Reluctant Prophet

“Stan,” I said, and I said it kind of loud so of course he had to look up. “Tomorrow morning: 8:37. The red van with the out-of-state plates? You go head to head. You lose. You die.” After freakishly foretelling the death of a friend, Luke Hunter becomes big news in Stokum, his rank little pinprick of a hometown. Terrified, but pretending not to be, Luke holds everyone—the local media, his buddy Fang, the Polish widow next door—at arm’s length as he lurches through a personal minefield studded with previously unconsidered existential ponderings, Christian fundamentalists, a missing teen’s frantic mother, and a dream girl who isn’t his. Hormonal and funny, exhilarating and wise, Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet slyly explores the need to belong, the isolation of youth, and the powerful brew of fear and truth, music and noise, that plays inside us all.

This book is a collection of essays in honour of Albert Nolan OP, who died in October 2022 at the age of 88. Awarded the 'Order of Luthuli in Silver' by then President Thabo Mbeki in 2003 for his 'life-long dedication to the struggle for democracy, human rights and justice and for challenging the religious "dogma" especially the theological justification for apartheid', Nolan inspired a generation of Christian activists and theologians. From 1973-1980, he served as national chaplain for the National Catholic Federation of Students (NCFS) and also, until 1980, for the Catholic Students Association (CASA), which was formed in 1976 after black students began organising themselves into separate formations as Black Consciousness flourished. In 1977, Nolan was instrumental in establishing Young Christian Students movement (YCS) in South Africa. The contributions in this volume come from people around the world who knew him or worked with him over the years. The contributions deal with his family life, his time with the student movements, his life as Dominican, his periods as Dominican Provincial in Southern Africa, his involvement with the ANC, his work as a writer, a publisher of a journal and life in his later years. There are over 65 contributions, along with a Foreword by Timothy Radcliffe OP, a former Master General of the Dominicans.

The biblical narrative of the Exodus and of Moses, the reluctant prophet who was chosen to lead it, deals with the critical formative event in the history of ancient Israel. However, the narrative also contains a number of enigmatic passages as well as some seemingly unrelated episodes. In this book, the author undertakes to unravel the enigmas and show how the various disparate elements contribute to the narrative. The focus in The Exodus and the Reluctant Prophet is on what the biblical text is telling us, explicitly as well as implicitly, about the world in which the ancient Israelites became transformed from a mass of ethnically related people into a nation bound by a divine covenant, and the extraordinary role that the Exodus played in the process. In the effort to comprehend and explain the highly complex biblical text, the author has consulted a wide range of commentaries and studies written over a period of some two millennia that have sought to understand the biblical texts from a wide variety of perspectives, many of which are presented for the reader's consideration, including many sources inaccessible to those without a working knowledge of Hebrew.

At age forty-two, Allison Chamberlain is still making a half-hearted attempt to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. Although she has been a pew-sitting member of a church for seven years, “prophet” has never been on the short list of possible careers. Then one Sunday Allison senses a divine nudge to buy a Harley motorcycle and go wherever it takes her. Soon she is wondering if she is called to present the reality of Christ to one of society’s darkest corners—and challenge her own church to look beyond their fears. The first in a brave trilogy from seasoned author Nancy Rue, The Reluctant Prophet shows how one person’s response to God’s call can change a community forever.

Allison Chamberlain thought she was doing everything God required of her—but as her journey continues in the second book of The Reluctant Prophet series, she might have to let go of everything she loves to follow the call.

In Jonah: The Reluctant Prophet, Dr. Erica Brown takes us on a journey over land and sea, in the footsteps of the Bible's most recalcitrant prophet. Melding traditional commentators, rabbinic literature, modern biblical scholarship, psychological sensitivity, and artistic imagination, Brown travels through the four chapters of Jonah's story tracing his call to leadership, his subsequent intransigence, his momentary rise to duty and his tragic resignation in an effort to discover God's ultimate lesson for him. With insight and feeling, Brown provides us with a glimpse into the tormented soul of the prophet as he grapples with the notion of a forgiving God who is concerned even with the welfare of Israel's strongest adversary. As God struggles to teach His prophet to expand his vision and take up his divine mission, we come to understand the Divine call given to each of us to rise up to the possibility of greatness. After all, if God can change His plan, we can change as well.

ECPA 2014 Christian Book Award Winner (Non-Fiction)! Fifty years after his death, C. S. Lewis continues to inspire and fascinate millions. His legacy remains varied and vast. He was a towering intellectual figure, a popular fiction author who inspired a global movie franchise around the world of Narnia, and an atheist-turned-Christian thinker. In C.S. Lewis—A Life, Alister McGrath, prolific author and respected professor at King’s College of London, paints a definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis. After thoroughly examining recently published Lewis correspondence, Alister challenges some of the previously held beliefs about the exact timing of Lewis’s shift from atheism to theism and then to Christianity. He paints a portrait of an eccentric thinker who became an inspiring, though reluctant, prophet for our times. You won’t want to miss this fascinating portrait of a creative genius who inspired generations.