5/4/07 -- Book of the Week: New Faith in Ancient Lands

BV 3160 .N49 2006
New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, edited by Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Boston: Brill, 2006)

It is a common conceit that our problems are unique in human history. One of the reasons for studying history, of course, is to deflate that conceit by finding the overarching stories that have been part of human history for millennia. New Faith in Ancient Lands accomplishes this by giving historical insight into West/East religious encounters in the past two hundred years that evoke parallels with what we see in the news today.

Consider the story of Pope Gregory XIII who in 1582 sent two papal legates to the Coptic patriarch John XIV. In the middle of negotiations with the Coptic Church synod, John XIV mysteriously died. The legates were immediately arrested as spies and were not released until a ransom of 5,000 gold pieces was paid. As Anthony O'Mahony summarizes the end result of this attempt at reunion, "The results of the attempt at reunion remained ambiguous and contested through mutual lack of understanding between the two parties." (p.94)

Or consider the fate of Miss Matilda Creasy, one of the first female English missionaries to Jerusalem. Creasy became the treasurer for the Sarah Society, and partnered proselytization with the charitable work of the society. Most of the Sarah Society's money went to feed and clothe the poor women of the Jewish Quarter. On September 9, 1858, Matilda Creasy's beaten body was found outside the city of Jerusalem. Efforts to investigate the murder led to conflict between the Ta'amri Bedouin and the Ottoman government, resulting in the death of four of the Ottomon soldiers. No one was ever convicted for Miss Matilda Creasy's murder, but unflattering portraits of the Holy Land as a murderous land lived long after her.

Nor are all the stories negative: Consider the works of the Kaiserswerth Deaconess Institution. Founded in 1836 in Kaiserswerth Germany and funded by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, the Kaiserswerth deaconesses worked to establish the Orientarbeit, an educational and nursing program in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. Part of the Deaconness Institution mission was to raise up sisters from the local population. This partnership with local peoples contributed to the longevity of the Orientarbeit, and the last Kaiserswerth deaconess retired in 1974.

As Murre-van den Berg writes in her introduction, "There can be little doubt that the nineteenth century, like the early stages of the Crusader period, constituted a time in which influences and developments from many different parts of society contributed to an ever-increasing Christian interest in the Middle East." (p.17) The stories collected in this volume capture well the ambiguity, the struggles, and the seemingly few successes of Western missionary efforts in the Middle East. They are apt tales for our time.

Table of Contents:

Introduction / Heleen Murre-van den Berg

Spirituality and scholarship: the Holy Land in Jesuit eyes (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries) / Bernard Heyberger and Chantal Verdeil

William McClure Thomson’s The Land and the Book (1859): pilgrimage and mission in Palestine / Heleen Murre-van den Berg

Fransciscains en terre sainte: de l’espace au territoire, entre opposition et adaptation / Giuseppe Buffon

Coptic Catholic church, the Apostolic Vicar Maximus Giuaid (1821-1831), the Propaganda Fide and the Franciscans in early nineteenth-century Egypt / Anthony O’Mahony

Danger and the missionary enterprise: the murder of Miss Matilda Creasy / Nancy L. Stockdale

Public space and private spheres: the foundation of St Luke’s Hospital of Nablus by the CMS (1891-1901) / Philippe Bormaud

Metamorphosis of a pietistic missionary and educational institution into a social services enterprise: the case of the Syrian Orphanage (1860-1945) / Roland Löffler

Deutschen Kurdenmissionen in Mahabad in ihrem Kontakt zu den orientalischen Christen / Martin Tamcke

German "Home Mission" abroad: the Orientarbeit of the Deaconess Institution Kaiserswerth in the Ottoman Empire / Uwe Kaminsky

American Protestant missionary beginnings in Beirut and Istanbul: policy, politics, practice and response / Habid Badr

"Missions in Eden": shaping an educational and social program for the Armenians in Eastern Turkey (1855-1895) / Barbara J. Merguerian

Evangelization or education: American Protestant missionaries, the American Board, and the Girls and Women of Syria (1830-1910) / Ellen Fleischmann

Muslim response to missionary activities in Eqypt: with a special reference to the Al-Azhar High Corps of ʻUlamâ (1925-1935) / Umar Ryad.

4/23/07 -- Book of the Week: Render Unto God

BV 639 .P6 P57 2002
Render Unto God: Economic Vulnerability, Family Violence, and Pastoral Theology, by James Newton Poling (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2002)

In his introduction, James Poling writes, "In this book I extend my research to discover how economic vulnerability among working-class and poor women and children in European American, African American, and Latina/o cultures exacerbates experiences of family violence, and what role religion plays in empowering them and their families."

