Books

Dr. James McCune Smith was more than just a pioneer.

Born in slavery in New York City when slavery was still legal there, James McCune Smith managed to get a good elementary education in a Quaker school but was turned down by colleges because he was Black. Seeing his ability, his pastor raised funds to send him to Scotland where in five years he earned a BA, MA, and MD with honors. He returned to New York
with better training than most American doctors and established a practice serving Black and white alike. Smith took a leading role in the abolition movement, working closely with Frederick Douglass and writing a regular column for Douglass's paper. James McCune Smith formed a rare Black-white friendship with Gerrit Smith, a wealthy white landowner in upstate
New York; when Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass, and others formed a Radical Abolition Party to work to abolish slavery, McCune Smith served as chair of the party's convention-the first time a Black American had chaired a national convention. One of the most important voices in the pre-Civil War abolition movement, this biography brings him to vibrant life as a key figure in American history.

This is his story.

In 1827, at the age of 19, scared and illiterate, James Pennington escaped from slavery and soon became one of the leading voices against slavery prior to the Civil War. In five years he had become a school teacher and just ten years after his escape, Pennington was ordained to the ministry after studying at Yale. He served congregations in Long Island, Hartford, and Manhattan and traveled three times to England, Scotland, and the continent of Europe as an anti-slavery advocate. He was so respected by European audiences that the University of Heidelberg awarded him an honorary doctorate, making him the first person of African descent to receive such a degree. After the Civil War, he served briefly in Mississippi during reconstruction and then in Portland, Maine, and finally in Jacksonville, Florida.

As he fought for equal rights in America, Pennington’s voice was not limited to the preacher’s pulpit. He wrote the first-ever “History of the Colored People” as well as a careful study of the moral basis for civil disobedience, which would be echoed decades later by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. More than a century before Rosa Parks took her transformational bus ride, Pennington challenged segregated seating in New York City street cars. He was beaten and arrested, but eventually vindicated when the New York State Supreme Court ordered the cars to be integrated. In 1853, as African Americans struggled to define their role in America in the face of growing racism, Pennington was chosen to preside at a Negro National Convention in Rochester, New York. Leading white Americans attempted to define their country in mono-racial terms and many black Americans emigrated to Liberia or Haiti, but Pennington insisted “I am an American to the backbone” and am entitled to the same rights as anyone else.

Often deeply discouraged himself, Pennington retained a delightful sense of humor, intellectual vivacity, and inspiring faith. American to the Backbone brings to life this fascinating, forgotten pioneer, who helped lay the foundation for the contemporary civil rights revolution and inspire generations of future leaders.

“Give me liberty,” demanded Patrick Henry, “or give me death!” Henry’s words continue to echo in American history and that quote, and the speech it comes from, remains one of the two or three known to almost every American. The other speeches that have become part of our American collective consciousness all have one theme in common: liberty. These feats of oratory seem to trace the evolution of America’s definition of liberty, and who it applies to. But what exactly is liberty?

It is a term open to a broad range of opinion, and questions about freedom arise daily in the news and in everyday life. Perhaps uniquely among the nations of the world, the United States traces its origins to groups and individuals who specifically wanted create something new. Webber’s insightful Give Me Liberty looks at these great speeches and provides the historical context, focusing attention on particular individuals who summed up the issues of their own day in words that have never been forgotten. Webber gleans lessons from the past centuries that will allow us to continue to strive for the ideals of liberty in the 21st century.

About one and a half millennia ago, an anonymous author gave the world Beowulf, the first great epic written in what would become the English language. The poem follows the adventures of Beowulf, hero of the Geats, as he battles the monstrous Grendel, Grendel’s fearsome mother, and a deadly dragon. After the hero meets his death, readers are left with the question: What will happen now? Without their champion, hero, and king, the Geats are defenseless against their enemies.

With The Beowulf Trilogy, author Christopher L. Webber shares his own translation of the original epic and also answers the question of what happens next with two epic poems of his own. In Beyond Beowulf, follow the Geats as they welcome a new leader, Wiglaf, the young warrior who aided Beowulf in his encounter with the dragon. He helps the tribe search or a new home while contending with threats from storms, trolls, and the Saxon army. Then, in Yrfa’s Tale, Webber looks beyond the warrior’s viewpoint to give a perspective from Wiglaf’s wife and family, and the emotional toll of their struggle.

In The Beowulf Trilogy, Webber gives readers a complete picture of Beowulf’s world, a somber and magical land full of adventure and turmoil.

A broad and inclusive cross section of American pilgrims of faith from all periods of American history and all major Christian faith traditions; their accomplishments and spiritual journeys are examples of perseverance, courage, and holiness.

