald, Jr.
Who am I? That will be hard to explain. Perhaps, since my book is about theology, it will be best if I provide a brief autobiographical account of my religious life.
For as long as I can remember, I've always felt very close to God. I was raised Catholic but I went to public school, which made religion a weekend thing for me (a few hours of C.C.D. on Saturdays and Mass on Sundays). I underwent an adult conversion experience to Christianity later in life but I've always had a very religious inclination. Relationally, I've always felt God's presence in my life in a very real way.
My Father was a big influence on me from a very young age; he was a reader, a writer, and a thinker. I grew up surrounded by books, which I loved to read, and they encouraged me to think. As a Catholic child, my faith in God and in Christ came very easily and very naturally. As I grew older, influenced by my father's books and his decision to leave the Church to follow a more eastern path, I ventured away from Christianity and toward the eastern religions.
I considered myself to have been enlightened, in the eastern religious sense of that word, by the time I was eighteen. I had read many books about eastern religions by this time, memorable ones being "The Upanishads", "The Tao Te Ching", Allan Watt's "The Book", The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's "Transcendental Meditation", Carlos Castaneda's "A Yaqui Way of Knowledge", and Baba Ram Dass' "Be Here Now".
I had enjoyed a middle class lifestyle growing up and I had always felt as though my privileged life obligated me to a life of service and identification with the working class and the poor (Bobby Kennedy is one of my heroes). It's because my father was well educated--having received a masters degree in journalism from Boston University--and was employed by the federal government (in public relations, as a writer) that I was able to enjoy a life which provided me with the leisure time necessary for reflection and artistic expression. My father had come from a working class family and had gone to college on the GI Bill after serving in the Marines during Korea, so it's not as though my family was too privileged. We were an average middle class family, living in the Washington area, because my Dad worked for the federal government; just as many of my friend's dads did.
I have been a part of the working class ever since I left home to join the U.S. Army at seventeen years of age. Although I did work at Barnes and Noble Booksellers for a year and a half (and got to wear nice casual clothing), I've spent most of my adult years wearing (literally) a blue collar. I've been a soldier, a truck driver, a warehouse worker, a delivery driver, and a construction laborer, which is my current occupation.
After I was discharged from the U.S. Army, I returned home and soon became involved with a young woman I'd known since high school. Sharon and I got married soon afterward and, after a couple of years had gone by, we decided to go west. We rode--on bicycles--from Virginia Beach, Virginia to El Paso, Texas, with all of our gear....and our dog. We camped alongside the road every night, met some wonderful people along the way, almost got run over a few times, and enjoyed the beauty of nature. We had a blast.
My conversion experience to Christianity occurred in El Paso, Texas (where we were living at the time) in 1985. I was twenty-five years old and, to me, it seemed as though I had heard the gospel message for the very first time. As cliche and corny as it might sound, I was watching The 700 Club on television, for a couple of weeks prior my conversion, and, through the show, I had come to believe in Christ and the gospel as I had heard it explained to me by the Christians on the show. What I realized (and had now come to believe) was that Christ had taken my place (and all of our places) on the cross and that he had truly risen from the dead. This was a big switch from the religious beliefs I had at the time, which were Hindu in origin, and included yoga, meditation, a vegetarian diet, a belief in karmic law, reincarnation, and the transmigration of the soul. It was even a somewhat of a switch from what I had heard about Christ as a young Catholic.
As a new Christian, I was confused about which church I should go to, because there are so many different kinds of churches. Thankfully, three ministers from a local church (Holy Light Church of God in Christ) came by to invite me to their Wednesday night Bible study. We became members of the church, and I learned more about being a Christian in that church than anywhere else, because the primary focus in that church was upon the scriptures. I even became a licensed minister in the church (Church of God in Christ).
After a few years had gone by, we moved to Little Rock, Arkansas because I had gotten a job driving an over-the-road truck out of Little Rock. We joined a small church (Trinity Pentecostal Church of God) in Little Rock, and we made many wonderful new friends there. I wasn't able to attend very often, because I was out on the road, but after a couple years, I was tired of over-the-road driving. I had lots of time to think when I was in the truck, and God had been directing me regarding what he wanted me to do.
I quit my job at the trucking company and began looking, in downtown Little Rock, for the building God had told me to look for. I was looking for an old storefront building, in a bad part of town, with an apartment in the back. Sharon and I found a building that fit the description and a man approached us asking if we were the people who had called saying they were interested in the building. We said we hadn't called, but were interested in renting the building to use as an inner-city outreach center. He offered it to us for a very reasonable price and we took it. Soon afterward, the outreach center was up and running. We had Bible studies, worship services, classes, outings, etc. Mainly, the outreach center was a safe place for people to hang out where they could be encouraged.
