A summer Alban Weekly email entitled “God Talk” caught my attention by the title and even more by the first paragraph:

“One of our liberal-evangelical heroes, J. B. Phillips, once wrote a book with a title that we [the authors] love: Your God Is Too Small . Phillips’s message was right on target, for his context and also for ours. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how good you are, or how attractive you are. It doesn’t matter how much you read the Bible, how much you pray, or how much you give to church and charity. It doesn’t matter what your culture is, what your gender is, what your skin color is. It doesn’t matter who your relatives are or who you know, where you went to school, or where you live. Your God is too small.”

I have always appreciated Phillips’ short book and the kinds of perspectives offered.  I read through the full article, an adaptation of a chapter from the second of two new Alban books:

• Lost in the Middle
  Claiming an Inclusive Faith for Christians Who Are Both Liberal and Evangelical
• Found in the Middle
  Theology and Ethics for Christians Who Are Both Liberal and Evangelical
  • Co-authored by Wesley Wildman – Assoc. Professor of Theology and Ethics at Boston University. He is ordained in the Uniting Church in Australia and has seven years full-time parish experience in moderate Christian churches.
  • and by Stephen Garner – senior pastor of the United Church of Christ in Norwell, Massachusetts. He has just completed his D.Min. in homiletics.

I decided to purchase the two books from Alban and am currently reading through the second, “Found in the Middle”.  I find the writing interesting and engaging.  It is the kind of writing that I would enjoy working through in the context of active dialogue with others.  The books draws me back to seminary days of struggling to articulate in a single essay my theological style and framework.  That was the key task of the challenging/combative Constructive Theology class of my senior year.  (I was also doing CPE while taking the heady theological formation class – an interesting dialectic of heart and mind.)

I’m attending the annual Healthy Congregations Conference this year (scheduled the same week as the Synod Theological Conference).  I use this handout as a means to convey some information and offer my invitation.  I will host a book-study group at the church I currently serve (St. John’s in Oshkosh) and suggest a bi-weekly schedule of gatherings, the first and third Thursday afternoons (1:00 PM) beginning in November.  I would be glad to host another book-study group in the western part of the synod, possibly Tuesday or Wednesday mornings in Stevens Point (or nearby), again, perhaps on first and third weeks.  (I’ll host an initial “nuts & bolts” gathering on Thursday, October 29 at 1:00 PM at St. John’s Lutheran Church at 808 No. Main St. in Oshkosh.)  Also, John Czarnota, Bruce Pangborn, and Karen Jewell have offered to support my efforts to facilitate these book-study gatherings.

I’ll use a website I created in spring to support this invitation and book-study.  The website name is: www.OurCulturesTheirCultures.org (I’ll place a link for this on TedJohanson.org)  You can use the website to express interest, offer thoughts on time/place, order books, have ongoing dialogue and more.

Ted Johanson: TedJohanson@gmail.org 920-284-7108

(Attached is the full Alban article mentioned above and the preface for “Lost in the Middle”)

(Also, the authors have established a website: www.LiberalEvangelical.org)