Frank Burch Brown

Music as Theology

Theology

“It would be hard to imagine a book more committed to exploring and celebrating music's theological gifts, present as well as past. Heaney conveys a marvelous sense of music as a living medium, resonant with theological significance on multiple levels, and able to enter into and nurture the transformed, embodied Christian life. In this multifaceted study, she draws on an impressive (at times almost overwhelming) array of resources, from ethnomusicology to theological aesthetics, especially, but not exclusively, Catholic.”

Prophetic Liturgy

Preaching & Worship

“In a work marked by a passion for justice and equality, and a compassionate engagement with human and ecological needs, Junker demonstrates an intrinsic connection between the power and beauty of sacrament, song, and preaching on the one hand, and the need for liberation, or world transformation on the other. It would be hard to think of a more encompassing treatment of the relevance of biblically shaped ritual (broadly speaking) to a world that is inevitably shaped by social and economic forces.”

The Long Goodbye

Counseling, Grief & Mental Health

“I've seldom read a book more timely and welcome than The Long Goodbye by Margaret Miles. That is not to suggest it is easy on either the heart or the mind, or spiritually edifying in any obvious way. No. Miles, although immersed in the history of Christian thought and art, tells of one specific experience of dementia--centering on her late husband, a theologian. She writes with a kind of particularity and unflinching but loving realism that is truly rare. This is not a story told in such terms or details by biblical writers or ancient philosophers or even authors from a century ago. Relying partly on her diary, and interspersing her narrative with poetic quotations, Miles reminds us that dementia is an increasingly modern condition, as populations live longer. Keenly and caringly, she makes clear that dementia is something that changes not just the 'patient' but the lives of all involved. Miles rejects venerable oppositions between original sin and basic innocence, arguing that it is misleading even to ask whether a human being is naturally good or naturally bad. That cannot possibly do justice to the complex reality revealed in a mind beyond mending but not entirely beyond meeting. Along the way, one must learn which self, which other, can still be loved. And finally, Miles helps us ponder what to bring to such love and memory, and into what encompassing reality one is to commend life--any life, all of life--in the end.”