The Way of Jesus
Living a Spiritual and Ethical Life
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Renowned poet and novelist Jay Parini’s The Way of Jesus is a book for progressive Christians and spiritual seekers who struggle, as Parini does, with some of the basic questions about human existence: its limits and sadnesses, and its possibilities for awareness and understanding.
Part guide to Christian living, part spiritual autobiography, The Way of Jesus is Jay Parini’s exploration of what Jesus really meant, his effort to put love first in our daily lives. Called “one of those writers who can do anything” by Stacy Schiff in the New York Times Book Review, Parini—a lifelong Christian who has at times wavered and questioned his beliefs—recounts his own efforts to follow Jesus’s example, examines the contours of Christian thinking, and describes the solace and structure one can find in the rhythms of the church calendar. Parini’s refreshingly undogmatic approach to Christian thinking incorporates teachings from other religions, as well as from poets and other writers who have helped Parini along his path to understanding.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this gracious and instructive book, poet and novelist Parini (The Last Station) builds a plan for living out what Jesus meant when he commanded his followers to put love first. Parini describes growing up in Scranton, Penn., and how his father's conversion to Christianity forced a shift in his own thinking about faith. Although he believed in Jesus, his father's frequent sermonizing made him question whether the followers of all other religions were really doomed to hell. This curiosity then opened him to teachings from Buddhism and Hinduism, which led the way to his concluding that "belief is simply a fondness, a yearning; not a contractual arrangement with God." Parini breaks the book into four sections discussing his own faith journey, the history of Christian thinking, the church calendar year, and a selection of poems by T.S. Eliot. Devout readers will find the third chapter, "The Christian Mind," especially relevant as he confronts the claims of prosperity gospel preachers, processes political corruption in the Vatican, and considers the collateral effects of the Protestant Reformation. In the final chapter, Parini eloquently mines Eliot's Four Quartets as inspiration for living a life filled with "prayer, observance, discipline, thought, and action," which also serve as his keys for living a spiritual and ethical life. Parini's thoughtful book will appeal to devout Christians as well as skeptical readers interested in the teachings of Christ.
