HOME

The Quest to Belong

Written by: Jo Swinney

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

Price: £14.99

What does ‘home’ mean to you? Is it where you were born? Is it where you live? Or is it where you feel a meaningful connection, part of a family, or of something bigger?

These are just some the questions posed in this new book by the author, who knows more than most about ‘home’, after a nomadic existence: she was born in the UK, grew up in Portugal and France, attended boarding school in England, worked in southern Africa and in her twenties studied theology in Canada where she met her American husband. Now living in the UK, she offers a book that asks searching questions about the meaning of ‘home’. Is ‘home’ heaven, or is it church, work, marriage or the past?

A dozen chapters begin with homesickness and where you feel not at home, moving on to home in family, culture and country, with a chapter on home within wanderlust.

This is an interesting book, which has been designed for popular use by a book or study group seeking to explore more deeply the roots of ‘home’ and its biblical parallels. It addresses questions at the very heart of existence from a Christian perspective and draws parallels both with popular culture and scripture.

Drawing conclusions on the place and meaning of home, Swinney, the daughter of the founders of the Christian environmental charity A Rocha, writes: ‘Home is where we belong, the place we come back to.

‘Home is the end of our quest.’

MARTIN LUTHER

Catholic Dissident

Written by: Peter Stanford

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

Price: £20

Of all the books published this year to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, this is probably the most important – and one of the best for a mass market.

Stanford, an author and former editor of the Catholic Herald and a prolific broadcaster, has drawn on 80,000 pages of research, initially gathered for the 400th anniversary of the Reformation in Weimar (but not completed until 2009). He has endeavoured to create a painstakingly researched profile of Luther himself, offering important background on the world he lived in and the theological and political context of the time in which he lived. The result is a popular and lively biography offering insights not only into the influences and early life of Luther – and the circumstances which would lead him to pin the 95 theses on the door of his local church in Wittenburg, Germany in October 1517, but also into Luther’s life after the momentous events which sowed the seeds for the Reformation, changing forever the religious map of medieval Europe, ultimately leading to new Christian denominations, including the Church of Scotland.

Lynne McNeil

WHO NEEDS THE OLD TESTAMENT?:

Its enduring appeal and why the New Atheists don’t get it

Written by: Katharine Dell

Published by: SPCK

Price: £9.99

In this valuable book Katherine Dell, one of the UK’s foremost OT scholars, takes up the defence of the OT against the assault of the New Atheists. Dell principally focuses her work on the writings of Dawkins and Hitchens.

The first five chapters of the book contain Dell’s response to comments on the OT by Dawkins and Hitchens. Dell reviews all of the OT passages these authors select for comment and repeatedly shows that they have taken these texts out of context and have selectively chosen a small number of texts to create an impression of the OT as a whole. The passages of the OT considered here are difficult text and Dell does not apologise for or try to explain away the difficulties in these passages. Rather Dell seeks to show that these are not passages from which any Christian scholar has tried to derive moral imperatives. In their context these texts all fulfil a different function in the OT and should be carefully read in that light.

In chapters 6 to 8 Dell turns to the three divisions of the OT following the Hebrew tradition, writings, prophets, torah. From each of these sections of the OT Dell is easily able to show the grace and love of God towards his creation and a profitable way to read the OT for moral guidance. Dell concludes with two chapters considering the contemporary study of the OT in the academy and the use of the OT in the church. Both of these short chapters are very important: chapter 9 briefly introduces current OT scholarship to the church, and chapter 10 presents a challenge to the church, especially to those charged with preaching, on their use of the OT.

The attacks of the New Atheists against the Christian faith have previously been responded to, Dell’s contribution is that of a major OT scholar responding to specific failures in the writings of Dawkins and Hitchens in relation to the OT. The most valuable part of Dell’s book is her chapters positively introducing the teaching of the OT and her comments on the academic and church use of the OT. This is a well written book which would profit all who read it.

Gordon Kennedy (Rev)