Memoir, History, and Writing a Life

Storytellling has always held an important place in human society, but what does it mean to separate fact from fiction in the process? Tell Me True is a collection of fourteen essays from award-winning memoirists and historians Patricia Hampl, Elaine Tyler May, Carlos Eire, D.J. Waldie, Andre Aciman, June Cross, Helen Epstein, Matt Becker, Samuel G. Freedman, Fenton Johnson, Alice Kaplan, Annette Kobak, Michael Patrick MacDonald, and Cheri Register. They show us how easy it is to question the distinction between memory and history, and regardless of the answer, how to tell us true.

In the book’s introduction, editors Patricia Hampl and Elaine Tyler May explain:

“The writers here – historians, journalists, poets, and fiction writers – are also memoirists. They – we – are caught in this complex rhythm, not masters of it. That is the point of this collection. For it is right here, in the contemporary tango of history and memoir, that crucial questions of narrative authority in our times are being resolved. Or perhaps not ‘resolved,’ any more than the mysteries of the past can be ‘solved.’ We have gathered testimony from the field – of play, of battle, of the writing of history and the writing of a life – from practitioners who have to contend with these devilish problems at the level of the paragraph and the sentence. Consider these essays, then, as dispatches from the front lines. The front lines of narrative documentary writing in our times.”

For more information on this book, click here.

Patricia Hampl is the Regents’ Professor and McKnight Distinguished Professor at the University of Minnesota where she teaches creative writing. She is also on the permanent faculty of The Prague Summer Program. Hampl specializes in personal essay, short fiction and poetry, memoir and autobiography, creative writing, and contemporary American poetry and fiction, especially the short story and the novel.

Carlos Eire became a professor of history and religious studies at Yale University in 1996. He specializes in the social, intellectual, religious, and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe, with a focus on both the Protestant and Catholic Reformations; the history of popular piety; and the history of death.

Fellow travelers are scholars, activists, and practitioners that embody the ideals and commitments of the Project on Lived Theology. We admire their work and are grateful to be walking alongside them in the development and dissemination of Lived Theology.

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Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City

Faith believers are called to understand and respond to the cries of their neighbors facing social and economic struggles in inner-city neighborhoods. In To Live in Peace, Mark Gornik shows us how Baltimore’s New Song Community Church can be used as a model for approaching community organizing and peacemaking within the context of Scripture. A testament to the power of a daring witness, the publication guides the church forward with proposals to overcome barriers to urban ministry and human flourishing.

PLT Director Charles Marsh reviews:

“This groundbreaking book offers us the most pervasively theological account to date of community building in an urban context. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Strength to Love, Mark Gornik’s To Live in Peace is theological writing born of intense human struggle and conviction, a stunningly imaginative and powerful work. Gornik shows us, through both theological analysis and gripping narrative, that biblical faith matters greatly to the social existence of Christians: to the way we locate ourselves in towns and cities as well as to the way we respond to the challenges of civic responsibility and the brokenness of creation. . . I regard Gornik as one of the church’s most exciting theological thinkers, the kind of organic theologian we academics dream about but very rarely find. He’s the real thing.”

For more on this publication, click here.

Mark Gornik is the director of City Seminary of New York. Mark has spent the last 25 years of his life as a pastor, community developer and researcher in African churches in NYC and beyond. His other publications include Word Made Global: Stories of African Christianity in New York City (2011), co-written with Andrew Walls.

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A Cultural History

Controversy has always presided among the various doctrinal interpretations in religion, but perhaps none has created as much friction as that of original sin, the idea that humans are born into this world predisposed to evil and sin. For centuries, theologians have argued for and against the belief, and the debate continues today. In Original Sin, Alan Jacobs takes readers on a sweeping tour of the idea of original sin, its origins, its history, and its proponents and opponents. And he leaves us better prepared to answer one of the most important questions of all: Are we really, all of us, bad to the bone?

In an excerpt provided by HarperOne, Jacobs writes:

“It is the common fate of doctrines to be dismissed; you’d almost think that’s what they were made for… But of all the religious teachings I know, none- not even the belief that some people are eternally damned- generates as much hostility as the Christian doctrine we call “original sin.” It is one of the most “baleful” of ideas, says one modern scholar; it is “repulsive” and “revolting,” says another. I have seen it variously described as an insult to the dignity of humanity, an insult to the grace and loving-kindness of God, and an insult to God and humankind alike. And many of those who are particularly angry about the doctrine of original sin are Christians… What is this belief that generates such passionate rejection and such equally passionate defense?”

Read more on this publication here.

Alan Jacobs is the Distinguished Professor of the Humanities in the Honors Program at Baylor University. Jacobs’s work revolves around multiple interests, primarily literature, theology, and technology. His other publications include The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography (2013) and The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (2011).

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.

Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology

Environmental crises may be at the forefront of today’s most pressing issues, but theology’s failure to evaluate the resulting situations and reactions offers little guidance to faith believers inspired to respond. In Ecologies of Grace, Willis Jenkins presents a field-shaping introduction to Christian environmental ethics that offers resources for renewing theology. Observing how religious environmental practices often draw on concepts of grace, Jenkins maps the way Christian environmental strategies draw from traditions of salvation as they engage the problems of environmental ethics. By being particularly sensitive to the ways in which environmental problems are made intelligible to Christian moral experience, Jenkins guides his readers toward a fuller understanding of Christianity and ecology.

PLT Director Charles Marsh reviews:

“Ecologies of Grace is a stunning intellectual achievement and an interdisciplinary tour de force. While offering important conceptual clarifications of the major schools of environmental ethics, and framed within an essential rethinking of the Christian doctrines of salvation, creation and redemption, Willis Jenkins illuminates the promise of creative theological writing for the sake of the common good. This luminous book speaks not only to scholars of religion, students and ethicists, but also to policy makers, activists, clergy, and anyone concerned about the fate of the earth. Not to be overlooked, Jenkins presents his considerations with generous portions of well-crafted narrative.”

Find more information on the book here.

Willis Jenkins is the director of the religious studies graduate program at the University of Virginia and an associate professor of religion, ethics, and environment. Jenkins has authored two award-winning books and has also written a number of papers. He is currently working on three projects: a monograph entitled “The Moral Ecology of Food,” a textbook introducing religion, ethics, and environment, and a handbook to religion and ecology.

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A Memoir

Renowned South African theologian John de Gruchy inspires many through his roles as minister, professor, researcher, and writer. In the newly published I Have Come a Long Way, he reflects on a life lived well, tracing his Viking ancestry through his work as an ecumenical activist for the South African Council of Churches to the present. Rated an A research scholar by the National Research Foundation, De Gruchy specializes in the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose thought undoubtedly influenced the anti-apartheid leader’s own work in local reconciliation. Weaving this foundational thought throughout the autobiography, de Gruchy narrates an inspirational story still in the making.

De Gruchy reflects:

“If my life and experience is of some interest, it is chiefly so because I have lived through interesting times, in an interesting country, traveled to many interesting places, and been accompanied along the way by interesting folk.”

For more information on the book, click here.

John de Gruchy was the Robert Selby Taylor Professor of Christian Studies at the University of Cape Town before he retired in 2003 and was appointed a Senior Research Scholar at UCT and an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. He remains active in both institutions, engaged in research, publishing and mentoring. His other publications include Confessions of a Christian Humanist (2006).

For more of “On the Lived Theology Reading List,” click here. To engage in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, @LivedTheology, please use #LivedTheologyReads. To sign up for the Lived Theology monthly newsletter, click here.