The Bible and the New York Times

This collection of vividly illustrative sermons by a leading contemporary Episcopalian preacher eloquently heralds the Christian call to faith in the face of modern challenges.

Widely known for their up-to-the-minute relevance to modern life, the sermons of Fleming Rutledge are always out on the edge, challenging the boundaries of contemporary thought and experience. No issue is too threatening, no event too shocking, no question too impertinent to be addressed. Following Karl Barth's dictum that sermons should be written with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, Rutledge weaves the changing events of the daily news together with the unchanging rhythms of the church seasons. Her book leads readers through the liturgical year, from All Saints to Pentecost, showing how the biblical story intersects with our own stories.

The Bible and the New York Times is a collection of sermons by Fleming Rutledge, an Episcopal priest with an exceptional ability to engage the shifting stories reported in the contemporary media without losing her firm footing in scripture. She's not a flashy preacher--no rhetorical fireworks here--but her sermons have a quietly urgent style that comes from her fearless interest in some of the most frightening stories in the world. The explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, for example, would not be most preachers' first choice to illustrate an Advent sermon. But for Rutledge, they're a natural and mutually illuminating match, because "Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness." In his introduction to The Bible and The New York Times William Willimon offers a near-perfect summary of what's so difficult and extraordinary about these sermons: "The reason why it's tough speaking of Jesus is much the same reason why they kicked him out after his first sermon at Nazareth--Jesus spoke of and enacted a Good News which assaulted our settled definitions of news." --Michael Joseph Gross