"...an exceptional book and a model of personally engaged reporting." — Publishers Weekly
"Liberals and conservatives alike have much to learn from her passionate and loving explorations of Scripture." — New Age
Critical praise for The Word: Imagining the Gospel in Modern America
Publishers Weekly, May 15, 2000
What do Americans do when they read the Bible? This lucid, observant book by a former Wall Street Journal reporter captures a wide variety of Christians engaging with their inescapable and sometimes inexplicable sacred text. From the rarified seminars of the Society for Biblical Literature to the carefully rehearsed lectures of conservative Bible teacher Kay Arthur, Monroe clearly has a reporter's knack for finding, and recounting, the telling moment. The result is an impressively drawn and multidimensional portrait of the ways in which American churches are helping (or not helping) their members grapple with Scripture. Monroe documents with painful precision how little the Bible is actually studied, much less understood, in both conservative and liberal camps. Anyone who has attempted to lead a Bible study or who has participated in one will wince at Monroe's alarmingly apt vignettes of discussions gone astray and self-expression masquerading as interpretation. At times the book wobbles unevenly between journalism and theologizing (Monroe is clearly more adept at the former), and it is more limited in scope than the subtitle would suggest--Monroe's account is poorer for not addressing the interpretive traditions of American Judaism, Mormonism or Catholicism. With these caveats, this is an exceptional book and a model of personally engaged reporting.
New Age, July-August, 2000
Americans are Bible readers--polls indicate that we read the Book more regularly than people in any other Western country--observes author Ann Monroe in The Word: Imagining the Gospel in Modern America (Westminster John Knox Press). But do the folks at the evangelical megachurch down the block read Scripture the same way as the Unitarians across town? To answer that question, Monroe, a contributing writer at Mother Jones and a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal , leads us on a tour of American Bible readers, a fascinating and varied lot. In just over 200 pages, we visit Colorado Springs's conservative New Life Church, the liberal Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, Baptists in North Carolina, Congregationalists in Illinois and more. Readers eavesdrop on conversations with Harvard chaplain Peter Gomes, social activist and New Testament scholar Ched Myers and Christian Right "poster boy" Ted Haggard.
But the most insightful passages are Monroe's discussions of her own struggles with the Bible. A self-professed liberal Christian, she bristles at the literalistic and politically conservative interpretations of Scripture that she ascribes to evangelicals. Still, Monroe admires--even envies--their facility with, and knowledge of, Scripture. Though she has been tackled by the Christian right for her published views, Monroe writes here that "[C]onservatives know something about the Bible that most of the liberals I know have forgotten: that it speaks, in the most intimate and ultimate way, of life and death." The challenge for liberal Christians, Monroe says, is to find a way to take the Bible seriously, if not literally. She believes that the Bible is essentila to all Christans, and she is determined to figure out how to weave it into her life, asking "Is there a way for those of us to whom the Bible cannot speak literal truth to enter into it with the same passion and commitment?"
Some of the most Poignant words in The Word come from Chaplain Gomes, who likens the Bible to an oracle, "a source of wisdom in which you place some implicit trust even if you don't understand the nature of [its] wisdom." In earnest and readable prose, Ann Monroe comes to the same conclusion. Liberals and conservatives alike have much to learn from her passionate and loving explorations of Scripture and her reminder that all Christians ought to know--and love--the Bible, even if they don't always like what it has to say.