Overview
This provocative book challenges the current press God gets by blowing the lid off conventional God-descriptors. How, for example, might ""God the Caring Daddy"" be different from the traditional ""God the Heavenly Father""? Believing that expansive metaphors for God expand our experience of God, Carolyn Jane Bohler nudges readers to consider a wide, imaginative range of images, such as God the Jazz Band Leader, God the Divine Blacksmith, God the Divine Physical Therapist, God the Choreographer of Chaos, God the Nursing Mother or God the Team Transformer. Using playful images and moving stories, supported by solid scholarship, Bohler challenges readers to explore new names for God that are not only more consistent with what they believe about God, but will, also, deepen their experience of God. Wonderfully challenging, fresh, down-to-earth, this book breaks open habits and assumptions. Bohler taps into readers' God-given ability to re-imagine God. Excellent for personal reflection or church group discussion and substantial enough to serve as a text for religious study or theology courses, this book will reach across a spectrum of beliefs and faiths.
Full Product Details
Author: Carolyn Jane Bohler (Carolyn Jane Bohler)
Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing
Imprint: SkyLight Paths Publishing,US
Dimensions:
Width: 15.30cm
, Height: 1.40cm
, Length: 23.00cm
ISBN: 9781594732515
ISBN 10: 1594732515
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 13 November 2008
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Awaiting stock
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Reviews
This is an easy, thoughtful look at the analogies we make for God, taken from everyday life. The book is an ideal read for someone who has just discovered God in their lives. Christ followers who are further into their own journey however, might become bemused by the wide variety of figurative language about God found here. There is a strong monotheistic theme, with little mention of the Trinity.However, the author does make some striking implication in the ways we understand God. Our descriptions of God affect what we believe about ourselves. Convincingly, she goes on to show how the dominant image we have for God, we will imitate in our lives.For instance, if we imagine God to be distant, almighty and all-knowing, thus our human actions are influenced in those ways. But if we imagine God to be responsive, affective, and attentive, then our lives will be in better harmony. The writer makes no claim for this conclusion as a universal truth, but it would be hard to refute that.The book climaxes in the examination of the God as Coach metaphor. The author refines this to the ultimate, Team Transformer God metaphor: a God of power, location and knowledge, where the players, (that's you and me), are called upon to forfeit our self-interests. This enables the team to work together at a very deep level, to overcome the skilful opponents. Any analogy about who the skilful opponents could be, is left to the reader's imagination.Regardless of the singularity of the deity maintained throughout this work, the book is a pleasant, worthwhile read. Should you ever be confronted by the child-like enquiry, What does God look like?, or any pagan-cast challenge about what is God, then there is a wealth of responses to be found in these pages. GOD--Rev Bruce Raymond Journey (12/07/2009)
Author Information
Carolyn Jane Bohler was the Emma Sanborn Toussant Professor of Pastoral Theology and Counseling at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, for twenty-one years. She has served three different United Methodist churches in Southern California—in San Diego, Tustin and Redlands. She was also campus chaplain at Simpson College in Iowa and hospital chaplain intern in downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco. She is the author of six books, includingOpening to God: Guided Imagery Meditation on Scripture(published under the name Stahl) and a children's book, God Is Like a Mother Hen and Much, Much More. She is now enjoying retirement back in Dayton, where she is embracing a new role as grandmother.
