"He told them many things in parables": up/rooted.west this summer

At our May gathering, we wrapped up discussion of Tony Jones's The New Christians. Next up, since the few of us who were at the Peter Rollins Insurrection tour back in April were happily left in a parabolic state of mind by that experience, we'd like to take up Rollins's The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales. I notice from the blog archives here (before my time) that this won't be up/rooted.west's first discussion of a Rollins book--the group read How (Not) to Speak of God a few years back--but if you haven't had any exposure to Peter's distinctive way of "a/theologizing" yet, his latest collection of parables should serve as a fine introduction. Inspired by Jesus' own method of teaching, these creative new parables similarly reveal and conceal at the same time, pointing us to a God who is so much more than our statements about God.

But if that doesn't sound intriguing enough, think of it as story time. Everybody loves story time, right? We'll have the book on hand and will pick out a couple to read aloud--they're short and pithy and I believe meant to be told in that way. So that means you don't have to read anything ahead of time, and securing a copy of the book yourself is optional.

We're sticking at Gino's, at least for June (maybe we'll picnic it later in the summer), but please note we're switching from the 2nd Thursday of the month to the 3rd. So we'll gather next on June 17th. Drop in between 6:30-7pm; the conversation starts at 7.

Peace,

Mark

up/rooteded.west co-leader