After a couple of years it was time to move on, because I sensed God leading me on to other things. While at the outreach center, I had taken my biblical and theological studies very seriously because I was responsible for teaching. I even took the time to learn New Testament Greek while I was there. As we prepared to close the center, we became involved with a young couple who were starting a new church. We decided to join the new church in order to lend any assistance we could to this young pastor and his wife. Acts 2:4 Church of God in Christ was up and running, fast and furious, due to the move of God and the charisma of the young pastor. Sharon and I moved on to another church soon afterward, however, because I was on a quest to discover theological truth. In other words, the doctrines I was coming to believe in weren't fitting the doctrines of the churches I was a part of.
We soon joined a small and very friendly Presbyterian church (Parkway Place Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church) and I was very happy, doctrinally, with the church's Reformed theology, which is what I had been studying anyway. An interesting side note, before we joined Parkway Place, we joined, briefly, a church that was a part of the Southern Baptist Convention (Second Baptist Church). On Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (i.e., the anniversary of Roe v. Wade), the SBC Sunday School lesson for that day, which was anti-abortion, had been replaced (by this particular church) because it was "too controversial". We left. Upon attending Parkway Place, the following Sunday, we found that the church had observed (and was still observing) Sanctity of Human Life Sunday with great enthusiasm. We joined.
I like Reformed theology, because it is very logical and very thorough. It asks and attempts to answer every imaginable theological question, which I appreciated. And, after a few more years of studying, I had come to realize that this was, in fact, Reformed theology's greatest flaw. Reformed theology did have good theological answers to the right theological questions, but it didn't always have the best answers. The best answers, to me, were the Catholic answers, which were always avoided because they were: "Catholic!" But I wanted the best theological answers, and I realized these answers were coming from Catholic, not Refromed, theology, which, if Reformed theology is thorough, Catholic theology is exhaustive.
I soon re-entered the Catholic Church. I remain Catholic today and I see no reason why I should ever cease from being Catholic in the future. A bare existentialism is, I think, the only other rational option and, thanks to Christ's having been raised from the dead, I will choose hope over against existential despair any day.
The sorts of problems that affect many married couple in their late thirties who have been married for a long time) affected both Sharon and myself and ultimately led to our getting a divorce. We both admitted fault, went our separate ways, and we've always--to this day--remained very good friends.
I was very depressed for a couple of years afterward, but I did, eventually, recover.
I continued my theological studies in the years that followed and I began coming to certain theological and philosophical conclusions, most of which are covered in my book "The World Perceived". I spent my time working during the day and studying during the evening. After about ten years or so, since I was unable to find the sorts of conclusions that I had come to expressed in any of the books I found, I decided that I should write the kind of book I was looking for. I had certainly read enough books over the years; all I needed to do now was to write one myself.
I left Little Rock for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in 2005 to be with my parents, because my father had become very ill. In fact, he was dying. It wasn't long after the death of my father (about six months) that I began writing "The World Perceived", which has been almost four years ago now. I dedicated the book to my father because, if it weren't for him and his influence, the book would have never been written.
Although the bad economic situation is certainly making it very difficult for me (and for many other people as well), I'm managing to get by. I moved to Tucson, Arizona a year and a half ago, which has allowed me the time that I needed to complete my book.
I'm soon returning to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, because I want to live near my mother, as she is getting up in years, so that I can be there for her if and when she needs me and simply because I'll enjoy spend time with both her and my sister . . . our lives are rather fleeting, after all.
Although I don't always agree with everything that the Church does or teaches, I think it's the closest that we will ever come to knowing the truth about God in this world. And whatever minor disagreements I do have with the Church, I assume that the Church, in its wisdom, is right and that I am wrong. I'm not so arrogant as to presume myself to be wiser than the Church or the combined wisdom of the Church Fathers.
A good theologian remains faithful to the ancient teachings of the Church by making them relevant to our lives today, and this is what I've attempted to do in "The World Perceived". The goal of the theologian is to provide the community of faith--the people of God--with the scriptural teachings that are necessary for them to be able to live their lives in ways that would be pleasing to God, and I have attempted to do this as well. But I am not a theologian; I'm a layperson.
Who am I? I am very much like anyone else who professes the Christian faith: I am striving, daily, to become more like Christ; and I will admit that I still have a long, long way to go.
I am currently organizing Summer of Justice - 2012 - DC in Washington, D. C. while living and working with the Catholic Workers there. All my profits (100% = $5.00 per book sold on amazon) are donated to the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C. Thanks! :) <3
*******************************************************************************
To keep up with what I'm doing these days, as well as to see some photographs that will go well with everything that you've read, here, about my life, please follow the link, which can be found at the bottom of each of my blog posts on this site, which reads: "This is syndicated from A. J. MacDonald, Jr. - The World Perceived - Blog", which will take you to my BlogSpot, and from there you can follow the link to my Facebook Page, which has the photos I mentioned.
