Out of the Question...Into the Mystery : Getting Lost in the GodLife Relationship

Rating:
Summary: The Primer to Relational Theology
Review: I have come to respect Dr. Leonard I. Sweet as something of a "postmodern Tertullian," in the sense that Len offers his readers fresh and clarifying language for the complex challenges of the day. The language Len offers in this text enables the "relationality conversation" to make a quantum leap. By looking at the central relationships of life, he subtly crafts a relational hermeneutic. This is book which dares its readers to make the main thing, the main thing. It dares us to see relationship as more than the means of fulfilling the gospel but as the gospel.

When the history of relational theology is written, this book may be seen as the movement's Primer. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: going beyond the gimmicks... into God
Review: Len Sweet has written a good book here. He's known for creative thinking about future ways of doing and being church... and here he doesn't disappoint.

But this is different than his other books... more personal and confessional. In "Out of the Question" Sweet challenges us to get back to what really matters- not powerpoint and multimedia, not propositions and mission statements... but relationships; with God and with each other.

Sweet challenges how we look at everything from treasured Bible characters to our own ideas of faith and belief. It's a wild ride, but worth it.

If you have any of his other books (or even if you don't) pick this one up too. It represents an important contribution to the emergent conversation and a subtle refocusing away from methodologies and propositional belief and back to relationship.