Render Unto God provides extensive research on and case studies of the ways in which economic injustice affects members of these three communities, especially women and children. The concluding two chapters, Pastoral Care With Persons Who Are Vulnerable and The Spirituality of Practicing Goodness, are Poling's plea for a transformation of pastoral care practices, especially when there are marked differences in cultural or economic class backgrounds between a pastoral caregiver and someone receiving the care. Particularly in the Western Church, there is a need for pastoral caregivers to accept their brothers and sisters who have been economically oppressed with open receptivity and a courage to act on their behalf. Poling argues this kind of transformation in pastoral care will in turn lead to a transformation of the worship and community life of the Church, more closely conforming the Church to the image of Christ.

Table of contents:

Principles of Pastoral care -- Economics, violence, and care -- Pastoral Counseling of Domestic Violence Victims in Nicaragua -- A story of healing and liberation -- Pastoral care and vulnerability -- Economic analysis -- The connection between the unjust distribution of wealth and vulnerability -- Theories of capitalism and the distribution of wealth -- A Christian critique of market capitalism -- Resistance to capitalism -- Resistance to capitalism in Nicaragua -- African American resistance to capitalism in the United States -- Women’s resistance to capitalism in the United States -- Theological reflection -- Mark’s critique of oppressive political economies -- Mark’s alternative economic vision -- A church empowered by the holy spirit-- Transforming pastoral care -- Pastoral care with personals who are vulnerable -- The spirituality of practicing goodness.

4/15/07 -- New Book Lists Updated

You can view the list of new book titles at Brimson Grow Library here.

If you would like to receive the list of new book titles by email, you can subscribe to the library email news.

4/13/07 -- Free CHE Accounts Available

Everyone can now have a personalized subscription to Academe Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education's daily email news report.

One advantage of having your own subscription: You can personalize your login and password so if you want to connect to the Chronicle's web site from home, you will be able to do so with your own login and password instead of having to remember the school's login.

Signing up for Academe Today is simple. Just go to http://chronicle.com/help/emails/academetoday/?sle and click on the “sign up now” link. You’ll have to create a free Chronicle account if you don’t have one before you can subscribe. Once you confirm your e-mail address, you’ll receive your very own copy of Academe Today the very next weekday morning.

4/9/07 -- Book of the Week: Saint John's Bible

BS 191.5 .A1 2005 .C65
The Saint John's Bible is the first hand-lettered and illuminated Bible produced in over 500 years.

The monks of St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota wanted to commission a hand-illuminated Bible at the start of the 21st century. Jewish and Islamic communities have kept alive the art of hand-lettered scriptures, but this practice in Christianity died out with the advent of the printing press.

To create this special Bible, Donald Jackson was commissioned as the artistic director of this massive project. Donald Jackson and his team of over a dozen other artists and calligraphers are writing and illustrating the Bible one page at a time.

The Saint John's Bible uses the text of the New Revised Standard Version chosen both because its predecessor, the Revised Standard Version, was accepted by most Christian churches and because of its use of gender-inclusive language. Four of the seven volumes are now complete, and the entire Bible should be finished in 2008.

The full-color facsimile volumes in our library are available to be checked out to allow everyone to enjoy this beautiful and enduring edition of God's Word.



You can read more about the creation of the Saint John's Bible at http://www.saintjohnsbible.org.

4/2/07 -- Book of the Week: Off-Road Disciplines

BV 652.1 .C735 2006
Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders, by Earl Creps (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006)

This book is Earl Creps's take on the role of spiritual disciplines in forming the life and practice of believers. He steps outside of the traditional definitions of spiritual disciplines and encourages believers to go "off-road" by practicing disciplines that engage them with the world in ways that will fundamentally transform their souls. His chapter headings divide his list of disciplines into six personal disciplines and six organizational disciplines (arguing that organizations, like individuals, need to be spiritually formed):

Part one: personal disciplines
Death : the discipline of personal transformation -- Truth : the discipline of sacred realism -- Perspective : the discipline of POV -- Learning : the discipline of reverse mentoring -- Witness : the discipline of spiritual friendship -- Humility : the discipline of decreasing

Part two: organizational disciplines
Assessment : the discipline of missional efficiency -- Harmony : the discipline of blending differences -- Reflection : the discipline of discernment -- Opportunity : the discipline of making room -- Sacrifice : the discipline of surrendering preferences -- Legacy : the discipline of passing the baton

Epilogue: three coffee houses

4/2/07 -- Library Closed Easter Weekend

The library will be closed Good Friday through Easter Sunday:

Mon, 4/2 - Thurs, 4/5    8:30am - 11:00pm
Fri, 4/6 - Sun, 4/8     CLOSED

The library will reopen at 8:30am on Monday, April 9.