Jack's Books
The Bible: Faith’s Family Album
Chalice Press, 1998
"The Bible is not about God so much as it is a collection of writings about a community. It is a community that found itself called by God to be the servant of the divine and custodian of the divine message.
This volume began with my frustration with the human "noises" that can bewilder any serious reader of the Bible. Indeed, the human element is quite real.
After a long period of intense involvement in the Scriptures, however, I find myself writing now in appreciation of a sacredness that no amount of human noise can deny. Despite all the problems—the variety of views given by different writers, and the highs and lows of moral development—a mysterious holiness pervades the whole.
I write in hopes of helping others find the sacredness that moves silently in and around the Bible’s earthy environment.
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The Dishonest Church
Rising Star Press, 2003
St. Johann Press
Reprint, 2008
"The style of faith [ordained church professionals] develop during their schooling is not, with some important exceptions, dogmatic, divisive, or anti-intellectual. Yet, when they complete their training and begin to lead local churches, these religious leaders hide their newfound breadth and revert to the patterns of their childhood. They do not respect their congregations enough to challenge them. Thus narrow and immature ideas remain in place; religious beliefs are not measured against the insights of secular science...
This failure of religious leaders to share honestly and forthrightly with the laity, a failure with crippling effects, is the subject of this volume."
The Dishonest Church sold out of its first printing in 2007. St. Johann Press has taken over the rights to the book. A St. Johann Press reprint is now available. Check your local bookstore or booksellers on line or order from www.stjohannpress.com.
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The Fortunate Ones:
Beatitudes and Biographies
The Beatitudes make up one of the most popular sections of Scripture. These pithy teachings are almost universally admired, but I raise the question in this book about whether they should be. I fear many of the people who love these words may never have heard them—at least not in the deeper sense of hearing. Yes, these people have encountered their underlying spirituality and the cadence of their poetry, even heard their gentle vision of a better world. What they have not heard is the word of judgment upon our way of life, a judgment many listeners are not prepared to accept.
The beatitudes describe a radical set of values. A meditation on each Beatitude draws this reality to the surface.
If the Beatitudes seem to suggest an ethic too high for human reach, the reader will be reassured by in inclusion of the life story of individuals who have lived out their challenge. Only four such people were included in the original version of this book. Since that first printing was done to raise funds for a mission project in southern Mexico, it seemed good to keep the book short. This original version of "The Fortunate Ones"is no longer available.
I am pleased to announce that this book will, later in 2010, be reissued in an expanded form. St. Johann Press will publish the second edition of "The Fortunate Ones" and will include a biography to illustrate each of the eight Beatitudes. Look for a publication date.
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Emotions and Values : Exploring the Source of Jesus' Strength and Influence
On April 15 of 2009, St. Johann Press published my new book centered on the relationship between values and emotions. Jesus's life illustrates how a person may fall in love with a core set of values, then enforce, protect, defend, repair and change that value structure through joy, fear, anger, guilt, and grief. Over the course of a lifetime the emotions a person encounters refect earlier decisions concern what to include in one's value structure. A person's value structure thus becomes much more important than one's physical structure.
The book explores ways that one's chosen values both explain emotions currently encountered, but also predict how one's emotional life will play itself out in the future. 
Available from Amazon.com, or directly from St. Johann Press, P.O. Box 241, Haworth, NJ 07641. Credit card orders accepted at 201-387-1529.
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