*******************************************************************************
Who am I? That will be hard to explain. Perhaps, since my book is about theology, it will be best if I provide a brief autobiographical account of my religious life.
For as long as I can remember, I've always felt very close to God. I was raised Catholic but I went to public school, which made religion a weekend thing for me (a few hours of C.C.D. on Saturdays and Mass on Sundays). I underwent an adult conversion experience to Christianity later in life but I've always had a very religious inclination. Relationally, I've always felt God's presence in my life in a very real way.
My Father was a big influence on me from a very young age; he was a reader, a writer, and a thinker. I grew up surrounded by books, which I loved to read, and they encouraged me to think. As a Catholic child, my faith in God and in Christ came very easily and very naturally. As I grew older, influenced by my father's books and his decision to leave the Church to follow a more eastern path, I ventured away from Christianity and toward the eastern religions.
I considered myself to have been enlightened, in the eastern religious sense of that word, by the time I was eighteen. I had read many books about eastern religions by this time, memorable ones being "The Upanishads", "The Tao Te Ching", Allan Watt's "The Book", The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's "Transcendental Meditation", Carlos Castaneda's "A Yaqui Way of Knowledge", and Baba Ram Dass' "Be Here Now".
I had enjoyed a middle class lifestyle growing up and I had always felt as though my privileged life obligated me to a life of service and identification with the working class and the poor (Bobby Kennedy is one of my heroes). It's because my father was well educated--having received a masters degree in journalism from Boston University--and was employed by the federal government (in public relations, as a writer) that I was able to enjoy a life which provided me with the leisure time necessary for reflection and artistic expression. My father had come from a working class family and had gone to college on the GI Bill after serving in the Marines during Korea, so it's not as though my family was too privileged. We were an average middle class family, living in the Washington area, because my Dad worked for the federal government; just as many of my friend's dads did.
I have been a part of the working class ever since I left home to join the U.S. Army at seventeen years of age. Although I did work at Barnes and Noble Booksellers for a year and a half (and got to wear nice casual clothing), I've spent most of my adult years wearing (literally) a blue collar. I've been a soldier, a truck driver, a warehouse worker, a delivery driver, and a construction laborer, which is my current occupation.
After I was discharged from the U.S. Army, I returned home and soon became involved with a young woman I'd known since high school. Sharon and I got married soon afterward and, after a couple of years had gone by, we decided to go west. We rode--on bicycles--from Virginia Beach, Virginia to El Paso, Texas, with all of our gear....and our dog. We camped alongside the road every night, met some wonderful people along the way, almost got run over a few times, and enjoyed the beauty of nature. We had a blast.
My conversion experience to Christianity occurred in El Paso, Texas (where we were living at the time) in 1985. I was twenty-five years old and, to me, it seemed as though I had heard the gospel message for the very first time. As cliche and corny as it might sound, I was watching The 700 Club on television, for a couple of weeks prior my conversion, and, through the show, I had come to believe in Christ and the gospel as I had heard it explained to me by the Christians on the show. What I realized (and had now come to believe) was that Christ had taken my place (and all of our places) on the cross and that he had truly risen from the dead. This was a big switch from the religious beliefs I had at the time, which were Hindu in origin, and included yoga, meditation, a vegetarian diet, a belief in karmic law, reincarnation, and the transmigration of the soul. It was even a somewhat of a switch from what I had heard about Christ as a young Catholic.
As a new Christian, I was confused about which church I should go to, because there are so many different kinds of churches. Thankfully, three ministers from a local church (Holy Light Church of God in Christ) came by to invite me to their Wednesday night Bible study. We became members of the church, and I learned more about being a Christian in that church than anywhere else, because the primary focus in that church was upon the scriptures. I even became a licensed minister in the church (Church of God in Christ).
After a few years had gone by, we moved to Little Rock, Arkansas because I had gotten a job driving an over-the-road truck out of Little Rock. We joined a small church (Trinity Pentecostal Church of God) in Little Rock, and we made many wonderful new friends there. I wasn't able to attend very often, because I was out on the road, but after a couple years, I was tired of over-the-road driving. I had lots of time to think when I was in the truck, and God had been directing me regarding what he wanted me to do.
I quit my job at the trucking company and began looking, in downtown Little Rock, for the building God had told me to look for. I was looking for an old storefront building, in a bad part of town, with an apartment in the back. Sharon and I found a building that fit the description and a man approached us asking if we were the people who had called saying they were interested in the building. We said we hadn't called, but were interested in renting the building to use as an inner-city outreach center. He offered it to us for a very reasonable price and we took it. Soon afterward, the outreach center was up and running. We had Bible studies, worship services, classes, outings, etc. Mainly, the outreach center was a safe place for people to hang out where they could be encouraged.
