ad info

CNN.com
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
 ASIANOW
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
 NATURE
 ENTERTAINMENT
   movies
   music
   tv
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 HEALTH
 STYLE
 IN-DEPTH

 custom news
 Headline News brief
 daily almanac
 CNN networks
 CNN programs
 on-air transcripts
 news quiz

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 TIME INC. SITES:
 MORE SERVICES:
 video on demand
 video archive
 audio on demand
 news email services
 free email accounts
 desktop headlines
 pointcast
 pagenet

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

 SITE GUIDES:
 help
 contents
 search

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 WEB SERVICES:
Books

Cover

Gomes uses colorful anecdotes and rich imagery


'Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living'
by Peter Gomes

William Morrow, $23

Review by Richard Shumate

Web posted on: Wednesday, July 08, 1998 4:10:30 PM EDT

(CNN) -- The last time Peter J. Gomes published a book, Harvard's chief preacher had the fundamentalists foaming. In "The Good Book" he branded the notion of literally interpreting an inerrant Bible as "Bibliolatry," the worship of the book as an idol replaced any thoughtful interpretation of its text.

His new book, "Sermons: Biblical Wisdom For Daily Living", isn't likely to rock as many boats. But that isn't to say that Gomes still doesn't have something thoughtful and unique to add to contemporary Christian discourse.

Widely acclaimed as one of America's top preachers, Gomes, ordained in the American Baptist tradition, has been the long-time minister at the Patrician Memorial Church at Harvard University. "Sermons" is a collection of some of the more notable orations delivered from his pulpit there.

The book is organized into two sections: In "Seasons" the sermons are focus on various feast days in the Christian calendar. In "Themes" they are tied to a variety of topics, such as friendships, miracles and patriotism.

Shining through all of Gomes' sermons is his patrician sense of formality -- albeit couched inside an understated but cleverly entertaining sense of humor. His wordplay has a degree of complexity that probably worked better when heard than when read but nonetheless remains elegant.

Gomes' biography is unorthodox -- the thoroughly Yankee son of a Massachusetts cranberry farmer, he's also an openly gay Baptist preacher and a black conservative who once described himself as an "Afro-Saxon" -- but the theology behind his sermonizing is more conformist than contrarian, more evolutionary than revolutionary. His strain of Protestantism is not nearly as new-fangled as some of his conservative critics might suppose.

"God does not choose us to fulfill his purpose because we are worthy of such a choice," Gomes writes, in a discourse on Advent that could have thundered from a Puritan pulpit. "We waste our time in seeking out the special hidden, secret qualities that commend God's choices to him; to be God means never having to explain why."

But if Gomes' sermons don't take readers across much uncharted water, they do provide a new and highly accessible way of reexamining important Christian themes. These are discussions of God -- with rich imagery and colorful anecdote -- that talk to his audience, not at them.

Then again, given what passes for much of Christian discourse these days, that achievement may indeed be something of a revolution.

Richard Shumate is a writer for CNN Interactive. He has worked as a writer and editor in Georgia, North Carolina and Wyoming.

SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help
  

 

Back to the top
© 2000 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.