Sojourners Fall 2008
The Shack by William P. Young
and Godless by Anne Coulter
Two #1 New York Times Bestsellers: Fiction and controversy (it doesn’t get much better!) Where tragedy confronts eternity: William P. Young's book has an intriguing premise. Years ago, a father name MacKenzie Phillips took his children camping and lost one of them to a man who has kidnapped and killed others. Mack has grieved since then. His marriage has struggled. Understandably, his relationship with God has suffered.
Then, one wintry day, he receives a note in his mailbox inviting him back to the woods, to the shack in which his daughter's dress and bloodstains were found. The note, it would seem, is from God. The Church of Liberalism: "If a Martian landed in America and set out to determine the nation's official state religion, he would have to conclude it is liberalism, while Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law. Many Americans are outraged by liberal hostility to traditional religion. But as Ann Coulter reveals in this, her most explosive book yet, to focus solely on the Left's attacks on our Judeo-Christian tradition is to miss a larger point: liberalism is a religion—a godless one. And it is now entrenched as the state religion of this county. Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, it bears all the attributes of a religion. In Godless, Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us its sacraments (abortion), its holy writ (Roe v. Wade), its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal), its clergy (public school teachers), its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free), its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland), and its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident). Then, of course, there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
September 7, 2008 Young: Foreword and Chapters 1-4 7
September 14, 2008 Young: Chapters 5-8 67
September 21, 2008 Young: Chapters 9-12 128
September 28, 2008 Young: Chapters 13-16 183
October 5, 2008 Young: Chapters 17 and 18 231
October 12, 2008 Young: Afterwards 247
October 19, 2008 Coulter: Chapters 1 and 2 1
October 26 2008 Coulter: Chapters 3 and 4 60
November 2, 2008 Coulter: Chapters 5 and 6 99
November 9, 2008 Coulter: Chapters 7 and 8 172
November 16, 2008 Coulter: Chapters 9 and 10 226
November 23, 2008 Coulter: Chapter 11 and Afterward 265
November 30, 2008 Advent Study Begins
Books: The Shack: $9.00 and Godless: $10.00
Dr. Gary Roberts, Facilitator
Sojourner's mission statement:
We are an informal sub-group of communicants at St. Teresa's. We come together during the Sunday School hour to read, pray, and discuss current issues. Each Sunday we look for ideas that will help us live our lives in Christ a little bit better come Monday mornings. We adhere to the historical Anglican and Episcopal standard of reliance upon:
1. Holy Scripture.
2. Our God given reason.
3. Our church traditions.
The gospel can be summarized in two statements: "People fail, and God loves us anyway."
The goal of our class is to be non-judgmental, open, and inclusive. All are welcome!
