Phillip Michael Garner
Список книг автора Phillip Michael GarnerReflections
Reflections is a theological guide for today's Christians seeking a fuller appreciation of religious faith than is represented in populist religion. The seven categories and their chapters are designed to provide the reader with an intensive study on neglected, but imperative concepts for faith. Subjects of vital importance to both theology and humanity are explored with a flowing continuity of understanding God and the world. Reflections begins with the concept of revelation and its relation to monotheism and conviction. The chapters that follow are titled «Religion Is,» «Christianity Is,» and «Intelligent Spirituality»; these set the foundation for the rest of the book. The sense of moderns is that they are immune to the primitive concept of idolatry. Under the category of «Perennial Idols,» Garner dismantles the idolatry that plagues humanity in every generation. Reality and its creation is a category of theological thought that is essential for Christian development and sorrowfully neglected in church education. The other categories are «Sex and Romantic Love,» «Popular Myths,» «Being Human / Being Poor,» and «Forgiveness.» Garner's conviction is that the root of humanity's dysfunction is our failure to learn how to live together as male and female.
Everyday Thoughts
Everyday Thoughts is a devotional for thinking Christians, for those who seek to hear and know God in the present through contemplation on scripture and reality. Each essay is preceded by a poem or an inspirational piece. In relation to each essay's subject matter, these poems set the mood for the reader as the simplicity of poetry is combined with insights born from the author's years of study. The intent of the author is that the reader might enjoy the impact of each piece for a prolonged period of time after their initial reading. Everyday Thoughts is for people interested in both contemplation and living their faith in the real world of pain and suffering.
The poems and essays reflect the personal struggles of the author to come to terms with the Christian faith in a world larger than the small town of his rearing. A theological education is not necessary for reading Everyday Thoughts. What is necessary is an open heart that is prepared to hear scripture's message from a wounded soul who withstands death with all the resources of theology, imagination, and experience available to him. The conviction of an immovable faith is behind each essay.
Theopoetics
Theopoetics is a collection of poetry filled with reflective inspiration from the heart and mind of a person filled with pathos over the plight of humanity. Each poem reflects his personal wrestling with theology and reality as he is determined to bring God into the world with a synthesis of pathos, intellect, experience, and words. The aesthetic of poetry provides the author with an expressive outlet to imagine life within a genre where limitations give way to possibilities, in a world where the concretization of society prevails.
Theopoetics is an effort to communicate spirituality combined with theology into words; words that ignite the soul with hope and challenge. Each poem contains numerous theological insights born from years of teaching students both in the classroom and abroad. These efforts at educating have been in active pursuit of bringing tikkun olam, that is repairing the world, to oppressed persons and various communities of need.
The author is committed to the idea that theology must be practical with ready application for participating in salvation as both personal and historical. As a practitioner of nonviolence his calls for peace resonate throughout the book. Theopoetics is for persons seeking a spiritually challenging devotional experience.