Resurrecting Religion: Finding Our Way Back to the Good News - Softcover

Paul, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1631466666 ISBN 13: 9781631466663

Publisher: NavPress, 2018

Synopsis

There’s lots of bad religion out there. But the answer isn’t no religion, it’s true religion: living out―publicly and communally―what we say we believe privately and individually. True religion puts flesh on the bones of faith. Resurrecting Religion offers an inspiring, stretching vision for finding our way back to the good news of our faith.

At a time when most people practice their faith in the extremes―either extremely publicly, with a legalistic, combative tone that creates division, or extremely privately, to the point that our faith becomes functionally irrelevant―award-winning author Greg Paul offers a vision for religion that is good for us and good for the world.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Move from doing church to being the church
At a time when many people practice their faith in extremes―either publicly, with a legalistic, combative tone that creates division, or privately, to the point that their faith becomes functionally irrelevant―award-winning author Greg Paul casts a new light on religion that is beneficial for believers and the world.

Using the book of James as a guide and the streets of Toronto as a proving ground, Greg Paul demonstrates that true religion is not a necessary evil, but the way we put flesh on the bones of our faith. Resurrecting Religion is a convicting and inspiring vision for a world-changing faith.

Review

In this book, Greg Paul speaks an urgently contemporary word about the church. He knows about the church. He knows its faults: excessive accommodation to culture, privatism that is mostly irrelevant, and intellectual schemes remote from reality. But he also knows better than that. His pages teem with testimony about “the other shoe” of gospel obedience that lives in the real world, that moves in ways of mercy, compassion, and justice, and that heals and transforms. Paul is a story teller; he has rich, concrete, compelling tales about real people living out gospel lives. His book is a treasure house of evidence that there is a way that need not yield to “bad religion.” We will not want to miss out on this rich testimony! (Walter Brueggemann, author of The Prophetic Imagination)

I have a growing suspicion that the antireligious sentiment, which is so pervasive in Western culture and is captured by the mantra, “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual,” is simply the latest version of that old enemy and heresy, Gnosticism. It’s like saying, “I love football; I’m just not into the organized kind.” Unless our faith is rooted in and structured around practices and pathways that have stood the test of time―unless it is, in some real and deep sense, religious― it will not hold together. Indeed, the root of the word religion is exactly that: to re-ligament, to tie broken things back together. Greg Paul’s book Resurrecting Religion comes just in the nick of time. Greg―who claims to be neither theologian nor writer, but who does both these things brilliantly―speaks winsomely, urgently, convincingly about our need to reclaim our religious identity and heritage, while also doing what Jesus and the prophets did: rejecting all bad religion. This is a book for our times if ever there were one. (Mark Buchanan, author of Your Church Is Too Safe)

It’s easy to criticize religion. It’s an entirely different thing to offer thought-provoking insights of your own religious practice from the trenches. Deep inside the muck and mire of human existence is where the gospel first gave light and the religious impulse was born anew―one that would care for widows and orphans in their distress and spark a living faith in a living God. Greg Paul lights up the dark realities of our post-religious talk with the hope of a religion that matters in real life to real people, right now. (Danielle Strickland, author of The Ultimate Exodus)

Greg Paul’s central premise, that true religion is vital for the life and salvation of the world, is backed by an experiential authority that is uncomfortably hard to dismiss. Particularly, reading the book of James through the lens of the Beatitudes is a lesson I’ll not soon forget. This is a timely and important book. (Steve Bell, singer and songwriter)

“True religion,” writes Greg Paul, “is to faith what voice is to a thought. It puts flesh on the bones of faith.” This book describes the gritty intersection between incarnational theology and integrated spirituality. With raw vulnerability and buckets full of hope, Greg Paul will restore your faith in the church. (Steve Wiens, senior pastor of Genesis Covenant Church)

I highly recommend that you read Resurrecting Religion for these reasons: stories that will move and inspire you; insight that is wise and practical; writing that is vivid and lucid; a guide (Greg) whom you’ll enjoy spending time with and who has lived this story with integrity and by grace; and, finally, because this book will give you a vision for more faithfully loving your neighbors in response to our common prayer that God’s Kingdom will come on earth as in heaven. (Kent Annan, author of Slow Kingdom Coming)

Resurrecting Religion will inspire you to live out the biblical call to justice and Jesus’ teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. In a world that continues to create distance between the rich and poor, Greg’s book teaches us the importance and power of having close relationships with those living on the margins of society. (Aaron Graham, lead pastor of The District Church)

About this edition

• Publisher: NavPress
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1631466666
• ISBN 13: 9781631466663
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240