READERS' COMMENTS
about
The Transparent Event: Post-Modern Christ Images
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"I am deeply appreciative of the work you have done on behalf of the Order, the Movement and the Church. You have accomplished an amazing piece of scholarship that honors us all. I am currently meeting with a group of five . . . and would like to make the book available to them, as well as to my sons. Please send six more copies?" JC
"All colleagues here [Denver] are RAVING about how good the book is!" SW
"I suppose the proof will be in spending time on all the exercises. Thank you, kind sir, for the very gracious offense!" JW
"I gave a copy of the book to my pastor. She was excited to receive it. I really admire your effort put into creating a powerful message." ER
"I'm almost finished with your book. It is very well done and a real gift to me. It is exactly what I needed to read at this point in my life and faith journey. . . .Thanks for writing this book." RA
"You're doing a historic deed, much needed. Thank you." BP
"Your passion for addressing lives comes through loud and clear, especially in the exercises to build one's own Christology. I'm looking forward to writing a review of it sometime soon. . . . I'm especially pleased at the way you've presented the Order in the book: objectively, not defensively, and with apparent appreciation." JE
"Oh my, what a magnificent job you have done with that book." OS
"I would like to order three more copies of the book for minister freinds. Am also trying to set up a study of it in our church in the fall.
. . . Am halfway through the book and it's hard not to skim ahead. I also keep going back and reading parts I've already read over and over. Great book!" DR
"We are so delighted with your book that we would like five more copies." KW
"I'm about halfway through it. It's a real knockout. I thought you did an incredibly fine job on explaining transparency, just to mention one thing. I only hope enough people in the institutional church get hold of it." BS
"I took the book to Sunday School this morning and shared a little about it with the class. . . . Some of your thinking I have made taboo for myself. Have not allowed my mind to go there. For me, you explore what makes so many in the mainstream so very nervous. Incredibly, however, I truly feel that my own theology (Christology) is very close to yours. It was such a relief to read some of your thoughts." JH
"Best damn book I have ever read. I will preach it till I die." PM
"I appreciate your using these various theologians to illustrate and trace the roots of your own christology. I find your book scholarly and readable, and a call to renew my own decision to attempt to follow the faith of Jesus." KB
"My reflection is that Mathews' christology (if there is one) is something like 'I've been forced by something to confront my illusions about my life, and now I have to live my life as one who is continually confronted by that address. And that's what I understand to be the ultimate reality that I acknowledge.' I could go on, but only from that radical perspective can we grasp how the historical church has screwed up its understanding re Christology." MS
"I find it [your book] a holy delight to read." DR
"Your book is scholarly, comprehensively sourced, grounded, readable and life-addressing." BS
"You have given a precious gift to the church and society. May God continue to use you in marvelous ways." EL
"I am enjoying the book tremendously and am hoping to find the definition of the essence of my quest defined within the pages of your book. I am encouraged that I will be successful in my search." BM
"I am enthralled with your book. I need two more copies." MC
"Great scholarship, fantastic teaching tool." LH
"The ________'s and the ________'s both REALLY recommended your book. High praise! . . . So we'd like one." CC
"John, the book is a fantastic effort; a real encyclopedia of Order Ecumenical work. The summary of Joseph Mathews is rich and thoughtfully done." WS
"I am in somewhat of a personal transformation and your book has entered my life at just the right moment." WM
"My words for your effort are enlivening, scholarly, reassuring, sensitive, and sometimes surprising." BA
"You are to be commended for this courageous endeavor." JW
"Thanks for writing this book. You have made my meditative council, which I take as the highest kind of praise." EA
"It is filled with 'ah-ha's' that allow us all to get insight into our wounderful, awe-filled journey together." JL
"Your book opened a floodgate of responses from me: intellectual, spiritual, emotional. It was so great to have the words and mythology which I felt I had lost or buried. If I only knew how to convince my 23- year-old, who grew up without a religious mythology, to read it." CH
"Your research and writing are wonderfully sustaining. . . . I am reading it for a second time." AA
"Thank you . . . for preserving so much of our 'common memory,' John. It is hard to put the book down." NG
"The most fun and interesting theological work since seminary." DB
"Having read through the theology section of the book, so far, I have grown in my appreciation of your keen mind and ability to state matters in a straight forward and understandable manner. . . . I will read the rest of the book in the next couple of days but could not resist the urge to thank you for strengthening the connection to my theological roots." HS
"You've always, well almost always, pushed across the boundaries. Anyone who does that shares something of who and what Jesus was about." DR
