Hooray for Sister Simone! I'm so glad that people like her exist in the world; brave, thoughtful, and just a little bit stubborn. She writes very cleaHooray for Sister Simone! I'm so glad that people like her exist in the world; brave, thoughtful, and just a little bit stubborn. She writes very clearly about how she allows the Holy Spirit to move in her life, yet she's not at all proselytizing. She doesn't even mention g-d very often, if at all. As a Unitarian Universalist, this allows me to enter into her story in a way that I can't with some books that are all about the Big Man in the Sky. One of my favorite quotes from the book, in fact, is about her need to feel g-d in her life. She's a lawyer, among other things, and writes, "For months I hadn't had a client to represent or a court case to prepare and I needed to find other places to meet God." Her legal work with low-income clients had been meeting her need for g-d in her life, and it was moving to hear how much she needed that connection. I also appreciated how she differentiated between being pro-life and pro-birth. I'm pro-choice, yet I respect the need to be in dialogue with people who are pro-life. Sister Simone makes it seem easy. At one point she writes, "In recent decades - even during the Obama administration - the abortion rate for everybody above the lowest 20 percent in income has gone down. For women in poverty, it has gone up. The numbers are clear: It's about economics!" Her focus is more on the economics and needs of the lowest 20 percent than on Catholic teaching; I found it easy to relate to her without having to understand much of anything about Catholicism. A welcome read....more
Having read this, I'm now surprised that all the kerfluffle has been about Aslan writing about Jesus although he's (gasp!) a Muslim.
I think the contenHaving read this, I'm now surprised that all the kerfluffle has been about Aslan writing about Jesus although he's (gasp!) a Muslim.
I think the content itself is more than a bit gasp-worthy.
I've never been up on the Historical Jesus research, so I don't know how much of Aslan's writing is new or controversial. But to me, it packed a wallop. He doesn't sensationalize, and his goal isn't to disprove anything. He uses historical evidence as a lens through which to examine the stories we have of Jesus. What he finds is the sort of stuff a thoughtful Christian might be almost aware of - when Aslan lays it out, it's easy to recognize many of the inconsistencies of our stories. I found it interesting and compelling reading; Aslan is both a fine researcher and a strong writer....more