Philip Ryken – författare

Everyone has questions about God and what matters most in life. When we ask those questions, we are asking about theology.

Isn't talk about God really a guessing game?What good is the Old Testament?How can we have free will if God controls everything?The virgin birth. Really?What does an earthquake say about God?Is the Holy Spirit still at work in churches today?What did Jesus think about getting married?Does being a Christian mean having particular political views?

While books about doctrine supply description and analysis of the classic questions of the faith, they often miss the contemporary questions on the minds of readers. This book fills that gap. Organized around the key topics of Jesus, the Bible, church, the Holy Spirit, evil, salvation and hope, the sometimes-provocative questions on these topics aim to ring true with the lived experience of real people. Even more, they look to inspire reflection, debate, disagreement, and above all, engagement in what the Christian faith is all about.

Throughout the history of English literature, church ministers have figured prominently in novels, plays, morality tales, and even poetry. Pastors in the Classics is a unique, unprecedented collection of relevant literary masterpieces in which the pastor''s experience is a major part of the story. Part 1 is a reader''s guide to twelve important classics written over four centuries and covering seven different nationalities. Each chapter not only describes and interprets the work in question, it also highlights a specific feature of pastoral ministry explored in the work. Part 2 is a handbook that defines the canon of literary masterpieces that deal with the pastor''s experience, offering reading suggestions for both ministers and lovers of literature.From the familiar (The Canterbury Tales; Cry, the Beloved Country; and The Scarlet Letter) to the lesser-known (Silence, Witch Wood) to the surprising (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), this collection uncovers the good, the bad, and the ugly ways in which pastors have been presented to the reading public for the past half millennium.