United First Parish Church Bookstore Quincy, Massachusetts

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Getting On Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel Rev. Peter Laarman (Editor). In the 2004 election, 80 percent of those who claimed "moral values" was the most important issue affecting their vote cast their ballots for Bush, as did 63 percent of frequent churchgoers. Since then, the Religious Right has continued to cement an association between "Christian" and "moral" values and conservative policies. Getting On Message challenges this association from the very heart of the Christian tradition. These readable and incisive essays use biblical framing to discern the personal and social ethics that truly embody Christian values in the contemporary world. Marilynne Robinson discusses the link between personal holiness and a generous spirit Garret Keizer looks at the growing wealth/class divide from a Christian perspective Rev. Heidi Neumark examines hospitality as a core Christian value Rev. Chloe Breyer explores a justice criterion for women"s decisions on abortion Rev. Bill Sinkford asks what really constitutes a God-approved marriage and family Getting On Message is a book for clergy, for politically active people of faith, and for progressive organizers and strategists who want to learn how to talk to religious believers about the values they share. Rev. Peter Laarman is executive director of Progressive Christians Uniting, codirector of the Center for Prophetic Renewal in Los Angeles, and a board member of Faith Voices for the Common Good. Before moving to California, Laarman served as senior minister of New York"s historic Judson Memorial Church. He worked for twenty years as a strategist and communications specialist in the labor movement prior to training for the ministry.

God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It by Jim Wallis. Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and pro-Republican? And since when did promoting and pursuing a progressive social agenda with a concern for economic security, health care, and educational opportunity mean you had to put faith in God aside? While the Right in America has hijacked the language of faith to prop up its political agenda -- an agenda not all people of faith support -- the Left hasn't done much better, largely ignoring faith and continually separating moral discourse and personal ethics from public policy. While the Right argues that God's way is their way, the Left pursues an unrealistic separation of religious values from morally grounded political leadership. The consequence is a false choice between ideological religion and soulless politics. God's Politics offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition -- that is, make them pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life (beyond single issue voting), and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays and lesbians).

The Separation of Church and State: Writings on a Fundamental Freedom by America's Founders by Forrest Church (Editor). Certain basic issues will always be debated in our country, even without a presidential election at stake. One of the most important of these is the separation of church and state. On this issue, Americans constantly interpret and reinterpret the intentions of America's founders. Now they will have a collection of the most eloquent writings of the founders to help them understand the original reasoning behind this separation. Forrest Church, well-known writer and religious leader (senior minister of All Souls (Unitarian) Church in Manhattan), son of former senator Frank Church, has used his considerable knowledge about this subject to bring together these writings for modern readers. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, George Washington, Patrick Henry -— these are just some of the leaders who wrote movingly about the need to separate religion and government. This concise primer will get past the rhetoric that surrounds the current debate and deliver instead specific writings by the original authors of the Constitution.

American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans by Eve LaPlante. Anne Hutchinson, a forty-six- year-old midwife who was pregnant with her sixteenth child, stood before forty male judges of the Massachusetts General Court in 1647, charged with heresy and sedition. In a time when women could not vote, hold public office, or teach outside the home, the charismatic Hutchinson wielded remarkable political power. Her unconventional ideas had attracted a following of prominent citizens eager for social reform. Hutchinson defended herself brilliantly, but the judges, faced with a perceived threat to public order, banished her for behaving in a manner "not comely for [her] sex." Written by one of Hutchinson's direct descendants, American Jezebel brings both balance and perspective to Hutchinson's story. It captures this American heroine's life in all its complexity, presenting her not as a religious fanatic, a cardboard feminist, or a raging crank -- as some have portrayed her -- but as a flesh-and-blood wife, mother, theologian, and political leader.

Second Innocence: Rediscovering Joy and Wonder: A Guide to Renewal in Work, Relationships, and Daily Life by John Izzo. John Izzo's concept of "second innocence" means recovering those feelings of enthusiasm, faith, presence, and curiosity associated with childhood and blending them with the knowledge and experience of adulthood. Through a series of compelling stories, he offers a collection of uncommon thoughts on common themes. The author's experience as a minister, teacher, author, corporate advisor, and leader of spiritual retreats provides a wealth of wisdom for this journey.

Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America
Jonathan Rauch.
Two people meet and fall in love. They get married, they become upstanding members of their community, they care for each other when one falls ill, they grow old together. What's wrong with this picture? Nothing, says Jonathan Rauch, and that's the point. If the two people are of the same sex, why should this chain of events be any less desirable? Marriage is more than a bond between individuals; it also links them to the community at large. Excluding some people from the prospect of marriage not only is harmful to them, but is also corrosive of the institution itself.

Soul of a Citizen
Paul Rogat Loeb.
These are indeed cynical times. But to hide behind the smugness of cynicism is a kind of self-imposed death sentence, explains writer and social commentator Paul Loeb. In fact, now is the ideal time for gathering all our strengths and wisdom as spiritual beings and applying ourselves to shaping a better world, he claims. Are we talking social activism here? Well, yes. But before you cringe from images of shrill, humorless, burned out activists, keep in mind that Loeb is talking about a new kind of activism -- an exciting, spiritual model for creating social change. We don't have to be pious or martyred saints (as he explains throughout one chapter), starving ourselves in the name of a cause or staging protests in freezing rain. We can be "good enough" activists, assuming the task of helping 10 people in need rather than taking on the globe.

