Connecting to the Gospel

James Boyd White is a lay reader in the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. He is also Hart Wright Professor of Law Emeritus, Professor of English Emeritus, formerly Adjunct Professor of Classics at the University of Michigan, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of many books, most recently Connecting to the Gospel: Texts, Sermons, Questions and Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force.

How can we connect the Gospels--the fundamental texts of Christian faith--to our own experience of inner and outer life? This is the question that animates Connecting to the Gospel. In it James Boyd White presents a series of Gospel passages, together with the sermons he gave on these passages as a lay preacher in the Episcopal Church, with brief commentaries and questions on each as well.The whole is designed as an aid to thought and reflection about the issues raised by the Gospel passages, as they relate both to our own larger culture and to our internal religious experiences. The texts are old texts, from the past. What relation do they have, can they have, with life in the twenty-first century?One aim of the book is to establish a set of questions, both about the Gospels and about our own lives, which the reader is invited to pursue on his or her own. It can be used both by individuals and groups engaged in study and exploration.