Preachers and Misfits, Prophets and Thieves: The Minister in Southern Fiction - Softcover

Ramsey Jr., G. Lee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0664232248 ISBN 13: 9780664232245

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008

Synopsis

In this book, Lee Ramsey mines the riches of southern fiction and discovers a colorful assortment of ministers who arise out of the religious South. At once mystical and mischievous, these ministers haunt the margins of southern life while preaching a gospel that startles and compels. Throughout, Ramsey shows how ministers such as Roger Hagan in Will Campbell's The Convention and Hazel Motes in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood can help show us the stumbling blocks to faithful ministry and steer clergy and congregations forward in today's world.

About this title

About the Author:

G. Lee Ramsey Jr. a native of Georgia, is an ordained United Methodist Minister. He is the Marlon and Sheila Foster Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics at Memphis Theological Seminary.

Review:

Hallelujah! Just when you think there's nothing new to be said about religion and the South, here it comes, with all the force and conviction of a call. This excellent book is characterized by fine, clear writing, provocative ideas, and always these unforgettable characters, holy and horrible, saints and scalawags, drawn from the fiction of our time.
-- Lee Smith, author of Fair and Tender Ladies, Saving Grace, and On Agate Hill

Lee Ramsey has brought to us under one roof a company unforgettable, recognizable, powerful, weak, happy, and sad human beings. Open this book anywhere and read one page. See? It never slows down straddling a subjective fence with finesse, grace, and guidance, on one side is religion and on the other is literature. With his passionate and original insights and his clear, reasoned writing Lee is preaching an eloquent sermon that just might bring new life to churches and communities all over.
-- Clyde Edgerton, author of Lunch at the Piccadilly and The Bible Salesman

Lee Ramsey neither dismisses fictional Southern preachers as caricatures nor accepts them as factual portrayals of religion in the South. Instead, he listens to them and learns about ministry, for himself and for his readers. Now I have to return to the literature cited and read again. I think I may have laughed and cringed and cried in the wrong places. I do not know Lee's ability at arithmetic, but his reading and writing are well above grade level.
-- Fred B. Craddock, Professor Emeritus of Preaching and New Testament, Candler School of Theology

This is one of those grace-filled books that ought to be required reading for anybody, secular or ordained, who participates actively in the life and leadership of his or her church.
-- Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence

About this edition

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0664232248
• ISBN 13: 9780664232245
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 184