After a couple of years it was time to move on, because I sensed God leading me on to other things. While at the outreach center, I had taken my biblical and theological studies very seriously because I was responsible for teaching. I even took the time to learn New Testament Greek while I was there. As we prepared to close the center, we became involved with a young couple who were starting a new church. We decided to join the new church in order to lend any assistance we could to this young pastor and his wife. Acts 2:4 Church of God in Christ was up and running, fast and furious, due to the move of God and the charisma of the young pastor. Sharon and I moved on to another church soon afterward, however, because I was on a quest to discover theological truth. In other words, the doctrines I was coming to believe in weren't fitting the doctrines of the churches I was a part of.
We soon joined a small and very friendly Presbyterian church (Parkway Place Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church) and I was very happy, doctrinally, with the church's Reformed theology, which is what I had been studying anyway. An interesting side note, before we joined Parkway Place, we joined, briefly, a church that was a part of the Southern Baptist Convention (Second Baptist Church). On Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (i.e., the anniversary of Roe v. Wade), the SBC Sunday School lesson for that day, which was anti-abortion, had been replaced (by this particular church) because it was "too controversial". We left. Upon attending Parkway Place, the following Sunday, we found that the church had observed (and was still observing) Sanctity of Human Life Sunday with great enthusiasm. We joined.
I like Reformed theology, because it is very logical and very thorough. It asks and attempts to answer every imaginable theological question, which I appreciated. And, after a few more years of studying, I had come to realize that this was, in fact, Reformed theology's greatest flaw. Reformed theology did have good theological answers to the right theological questions, but it didn't always have the best answers. The best answers, to me, were the Catholic answers, which were always avoided because they were: "Catholic!" But I wanted the best theological answers, and I realized these answers were coming from Catholic, not Refromed, theology, which, if Reformed theology is thorough, Catholic theology is exhaustive.
I soon re-entered the Catholic Church. I remain Catholic today and I see no reason why I should ever cease from being Catholic in the future. A bare existentialism is, I think, the only other rational option and, thanks to Christ's having been raised from the dead, I will choose hope over against existential despair any day.
The sorts of problems that affect many married couple in their late thirties who have been married for a long time) affected both Sharon and myself and ultimately led to our getting a divorce. We both admitted fault, went our separate ways, and we've always--to this day--remained very good friends.
I was very depressed for a couple of years afterward, but I did, eventually, recover.
I continued my theological studies in the years that followed and I began coming to certain theological and philosophical conclusions, most of which are covered in my book "The World Perceived". I spent my time working during the day and studying during the evening. After about ten years or so, since I was unable to find the sorts of conclusions that I had come to expressed in any of the books I found, I decided that I should write the kind of book I was looking for. I had certainly read enough books over the years; all I needed to do now was to write one myself.
I left Little Rock for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in 2005 to be with my parents, because my father had become very ill. In fact, he was dying. It wasn't long after the death of my father (about six months) that I began writing "The World Perceived", which has been almost four years ago now. I dedicated the book to my father because, if it weren't for him and his influence, the book would have never been written.
Although the bad economic situation is certainly making it very difficult for me (and for many other people as well), I'm managing to get by. I moved to Tucson, Arizona a year and a half ago, which has allowed me the time that I needed to complete my book.
I'm soon returning to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, because I want to live near my mother, as she is getting up in years, so that I can be there for her if and when she needs me and simply because I'll enjoy spend time with both her and my sister . . . our lives are rather fleeting, after all.
Although I don't always agree with everything that the Church does or teaches, I think it's the closest that we will ever come to knowing the truth about God in this world. And whatever minor disagreements I do have with the Church, I assume that the Church, in its wisdom, is right and that I am wrong. I'm not so arrogant as to presume myself to be wiser than the Church or the combined wisdom of the Church Fathers.
A good theologian remains faithful to the ancient teachings of the Church by making them relevant to our lives today, and this is what I've attempted to do in "The World Perceived". The goal of the theologian is to provide the community of faith--the people of God--with the scriptural teachings that are necessary for them to be able to live their lives in ways that would be pleasing to God, and I have attempted to do this as well. But I am not a theologian; I'm a layperson.
Who am I? I am very much like anyone else who professes the Christian faith: I am striving, daily, to become more like Christ; and I will admit that I still have a long, long way to go.
I am currently organizing Summer of Justice - 2012 - DC in Washington, D. C. while living and working with the Catholic Workers there. All my profits (100% = $5.00 per book sold on amazon) are donated to the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C. Thanks! :) <3
*******************************************************************************
To keep up with what I'm doing these days, as well as to see some photographs that will go well with everything that you've read, here, about my life, please follow the link, which can be found at the bottom of each of my blog posts on this site, which reads: "This is syndicated from A. J. MacDonald, Jr. - The World Perceived - Blog", which will take you to my BlogSpot, and from there you can follow the link to my Facebook Page, which has the photos I mentioned.
*******************************************************************************
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