Stories of Faith:

...We are taken from "what is close at hand" (a businessman looking toward retirement, a college student caught up in the idealism of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and a son at the bedside of his dying father-all of them considering their situations in life), through a thoughtful analysis of the revelation-faith process at work in,these various subjects, toward a well-informed reflection on biblical faith and the meaning disclosed in Jesus of Nazareth...

...What does seem necessary is for the reader to be open to understanding "faith" as a verb and Christian faith as concerned more with current meaning in the midst of our own stories than with factual accuracy in journaling events from the past...

...Jesus is not to be stopped at or stared at...

...Stories of Faith does not celebrate the past, but looks to its narratives to help moderns rediscover depth and meaning in their stories, and to lead them toward a radical commitment to travel with Jesus in his faith-revelation of a gracious God "despite everything...

...The journey which begins in the awareness that one is "bonded to Mystery," involved in a real relationship with ultimate and gracious Mystery, leads one inevitably toward the moment when the meaning disclosed is tested and the perceived graciousness in doubt...

...Biblical faith is characterized by its steadfastness, its claim that God is faithful in his graciousness even in circumstances where evidence of that faithfulness is lacking...

...In these chapters and throughout the book the reader is likely to catch himself doing what Shea does so masterfully: discovering meaning through a dialogue between our stories and the story of Jesus...

...te everything...

...This book should find a wide audience...

...Robert A. Ludwig THERE ARE FEW if any authors on the current scene who blend the heady insights of the academic study of religion with the insider's faith perspective as effectively as does Chicago priest John Shea...

...and contact with him means the specification of God's intention and the spark to go on...

...Since its focus is the dynamic of the redemptive relationship, a certain amount of experience seems necessary...

...Beyond the ways of admiration, imitation, and explanation which characterized the christologies of the recent past, the reader is invited to contact Jesus, to encounter him in his own faith journey, to experience him in all of his humanness-striving-for-meaning, and therein to be transformed: "The preposition 'through' is key to the experience of Jesus...

...Jesus is portrayed as an indiscriminate host inviting everyone to the banquet, the Son who must die in revealing the vulnerability of God, and the storyteller of God whose own life became one...

...But since the dynamic begins in the ordinary affairs of human interaction, prior theological expertise is not a prerequisite for understanding its content...

...Stories of God: An Unauthorized Biography, 1978...

...Christian faith focuses on Jesus of Nazareth and its center is "retelling the Jesus stories so that the life of the teller is interwoven with the tale...

...Faith becomes the power to overcome all that oppresses us, transforming the trials of life and death into a passionate hope which enlivens our imagination in our search for the possible...

...STORIES Or FAITH Dual drives of Christian faith John Shea ' Thomas More Press, $10.95, 228 pp...

...The story of Jesus is the story of faith in the concrete...

...Jesus is the forerunner, trailblazer, pioneer, pathfinder" to whom we look to both affirm and critique our experiences of God...

...he is gone through...

...The New Testament is broken open for the reader himself to inhabit...

...His ability to combine the results of history-of-religions scholarship, New Testament studies, and a genuine pastoral concern for personal faith, and to write in a clear, readable and imaginative style is rarely matched in today's religious titles...

...Shea's earlier works (The Challenge of Jesus, 1975...

...It has too much depth and hard analysis to be considered light reading, but the depth it points to is universal in human experience and its analysis is refreshingly lucid...

...Faith does not mean protection from harm, nor does it provide a clean explanation for life's ambiguities...

...This newest book renews that exploration and leaves little doubt that its author is an important spokesman, very capable in translating theological research into the experience and language of ordinary believers, inviting his readers into a deeper awareness of both the Mystery of God and themselves by a sympathetic yet critical examination of the process of faith itself...

...It is a subtler sense "that we are never alone and that no power which seeks to destroy us has a final claim...

...The God Who Fell From Heaven, 1979) demonstrated his unique talent as an intelligent apologist for twentieth-century Christian faith by their creative exploration of Christian origins and the contemporary quest for meaning...

...It is not a theological treatise of pristine authority, though it does attempt to "get back" to the vitality of Jesus that generated the Christian movement...

...It is intended for "ministers, teachers, students, parents, and all who find the question of God unavoidable and the attraction of Jesus irresistible...

...Stories of Faith is "a meditation on the dual drives of Christian faith: toward God and toward Jesus," and in it the reader is gently seduced into contact with both by the skillful exploration of the faith journey in and through ordinary human experience...

...The concluding chapters of Shea's book are a moving attempt to' 'sing" the meaning and message of Jesus as forerunner of the faith journey-a poetic "resymbolization" of the story of Jesus which seeks to recapture him in the light of present experiences of the Spirit...

...A-braham, Job, and Jesus are cited as examples of the "despite everything" quality of biblical faith which affirms the ultimate graciousness of the relationship even when not understanding the ways of graciousness...

...I would recommend it as a possible text for college-level courses, for continuing education of ministers, and for more sophisticated adult education groups...

...This interweaving of our stories with the story of Jesus maps more clearly the journey of faith...

...He is the visibility of the invisible movement of God...