7 of 101 things to do as a churchless Xn - Read a Xn book

The first thing to say about this "thing to do" is that the book doesn't have to be great. Getting inspiration from a good Xn is pretty easy. More often than not a lot of the Xn books I end up reading I find less than satisfactory and certainly not inspirational. That doesn't mean you can't grow from them. Hear are some examples of books I've read recently and what I've got out of them...

Brad Jersak's "Can you hear me?" was one example and I blogged about that here.

In Oswald Guinness's "Unspeakable Evil" I didn't find what I considered a very satisfactory answer for the question "why does undeserved suffering happen?" With an impending sermon on the way I had no choice but to work it out for myself. But with the arguments presented by Guinness I really started to get some clarity on the issue. I was able to say you cover X but not Y which then fairly quickly morphed into my first Sunday Sermon for a long time.

John Spong's "the Sins of Scripture" was a Xmas present I was looking forward to reading. But, with what I considered some really unsatisfactory dealings with some pretty tough passages I worked out that whilst I had rejected much of my evangelical upbringing I was still not a liberal. Although I usually avoid classifications, for the sake of simplicity, I decided that if I was to have a category then I was definitely more of a Liberal Evangelical than an Evangelical Liberal. Which is why I'm now happy as the liberal winger in a more evangelical leaning church rather than the evangelical whinger in a more liberal church. Furthermore, since also I'm very much a postmodern kind of Xn that would make me a "post liberal evangelical" and since anyone who calls themselves a "post liberal evangelical" looks like a wanker I refrain always from doing so.

Name: Read a Xn Book
Category: Grow
Size: Small
Description: Read the book. Work out what you agree with and why and what you disagree with and why. What counter position(s) would you take and why. Reflect on how this might change or reaffirm your faith. This is not an easy activity, it takes a while and can be quite an academic and theological wrestle but in my experience it has been worth it.