Free For All : Defending Liberty in America Today
Wendy Kaminer.
This collection offers incisive, original investigations of political freedom post-September 11, and reviews threats to sexual and religious liberty, free speech, privacy and the right to be free from unwarranted, unprincipled prosecutions. Kaminer is a lawyer, social critic and columnist at the American Prospect. (Beacon) 2002 208 This book is recommended reading for those interested in learning more about the UUA Study/Action Issue, Civil Liberties.

American Creed: A Spiritual and Patriotic Primer
Rev. Forrest Church.
Digs deeply into the American past in this brief treatise on history and faith. Church argues that the "American Creed" - which employs a language of faith but transcends "religious particulars, uniting all citizens in a single covenant" - is an appropriate and generous principle upon which to found a great nation.

John Adams
by David McCullough.
Adams emerges from McCullough's brilliant biography as a truly heroic figure -- not only for his significant role in the American Revolution but also for maintaining his personal integrity in its strife-filled aftermath. McCullough spends much of his narrative examining the troubled friendship between Adams and Jefferson, who had in common a love for books and ideas but differed on almost every other imaginable point. Reading his pages, it is easy to imagine the two as alter egos.

The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
by Karen Armstrong.
Armstrong documents how fundamentalism has taken root and grown in many of the world's major religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Even Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism have developed fundamentalist factions. Fundamentalists have not only increased in numbers, they have become more desperate, claims Armstrong, who points to the Oklahoma City bombing, violent anti-abortion crusades, and the assassination of President Yitzak Rabin as evidence of dangerous extremes.

Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams
by Joseph J. Ellis.
Ellis ponders the distinctive personality and achievements of America's endearingly cantankerous second President.

The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence
by Lester J. Cappon (Editor).

Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You Grew Up With Has Lost Its Meaning
by Scotty McLennan.
A guidebook for the perplexed -- those who have lost faith in the religion of their youth and are not sure how to continue their spiritual lives. The book's author, the Rev. Scotty McLennan, has plenty of experience with the perplexed; he is a Unitarian minister and the chaplain at Tufts University. (He is also the model for the freewheeling character Reverend Scott Sloan in Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury and attends First Parish Uniterian Universalist in Milton, MA.)

A Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism
by John A. Buehrens, F. Forrester Church, Robert Fulghum, Denise Davidoff.
A history of the denomination, with lively passages depicting the lives and ministries of important Unitarian-Universalist leaders such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Ellery Channing. Yet it is also a collection of testimonies by contemporary laypeople and ministers, who describe their churches' responses to questions ranging from ""How do I know when to get married?" to "How should the government treat single mothers?"

Duck Egg Blue: An Novel
by Derrick Neill.
A new novel by a UU teacher/author/speaker. It's a book for Unitarians, about Unitarians, about what Unitarians believe, and written by a Unitarian.

Eva's Man (Black Women Writers Series)
by Gayl Jones.
Taut and explosive, sensual and eerie, "Eva's Man" is a gripping psychological portrait of a woman unable to love for fear of pain. Imprisoned for the bizarre murder of her lover, Eva Medina Canada weaves memory and fantasy to reveal a life tormented by sexual abuse and emotional silence. Gayl Jones is widely acclaimed for her brilliant and profound messages about race, class, and gender, and for her masterful experiments with language; here she is at her best, infusing her power narrative with a rich musical and oral idiom. "Eva's Man" is Gayl Jones's second novel. Her first, Corregidora, won the acclaim of James Baldwin and Maya Angelou, and her most recent novel, The Healing, was called "a major literary event" (Newsweek).

Cravings: A Sensual Memoir
by Jyl Lynn Felman.
In this profound and darkly funny collection of essays, Jyl Lynn Felman explores the bittersweet experience of growing up the youngest of three girls in a Jewish American family in Dayton, Ohio. In a family unable to speak about feelings, the Felman sisters found their own ways to break through the silence and rigidity of their parents' religious beliefs and to vie for their mother's attention and love. As an adult, Felman reckons with her grief over her mother's suffering and eventual death from Parkinson's disease and its destruction of the family. Throughout, she writes of her own cravings in the sensual experience of her childhood--the taste of her mother's cooking, the feel of her touch, and how these memories have driven her adult life.

Thousand Pieces of Gold: A Biographical Novel
by Ruthanne Lum McCunn.
This masterful biographical novel--which has sold more than 100,000 copies--tells the true life story of Lalu Nathoy, sold into slavery in 1871 by her poverty-stricken family and auctioned off in the American West. McCunn tells the gripping tale of how Lalu refused to be mistress, pawn, or chattel to any of the men who "owned" her and how she struggled out of servitude to achieve a life of freedom and dignity as a pioneer woman.

Night Bloom: A Memoir
by Mary Cappello.
Of the mysterious Night Blooming Cereus, