Books Frank McPherson Has Read

2023
  One Coin Found by Emmy Kegler
    Finished reading on January 16, 2023
    I read this book in two days. It is a memoir of a queer ELCA pastor that describes how she found who she is.
  Journey To The Common Good by Walter Brueggemann
    Finished reading on January 29, 2023
    “I believe it is impossible to overstate the defining nature of the empire of force among us, if empire is understood as a political, economic, military, ideological practice of self-security and control. It is not clear that life can be construed beyond empire; but the poets have to try. The poets, because they are poets, never arrive there, for their poetry would then become program. That, however, does not render the poetry as a failure or as an irrelevance. It only affirms that alternatives to the lethal reductionism of empire require imagination and courage and staying power. In that ancient world, it was required that old Jerusalem be relinquished and new Jerusalem be undertaken. It is no less required now that there be relinquishing and undertaking.”
2022
  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
    Finished reading on January 2, 2022
  Sex, God, and Rock 'n' Roll: Catastrophes, Epiphanies, and Sacred Anarchies by Barry Taylor
    Finished reading on February 6, 2022
  What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self by Richard Rohr
    Finished reading on February 13, 2022
    Rohr says, "I hope this book can invite you into the seemingly simple yet always profound realm of those who have found their way close to God and all of creation, and it can place the path of the mystic within your reach."
  Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott
    Finished reading on February 13, 2022
    "What is meaning in the meteoric passage of time, the speed in which our lives are spent? Where is meaning in the pits? In the suffering? I think these questions are worth asking."
  Faith After Doubt by Brian D. McLaren
    Finished reading on February 27, 2022
    I think in some way's this is Brian's version of Richard Rohr's "Falling Upward." McLaren proposes a four-stage model of faith development in which questions and doubt are not the enemy of faith, but rather a portal to a more mature and fruitful kind of faith.
  The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus by Tripp Fuller
    Finished reading on March 27, 2022
    I re-read this book for Lent as part of a seminar called Jesus De/Constructed
  Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass
    Finished reading on March 27, 2022
    I read this book for Lent as part of a seminar called Jesus De/Constructed
    This is a personal memoir about Diana's evolving relationship with Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, and Way.
  The Last Week - What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by Marcus J. Borg
    Finished reading on April 17, 2022
    I read this book as part of my Holy Week devotion
  After Jesus Before Christianity: A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements by Erin Vearncombe
    Finished reading on June 12, 2022
    This book expands on research on the 200 hundred years between the death of Jesus and the assimilation of Christianity in to the Roman Empire.
  Reviving Old Scratch by Richard Beck
    Finished reading on June 19, 2022
  Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal
    Finished reading on September 3, 2022
  Do I Stay Christian? by Brian McLaren
    Finished reading on September 5, 2022
  Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson
    Finished reading on October 15, 2022
  Jesus' Alternatve Plan by Richard Rohr
    Finished reading on November 13, 2022
  The Age of Acrimony by Jon Grinspan
    Finished reading on December 31, 2022
  The Wounding and Healing of Desire by Wendy Farley
    Finished reading on January 15, 2023 (Majority read in 2022)
2021
  Books That I Have Read during 2021
  See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur
    Finished reading on January 18, 2021
    See No Stranger is a statement made by Guru Nanak, first teacher of the Sikh faith, and this memoir teaches how to live it by wondering about “the others” story. “To practice seeing each of them as a sister or brother or family member, I say in my mind: You are a part of me I do not yet know.
  The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution by Gregory A. Boyd
    Finished reading on March 7, 2021
    The author establishes a definition of a Christian as one who "submit to the Reign of God" and in so doing participates in the beautiful Life of God. He equates this to Jesus proclamations of "the Kingdom of God." The author then goes on to examine how such Christians relate to today's governments and how they should revolt against idolatry, judgement, religion, individualism, nationalism, violence, social oppression, racism, poverty and greed, abuse of creation, sex, and secularism. I found most of the chapters made very good points but that the last two fell into familiar evangelical talking points.
  OMG WTF Does the Constitution Actually Say? by Ben Sheehan
    Finished reading on May 24, 2021
    One might find the U.S. founding document dry or too intimidating to read, so for those I think they will find this book makes those documents approachable. We all ought to read the Constitution more frequently, if not read it before voting in every federal election.
  One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin Kruse
    Finished reading July 2, 2021
    The United States of America, the first nation founded during modernity, has a unique relationship with religion. Founders of the United States had direct experience with how tyranny uses religion to gather and maintain power and set out to create through its Constitution what Thomas Jefferson described as a wall of separation between church and state. In too many ways that wall is being dismantled brick by brick by people who have either forgot or don't want to remember why the First Amendment exists. Hint: It's not about government threatening or making mandates of religion (eg. forcing people to bake wedding cakes for homosexual weddings), it's about keeping the influence of religion out of the hands of governmental power.
    Unfortunately, Power has found an end around Jefferson's wall through political parties and their associated conservative and liberal ideologies. When did the end around begin and who managing the game plan? The authors describe how Corporate America discovered how religious leaders can fight the battle against their perceived threat of existence by regulations on them as a result of the Great Depression. In other words, what we know as Christian America was created by Corporate America to destroy the New Deal.
