BLOG 2/18/17. WHO NEEDS ANOTHER BOOK RECOMMENDATION?

BLOG 2/18/17. WHO NEEDS ANOTHER BOOK RECOMMENDATION?

“Of the making of many books there is no end …” laments the ancient writer of Ecclesiastes, and so what I am about to blog here, you may want to dismiss by hastily punching the ‘delete’ button on your laptop, … but just in case … (I have a stack of books that people have given me, or have been recommended to me, that I will not ever read, and that is not to mention those that are now in the landfill).

But, all that said, let me introduce you to an author, a guy that fractures every image I have of typical Christian authors. It all began for me with a couple of titles: A New Christian Manifesto, and Reading the Bible With the Damned, that were published by Westminster John Knox Press, which is the press of my Presbyterian denomination, and which published my first book decades ago. The titles intrigued me, but then the author was someone I had never heard of: Bob Ekblad. Reading his bio was even more intriguing, it was downright weird. Here is a guy who is the unbelievable combination of a one, who right out of the university in Seattle, engaged in teaching campesinos in Honduras to do sustainable farming, who is an ordained Presbyterian whose degrees in divinity, and PhD in Old Testament, are from the University of Montpellier in France, and who is significantly formed by a transforming Pentecostal encounter with the Holy Spirit replete with  a compelling awareness of the healing ministry Christ gives his church), and, with his wife Gracie, maintains a remarkable compassionate ministry to prisoners and illegal immigrants in Skagit County, Washington, as well as to migrants and victims of human need in Europe, Africa and in other nations.

The guy doesn’t fit any mold. I initiated some communication with him, and we have continued in a very spasmodic and modest correspondence over several years.

So, I was hooked. My whole theological being, and the books I have written, are formed by the radical and subversive and transformative nature of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, …and I wanted to know what Ekblad had to teach me. Reading his uncanny ability to (with incredible exegetical skill) simplify and communicate the transforming message of Christ’s love, forgiveness and physical healing to prisoners, semi-literate, migrants, and desperately needy folk … blew me away. How would you go into a country prison for a thirty-minute Christian gathering and communicate the message of Christ to scarred gang members, drug-addicted, victims of a tangled immigration system … and get a hearing, and see lives transformed? He is continually engaged with the legal and court system because of the illegal status of these folk with whom he ministers.

All that having been said by way of introduction, brings me to recommending to you his latest book The Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus Global Liberation Movement [file:///The Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus’ Global Liberation Movement], which is highly readable, and given the social and humanitarian dilemmas of the world’s migrant and refugee (and prison) population, it is hugely rewarding to be able to ‘enter’ into Bob’s world through his unique gift of story-telling. He also has established The People’s Seminary in Skagit County, WA to be able to train others in this ministry, and this latest book is the first published by that seminary.

I commend him and his unique ministry to you, not to mention the riches he uncovers in the most unlikely Biblical passages. You will not be disappointed. For myself, I have been transformed by his writings. Peace!

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About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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