On the Bookshelf by Nancee Cline
In my college, class I teach my students to look for every author’s purpose and tone as they read through their assigned essays. Is it the author’s intention to entertain, to inform, or to persuade? Is the author sympathetic / cynical / conspiratorial / bitter / matter-of–fact? Recognizing purpose and tone will help the reader better understand the written work.
This was very much on my mind as I read Good Goats; Healing Our Image of God. Who exactly were the authors hoping would pick up this book? My guess is they felt that those who needed it the most would be the least likely to actually buy it. So the tone—visually—is cheerful and bright; it looks like a children’s book. There are cartoons in soft colors on most of the pages. It is the kind of book you can flip through, stop at any page, read a little, and hopefully, get hooked. Before you know it, the healing has begun; those childhood visions of a frightening vindictive God begin to soften, begin to fade. With scripture, reason and humor, the three authors, Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn, make their case for a loving Creator —in all ways, at all times.
Everyone who has grown up in a church knows the parable of the sheep and the goats and how they are divided. Most kids grow up knowing that no matter how hard they try, they belong with the bad goats. The Linns retell the parable with a very different interpretation than the one we different interpretation than the one we heard in Sunday school.
The authors first taught about good goats at church retreats. The retreats were so successful (so healing) that the Linns were asked to offer their insights to a larger audience in book form. The first half of their book is the retreat content; the second half covers valuable questions and answers. For example, here are three wonderfully intriguing questions:
*What is your basis for saying that changing our vengeful image of God was the core of Jesus’ ministry?
*I grew up with a God who seemed more like a prosecuting attorney. How did I get that idea, if God is really like a defense attorney?
* Is there anything in scripture to support your idea that God spends eternity loving and healing us?
In terms of purpose, the goals of this book are lofty: to remove every hurt that separates us from the love of God. Now that is a tall order! But the authors start with the simple ones the church itself inflicted. The tone is lighthearted, even playful—a daring move for a life-changing subject. This is the kind of book you could give as a gift, or leave accidentally at someone’s home, or donate to the library, or leave in the waiting room in the hospital, or hospice. It just sings out, asking to be picked up.
CLICK HERE FOR MARCH 2008 BOOK REVIEW: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
CLICK HERE FOR FEBRUARY 2008 BOOK REVIEW: The Desire of the Everlasting Hills: by Thomas Cahil
CLICK HERE FOR AUGUST 2007 BOOK REVIEW: Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt, by Anne Rice
CLICK HERE FOR JULY 2007 BOOK REVIEW: The Personal Reflections of Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain
CLICK HERE FOR JUNE 2007 BOOK REVIEW: Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace by Maxine Hong Kingston
CLICK HERE FOR MAY 2007 BOOK REVIEW: WHY I AM A missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinist + anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressedyet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished CHRISTIAN by Brian McLaren
CLICK HERE FOR APRIL 2007 BOOK REVIEW: The Colonyesus by John Tayman
CLICK HERE FOR MARCH 2007 BOOK REVIEW: Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Bass
CLICK HERE FOR FEBRUARY 2007 BOOK REVIEW:Dreams from My Father, A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
CLICK HERE FOR JANUARY 2007 BOOK REVIEW: Summary for 2007
CLICK HERE FOR DECEMBER 2006 BOOK REVIEW: The Dream of God by Verna J. Dozier
CLICK HERE FOR NOVEMBER 2006 BOOK REVIEW: Pastwatch, the Redemtion of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scoot Card
CLICK HERE FOR OCTOBER 2006 BOOK REVIEW: Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver
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