  The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity by Cynthia Bourgeault
    Finished reading July 5, 2021
    In this book Bourgeault makes the case that the Trinity is about process rather than persons. The process is a ternary system known as the Law of Three that stipulates that a third "mediating" or "reconciling" principle that emerges from two opposites generates a fourth dimension.
    "A child begotten through the interaction of sperm (affirming), egg (denying), and the act of lovemaking (reconciling) is not simply a continuation of its parents but a new life, with a whole new horizon stretching before her and the dynamism of manifestation imprinted within her."
  Hoping Against Hope: Confessions of a Postmodern Pilgrim by John D. Caputo
    Finished reading July 25, 2021
    Rather than a Platonic, matter and spirit (body and soul) metaphysics, Caputo says the distinction is between two types of time. Conditional time, or time spent doing this to achieve/obtain that, and unconditional time, times when something comes over us that is savored for itself. As metaphor, Caputo uses the rose, which is without why, it blossoms because it blossoms, it cares not for itself and not if it's seen.
  In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World by Pádraig Ó Tuama
    Finished reading on August 22, 2021
    I really enjoyed this book because it contains so much wisdom scavenged during life lived. Chapter 8, Hello To Change, is particularly good. For more read this.
  No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics, And The Future by Joerg M. Rieger
    Finished reading on September 5, 2021
    "One of the core concerns of this book is the sense that people approach economics in much the same way as they approach religion. People who have been conditioned by their religious leaders to believe what they are told without the opportunity to question tend not to question what they are told by their economic leaders either." If you consider yourself a Christian and live in the United States you will find this book challenging.
  Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News by Brian Zahnd
    Finished reading on November 21, 2021
    For me the best chapters of this book are the ones that put Revelation in proper context as revealing a loving God. The title is intended to be a direct counter to Jonathan Edward’s sermon, Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God. Our struggle is to overcome the ego’s portrait of God to Christ’s revelation of God.
  No Cure For Being Human by Kate Bowler
    Finished reading: November 28, 2021
    "While I believe that there may be rich meaning at every crossroad in our lives—each meeting and departure, car accident or chance encounter—I do not believe that God will provide for every need or prevent every sorrow. From my hospital room, I see no master plan to bring me to a higher level, guarantee my growth, or use my cancer to teach me. Good or bad, I will not get what I deserve. Nothing will exempt me from the pain of being human."
  Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans, Jeffrey Chu
    Finished reading: December 19, 2021
    This is the last book written by Rachel, a work in progress at the time of her death. It has a focus on wholeness and what it means to be whole.
  Jesus Unexpected: Ending the End Times to Become the Second Coming by Keith Giles
    Finished reading on December 26, 2021
    End times and "rapture" teaching only appeared in Christian teaching in the 1800s, and as believed today would be a completely foreign concept to Jesus, Paul, and the apostles.
  The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené Brown
    Finished reading on December 31, 2021
    I started the year reading See No Stranger and revolutionary love and ended the year reading a call to the revolution of living wholeheartedness.
2020
  You're a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass): Embracing the Emotions, Habits, and Mystery That Make You You by Mike McHargue
    Finished reading on December 28, 2020
    This one is a quick read. McHargue does a good job of explaining complicated topics like the brain. Learned more about the brain than I had known.
  Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality by James Marion
    Finished reading on December 27, 2020
    The author expands on Ken Wilber’s nine levels of consciousness. Not sure I am ready yet to understand everything in this book.
  The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind--A New Perspective on Christ and His Message by Cynthia Bourgeault
    Finished reading November 15, 2020
    People taught in western Christianity primarily learn a savior-oriented teaching about Jesus, but few study Jesus’ teaching that is wisdom-oriented and less understood.
  Love Matters More: How Fighting to Be Right Keeps Us from Loving Like Jesus by Jared Byas
    Finished reading on October 11, 2020
    If I were to write a book about my personal theology, it would look very much like this book. Highly recommended.
  The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Church History: Flaming Heretics and Heavy Drinkers by Bill Leonard, Tripp Fuller
    Finished reading on September 26, 2020
    Many of us who claim the label of Christian know little of the history of the church that forms what much of the world believes about Christianity, and that is a terrible mistake. Most of what we learn from the church is a reaction to modernity that originated from within empire, that we don’t know much and experience little of pre-Constantine church that had little claim to worldly power. Start with the fact that Jesus was Jewish and Christ is not his last name and go from there.
  Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation by angel Kyodo Williams, Lama Rod Owens, Jasmine Syedullah
    Finished reading on September 20, 2020
    I feel as though this year we all have been like Paul, kicking against the goads, (Acts 26:14) pushing back against our connectedness for the sake of a perceived better individuality. To wit, one of the authors writes, “White folks’ particular reluctance to acknowledge impact as a collective while continuing to benefit from the construct of the collective leaves a wound intact without a dressing. The air needed to breathe through forgiveness is smothered. Healing is suspended for all. Truth is necessary for reconciliation. Will we express the promise of and commitment to liberation for all beings, or will we instead continue a hyper-individualized salvation model—the myth of meritocracy—that is the foundation of this country’s untruth?”
