The Once and Future Bible: An Introduction to the Bible for Religious Progressives

This book offers a way to engage with the Bible as a set of sacred texts that can serve as a song sheet for believers in exile-those people Bishop John Shelby Spong calls the "church alumni association." This includes those internally displaced persons of faith who have not yet become spiritual refugees but who feel the pressure to conform to traditional expressions of faith that no longer serve as springs of living water for the journey of life. These ancient texts come from another world and another time, but they can serve as maps for the journey of life. They can best do this when the sacred wisdom of the Bible is accepted as permission to voice the new questions we face today in the confidence that authentic faith has always required such boldness. Religious progressives are people who live the questions, not dodge them. Our task is not to guard a set of traditional answers, but to live life boldly, taking risks for God's sake and our own. One of the hallmarks of this book is that the problems posed by the Bible are acknowledged. In particular, the contributions of recent critical scholarship are embraced, rather than being ignored or neutralized by pious ambivalence. The intended reader of this book is not a traditional believer, secure in her assumptions about God and salvation, but someone struggling to live with integrity in a time when traditional religion seems increasingly irrelevant. The goal is not to persuade the reader that the Bible is credible but-more modestly-to offer an account of the Bible that may encourage religious progressives to reclaim the Bible as a valued part of our spiritual baggage.

Gregory Jenks is an Anglican priest and biblical scholar. He is Academic Dean at St Francis Theological College, Brisbane and Senior Lecturer in the School of Theology, Charles Sturt University. A long-time Fellow of the Jesus Seminar, and a former Associate Director of the Westar Institute, Dr Jenks is also director of the Jesus Database project and a co-director of the Bethsaida Archaeology Project in Israel. His recent books include The Once and Future Bible: An Introduction to the Bible for Religious Progressives (2011), and Wisdom and Imagination: Religious Progressives and the Search for Meaning (co-edited with Rex Hunt, 2014)

J. Harold Ellens is a retired professor of philosophy and psychology, who spent the last decade and a half as Research Scholar at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Probing the Frontiers of Biblical Studies and Honest Faith in Our Time (both with Pickwick Publications). For more information, you may visit Dr. Ellens' website at www.JHaroldEllens.com.