‘What, if anything, do I believe about God?’
The burgeoning of people who doubt many traditional Christian answers makes this question highly pertinent today. The short and very short essays of
Overdue Heresies aim to stimulate readers to reach, reaffirm, or rethink their own conclusions about God, Atheism, Jesus, Miracles, Sin, Salvation, and many other elements of the Christian tradition. They do not seek to persuade anyone of anything, ; rather, they encourage readers to enjoy disagreeing. They say little about the Quaker Way, though many of them resemble the messages that readers might hear spoken out of the silence of a Quaker meeting.
The book is especially for: People who are spiritually inquisitive or question major parts of their church’s doctrines. Atheists and other ‘Nones.’ Students seeking fodder for late-night bull sessions. Seekers of truth. The book asks many questions and questions many traditional answers. It is not for people who seek certainty or believe they have found it.
İçerik tablosu
Author’s Note xiii
Introduction xv
My Faith xv
The Quaker Way xvi
Writing the Book xviii
God 1
Creation 19
Science 32
Atheism 41
Religion 50
The Bible 61
Jews 66
Isaac 68
Jesus 70
Judas 82
Peter 83
Christianity 85
Faith 94
Miracles 101
People 107
Prayer 115
Suffering 121
Prophesy 124
Proselytizing 125
Sin 127
Soul 138
Forgiveness 142
Salvation 144
Hell 146
Afterlife 147
War 155
Practice 164
Appendix A 180
Appendix B 181
Appendix C 182
Endnotes 183
Acknowledgments 187
About the Author 188
Yazar hakkında
Malcolm Bell grew up in Brooklyn, graduated from Harvard College (cum laude) and Law School, served in the U.S. Army, and practiced in Manhattan. After fifteen years of mainly civil litigation, he decided to become a criminal defense lawyer, where more was at stake than other people’s money. To learn the new trade, he answered a blind ad for prosecutors, a step that would change his life.The special prosecutor of crimes arising out of New York’s bloody 1971 Attica prison riot hired him and soon tasked him with indicting state troopers and prison guards who had committed murders and other violent crimes there. But the closer he came to obtaining indictments, the more his superiors blocked his efforts. He resigned in protest and took the cover-up public in the New York Times. High officials postured and scurried, leading to revelations they had sought to suppress and more justice than they had wanted; and New York law firms lost interest in hiring Malcolm. His account of all this came out in 1985; its latest version is The Attica Turkey Shoot: Carnage, Cover-up and the Pursuit of Justice (Skyhorse Publishing, paperback, 2022). While becoming a confirmed Episcopalian at age thirteen, he began to question traditional Christian doctrines. His spiritual journey took him from the Episcopal Church to a United Church of Christ, where he taught junior and senior high Sunday school, to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where he found his spiritual home. For the past forty years, he has jotted down his spiritual thoughts, which are now collected in Overdue Heresies and Other Reflections of a Quaker Seeker. The book seeks, not to persuade anyone of anything, but to prompt readers to examine their own spirituality.