  Genesis for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused Book of the Bible by Peter Enns, Jared Byas
    Finished reading on August 30, 2020
    This book is an easy read and it helps the reader put the first book of the Bible in its proper context.
  That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation by David Bentley Hart
    Finished reading on August 15, 2020
    The author makes the case for Universal Salvation in response to critics. To me the argument centers on what does it mean in 1 Corinthians 15:28 when Paul writes of the Gospel that the Son's work is "so that God may be all in all."
  So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
    Finished reading on August 13, 2020
    We can't begin to do something about racism when we cannot agree on what it is or on the fact that it exists. To do so we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable to the idea that the story we tell about ourselves is not true.
  The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith by Marcus Borg
    Finished August 10, 2020
    The emerging paradigm sees Christian life as a life of relationship and transformation. Being Christian is not about meeting requirements for a future reward in an afterlife, and not very much about believing. Rather, the Christian life is about a relationship with God that transforms life in the present.
  The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction by Peter Rollins
    Finished (again) August 2, 2020
    Perhaps most important for any follower of a faith is how they see their God, because how one sees God is how they see everything.
  Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church by Barbara A. Holmes
    Finished July 19, 2020
    The trauma Africans have endured over centuries has forged contemplative practices out of necessity to survival. Civilization and the Christian church may well have begun in Africa and the Black church will lead us to a better place if we allow ourselves to be taught.
  God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath by N.T. Wright
    Finished July 4, 2020
    All attempts at trying to interpret current events to answer the question, what is God doing, should be done through the lense of Jesus as told in the Gospels.
    Atonement comes within the redefinition of power. When thinking of God as being 'sovereign' or 'in charge' or 'in control' Jesus instructs us to rethink the notion of 'kingdom,' 'control' and 'sovereignty' themselves, around his death on the cross.
    The Sermon on the Mount is about mission, not about ethics.
  Defiant: What the Women of Exodus Teach Us about Freedom by Kelley Nikondeha
    Finished on July 4, 2020
    In a patriarchal society the role women play leading us to freedom is overlooked. This book can open one's eyes to what has always been real.
  The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder by Richard Rohr
    Finished reading on June 7, 2020
    Growth is order, chaos, reorder and growth is life. Two important quotes from the author: “We’re seeing that the postmodern mind forms a deconstructed worldview. It does not know what it is for, as much as it knows what it is against and what it fears.” and “Another aspect of the postmodern mind is what we call a “market” mentality. In a market-driven culture like ours, things no longer have inherent value, but only exchange value.”
  Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God by Sarah Bessey
    Finished reading on April 18, 2020
    The author writes, “There is a vision of biblical shalom that caught my heart and mind years ago, a vision of what God dreams of for us and for the land. Though it was initially articulated to me by theologian Walter Brueggemann as ‘a persistent vision of joy, well-being, harmony, and prosperity,’ I have actually grown to love pastor and theologian Osheta Moore’s explanation of shalom as ‘the breadth, depth, climate, and smell of the kingdom of God.’”
  Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep Us Apart by Christena Cleveland
    Finished reading March 28, 2020
    I think our sin, how we miss the mark (hamartia) is a dualistic, either/or, way of seeing. Sadly dualism is not only pervasive in culture, it is practically fundamental in religion, so much so that retributive judgement is viewed as the goal rather than restorative justice. The author writes, “Jesus pursues us despite theological differences; his theology is more comprehensive and accurate than any of ours. He also pursues us despite cultural differences; he’s holy, we’re sinful—that’s a pretty significant “cultural” difference. Finally, the incarnation is evidence that he pursues us despite physical differences. His actions and words suggest that he is serious about connecting, in spite of physical, cultural and theological differences.”
  The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Carlton Abrams
    Finished reading March 14, 2020
    We tend to use the words happiness and joy interchangeably but they are different. Happiness is often seen as dependent on external circumstances, joy is not. “Lasting happiness (joy) cannot be found in pursuit of any goal or achievement. It does not reside in fortune or fame. It resides only in the human mind and heart, and it is here that we hope you will find it.”
  Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr
    Finished reading March 4, 2020
    This is the third time I have read this book and it has been the most influential of the books I have read. Do not read this book for self-help, read it to see better. If you take the time what you see as a being (as in human being) we are in evolution, or in simpler terms we should be continually growing. Real growth occurs when we move past expending time and energy building and maintaining our identity, what Rohr calls the first half of our lives, and move toward learning who we are inside. I again find it interesting that the Spirit lead me to re-read this book at the beginning of this year.
  Dear Church by Lenny Duncan
    Finished reading February 12, 2020
    Part memoir but mostly a call to action by a pastor of and to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, looking back this was an interesting book to start 2020. What this book started to show, and COVID19 affirmed for me, is a people and a church made of people who are addicted to their false self, the world’s view of themselves.