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CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIANITY BOOK/RESOURCE LIST
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Living The Questions 2.0 - An Introduction to Progressive Christianity
A DVD series that can be used for a group study of progressive Christianity. Living the Questions seeks not to provide easy answers, but to be a resource for people who are in the midst of a life-long converesation about the mysteries of faith and life. For more information and/or to order: www.LivingtheQuestions.com
A Look at Christianity Through Contemporary Eyes, Jean Conley, E-Book, 2009.
This book contains the basis for a contemporary Christianity and includes the most recent research related to the historical Jesus. It covers the history of the emergence of the early church and Christianity, when and how the New Testament was written and compiled, and an in depth analysis of the person of Jesus and his message. The text is deliberately formatted as an e-book so that it can be downloaded free of charge. DOWNLOAD NOW
Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Marcus J. Borg, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995.
This book, in simple language, provides an account of contemporary Jesus scholarship as well as the Christian context of the church and Marcus Borg’s own life journey toward a relationship with the Spirit of God.
The Lost Gospel Q., Marcus J. Borg, Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 1996.
Written by contemporaries of Jesus, as a sacred handbook for his followers, The Lost Gospel Q brings us closer to ancient Christianity. Based on sayings in Jesus’ own language, Q was eventually incorporated into the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Only in the past 150 years have historians rediscovered the fragments.
Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, Marcus J. Borg, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.
In this groundbreaking work, leading biblical expert Marcus Borg offers a bold new understanding of scripture that respects both traditions and reality, blending the best of biblical scholarship with a profound concern for authentic faith and how it can be lived today.
Thank God for Evolution!, Michael Dowd, San Francisco: Council Oak Books, 2007.
By applying the inspirational language of religion to science and the grounded language of science to religion a new heaven and a new earth emerge. When we come to see evolution in a sacred way, we no longer need to believe, we know, God is real.
The Third Jesus and the Christ We Cannot Ignore, Deepak Chopra, paperback, New Yonk, Random House, 2008.
Deepak Chopra argues that the Jesus vision, compromised traditionally because of its difficulty, is not impossible to realize if we understand that the Kingdom of God is in the realm of the soul. What Jesus actually taught is much more radical than most people realize.
Original Blessing, Matthew Fox, Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Company, Inc., 1983.
This hopeful book guides us to rejoice and celebrate the uniqueness of our existence, leads us back to our own creativity and the deep, ecstatic center which resides beneath any fear of death.
Creation Spirituality, Matthew Fox, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.
Showing how we can learn from each other, Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in both North and South America. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just creator.
A Credible Jesus, Robert W. Funk, Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2002.
The extraordinary vision of Jesus comes to us in bits and pieces, in random stunning insights, embedded in the everyday language oof his parables, aphorisms, and dialogues. Robert Funk sorts and assembles these fragments and examines ways in which the vision they preserve can serve twenty first century people searching for meaning today.
The Acts of Jesus, Robert W. Funk, et al. New York, HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.
This book presents the most current research and scholarship of the Jesus Seminar about the authentic deeds of Jesus; The answers emerge in a new understanding of the life and death of an iconoclastic visionary. Like The Five Gospels, the actions of Jesus are color coded in red, pink, grey or black, depending on the probability of historical truth estimated by Jesus Seminar scholars.
The Five Gospels, Robert W. Funk,, Roy Hoover, and Jesus Seminar, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.
In pursuit of the historical Jesus, the distinguished group of biblical scholars led by Robert Funk, used their collective expertise to determine the authenticity of more than fifteen hundred sayings attributed to Jesus. The recently discovered Gospel of Thomas is included in a new translation and assessment of the Gospels.
Tomorrow’s God, Lloyd Geering, Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2000.
Geering traces the collective ‘drift toward meaning’ that gave rise to the various religions and explores the reasons they are now in decline. He argues that, for our own survival, we must create new meaning for our lives, and shows how the Christian tradition may lead towards a new world of meaning.
Profiles of Jesus, Roy W. Hoover, Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2002.
A collection of fifteen profiles by Fellows of the Jesus Seminar presented at the end of twelve years of systematic examination of all the words and deeds attributed to Jesus in the ancient sources. Taken together readers meet a provocative young man of first-century Palestine whose vision and determination to live the vision gave birth to a new form of faith and changed the course of history.
The Complete Gospels, Robert J. Miller, Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 1994.
This book presents for the first time anywhere all twenty of the known gospels from the early Christian era, offering a fuller and more fascinating picture of early Christian origins than found in the four canonical gospels alone. Each gospel is translated into lively, contemporary English, recapturing the spirit of the original, called the Scholars Version (SV).
Tomorrow’s Catholic, Michael Morwood, Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1997.
In clear, down-to-earth language, Michael Morwood tries to bridge the gap between church doctrine and the essential gospel message that is our Christian legacy. He notes that many of the images and ideas and much of the language we bring to faith questions today belong to a worldview that is no longer relevant.
Is Jesus God?, Michael Morwood, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001.
For Morwood, Jesus is to be closely identified with God, but this book is an invitation to Christians and non-Christians to challenge their inherited notions of how and why Jesus is to be thought of as divine. He begins by rejecting what so many have already rejected, the notion of inherited sin. Rejecting this teaching, however, calls into question the nature and role of Jesus and salvation as it has been traditionally understood.
Praying a New Story, Michael Morwood, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2004.
The new story unfolds throughout the prayers and reflections, a story of all life existing in God, telling us that we ourselves give the mystery we call God a way of coming to expression, not a journey to God but in God. There are reflections Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost, intimacy, suffering, sin and death in the belief that we live in God.
From Sand to Solid Ground, Questions of Faith for Modern Christians, Michael Morwood, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2008.
The question and answer format for this book make it an easy read but the content is deep and challenging. It deals with who or what is this divine presence we call God and what is the relationship with Jesus.
Children Praying a New Story. A Resource for Parents, Grandparents and Teachers, Michael Morwood, Indiana: Kelmor Publishing, 2009.
This book is for adult Christians engaged in this shift, now asking the vital questions:
How do we educate children into this new faith perspective?
How do we pray with them if prayer is not about addressing an external, listening Deity?
Beyond Belief, The Secret Gospel of Thomas, Elaine Pagels, New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
In Beyond Belief, renowned religion scholar Elaine Pagels continues her groundbreaking examination of the earliest Christian texts, arguing for an ongoing assessment of faith and a questioning of religious orthodoxy of her own faith.
A New Christianity for a New World, John Shelby Spong, New York: Harper Collins, 2001.
Spong looks beyond traditional boundaries to open new avenues and a new vocabulary into the Holy, proposing a Christianity premised upon justice, love, and the rise of a new humanity – a vision of the power that might be.
Why Christianity Must Change or Die, John Shelby Spong, New York: Harper Collins, 1999.
Twenty years in the making, Spong explores beyond theism to new God images, the Christ as Spirit person, the meaning of prayer, ethics and future church. A profound, honest, hopeful, well documented compilation of all his earlier works.
Liberating the Gospels, John Shelby Spong, New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
The best of his many books in his own estimation, Spong offers a compelling view of the Gospels as Jewish midrashic stories fit together to correspond to the Jewish liturgical calendar by the early “followers”, not literally true stories but written to convey the significance of Jesus.
Redemptive Intimacy, Richard Westley, Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1981.
Truly a book for everyone struggling to become like Jesus. Westley issues the startlingly forceful challenge to walk with the Lord in an intimacy that beckons the reader beyond religion to faith, past the image of a religious idol into a personal relationship with the God who raises up and heals all of humanity.
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