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Friday, March 20, 2015

Check Out My Latest Book--Please!

As of last week, my new book, I'm Right and You're Wrong: Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it, was published by Energion Publications. Although it isn't specifically about LGBTQI issues, it goes a long way in explaining how people can, and do, differ on major biblical issues. Here's a little of the Introduction:

How many times have you had a conversation with someone that involved a disagreement over the Bible? And how many times have these conversations led to interruptions of friendships or even extended family disputes? Some of these disputes have split congregations. Even the more mild disagreements can leave us perplexed.  Why is it that something so plain to one is so obviously unconvincing to others? This often leads us to search for ways to convince others through honing our interpretive skills, doing elaborate word studies, consulting scholarly commentaries and the like.  In the end, however, people don’t easily change their minds, and we are left to wonder why. 
This book differs from most in that rather than looking at how to interpret the Bible properly, we’ll examine the sources of disagreement among interpreters.  We all have our own ways of trying to understand the Bible and they are close to our hearts.  Many of us think our way is superior to most, if not all.  But we will not venture into who is right and who is wrong in our interpretations.   What concerns us here is why we interpret the way we do and what our attitude should be toward those with whom we disagree.
It's a short book. The average reader will finish it in about two hours. It's part of the Topical Line Drive series. The publisher describes books in this series as "direct and to the point...designed to demonstrate a point of scholarship or survey a topic directly, clearly, and and quickly."

There is now and always has been serious disagreement among Christians. This will likely never change. Disagreement isn't a bad thing; it helps us think through our own positions, and reminds us that no one is capable of getting everything right. The problem with disagreement comes when we are so convinced of our own rightness that we diminish and even disdain all other interpretations. This book is an effort to understand how disagreements can be useful in bringing people together, not tearing them apart. It explains why we disagree, that it's almost impossible for any two people to see things exactly the same, and why humility is our best partner in interpretation.

To see more about the book and how to order, here are a few links:
Energion Publications
Amazon Books
Barns and Noble and Nook

It's available in softcover ($4.99) and in the Kindle Reader format. ($.99)
Let me know what you think.


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