New Eugene Peterson book

Many of us are fans of Eugene Peterson. His latest book is taking my breath away. It's titled "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places."



This is a long book, 338 pages plus appendices, notes, and indexes. So I'm sure some of you will say, "Uh, thanks for the tip" and turn away. But think twice, get the book.

I could about 25 posts with great excerpts. Here's one, from page 318:

"In 1910 G.K. Chesterton wrote a book with the title What's Wrong with the World. It was early in the century and the country was full of ideas and plans for making the world a better place to live. Socialists, anarchists, and utopians of various sorts were offering up proposals regarding poverty and economics, war and peace, ignorance and education, sickness and health, mediocrity and eugenics, propoals on how to set right what is wrong with the world. It was an optimistic age and the assumption in all the proposals was that all we had to do was find the right ideas and right technology and we could fix whatever was wrong. The daily newspapers were full of intelligent advice. but they were also impersonal, dealing with programs or plans that would redistribute income, enact legislation, develop mechanisms or tools, reform the educational system. None was without merit. But not one was personal. None identified the core "wrong," the refusal to deal relationally and responsibly with what is "right" with the world, namely, God. It is not surprising that neither the word "sin" nor the word "love" appeared in their proposals. Chesterton's book was a collection of his newspaper columns in which he called attention to the conspicuous omission of any sense of God or sin among his brilliant contemporaries. If I had to summrize Chesterton's weekly polemics directed to the pundits of the day who thought they could make the world better without bothering with God or sin, I would propose, simply, "me." What's wrong with the world? Me.