An American Prayer Book includes prayers for our country, prayers for American festivals, and prayers from our history. Authors of the prayers include Woodrow Wilson, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the first Muslim to offer a prayer in the United States Senate. The prayers reflect such aspects of American history as the abolition of slavery, the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, the bombing of Hiroshima, child labor, immigration, and the Gulf Wars. Prayer has always been central to American life but this book may be the first systematic attempt to make these prayers available.

Ecumenical and inter-faith, this is an important resource for clergy and a useful book for all those who believe in the importance of asking God's guidance in our national life.

Among the most read books of the Bible are the letters written by St. Paul to young churches in Rome and scattered around the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. Whether in private reading or in study groups, millions of Christians and even nonbelievers often ask themselves, “What did this mean to those who first read it?” and, “What does this mean for me?”

To help people answer that question, scholars have written careful analyses of Paul’s letters and provided new translations that seek to provide Paul’s words in our own language. Nevertheless these translations and paraphrases continue to give us Paul’s opinion on issues of importance to first century Christians and these are not always the same as the issues that concern us.

These, then, are letters Paul might write to the churches of America today. They are offered to the churches and individuals for study in confidence that those who study these letters with open minds and prayerful hearts can grow in understanding and make a better witness to others as a result.

Between two and three thousand years ago, a number of songs were written that were so used and loved and valued that a collection of them was made for continuing use first in the synagogues of the Jews and then in the churches of the Christians. A contemporary Christian scholar, Bishop N.T. Wright, has called them “the daily life blood of Christians.” Hymn books abound, but none can replace the psalms.

Not only do the psalms provide irreplaceable statements of faith and praise, they do it in a way uniquely adapted both to public worship and private prayer. The Hebrew psalms are poetry of a special kind, lacking the clear and definite rhythms of so many of the familiar Christian hymns, but with a unique rhythm of their own. Unlike the familiar hymns with their definite syllabic pattern and rhyming of sounds, the Hebrew psalms provide a looser structure and usually rhyme ideas rather than sounds. They are especially suited both to public recitation and to private meditation.

Yet the psalms can create problems for modern users. They come from an age unimaginably different from ours and take for granted patterns of life unfamiliar to most of us. Perhaps we can picture the world of the shepherd who leads a flock beside still waters (Psalm 23), but far more difficult to imagine is a world of violence that dashes an infant’s head against the rocks (Psalm 132), or of sexual inequality that says to the princess, “The king is your master”(Psalm 45). There are psalms and portions of psalms that are never used in contemporary worship.

Meanwhile two thousand years of Christian life have produced eloquent expressions of faith that are seldom if ever used in worship. Most of the hymns we sing were written in the last two centuries. Earlier expressions of prayer and praise were written in other languages or in older forms of English and so are seldom used. But what if some of those expressions could be adapted to the rhythms of the Hebrew psalms and so made available both for responsive readings or psalmody on Sunday morning and for individual prayer and praise and meditation? What if even more modern expressions of prayer and praise could be adapted for those purposes?

It was with those questions in mind that I set out to quarry the mines of Christian faith where gemstones and veins of gold might be found. The resultant collection of psalm-like readings will never replace the ancient psalms, but perhaps they might provide useful alternatives for some occasions. In their present form they could be used wherever a psalm or responsive reading might otherwise be used. They could also be easily “pointed” for use with plainsong or Anglican chant and hymn writers might find them a source of inspiration for new hymns. Finally, the use of these texts may introduce contemporary Christians to some of their ancestors in the faith and lead them to explore further a wealth of resources often overlooked to strengthen our faith and expand our vocabulary of praise.

Finding Home tells the stories of men and women who left the church of their childhood for various reasons: questions of conscience, authority, remarriage after divorce, sexuality, the need to ask questions. We hear from a lawyer, a pilot, a nurse, an executive, a homemaker, two priests and a bishop what it meant for them to make this journey. Their stories raise larger issues of conversion, discernment, inclusion, church membership and belonging.

Give Us Grace provides an overview of Anglican prayers from the beginning of that tradition up to the present day. A collection that spans the ages and the continents, the book is arranged chronologically, from writers such as Miles Coverdale and Thomas Cranmer, through the sixteenth-century, and continuing with contemporary writers such as Desmond Tutu, David Adam, Madeleine L'Engle, and others. Biographies of each writer are provided. Prayers from a variety of Anglican prayer books, such as the First Primer of Edward VI, the New Zealand Prayer Book, and prayer books from South Africa, Kenya, Japan, Canada, Australia, and others also are included.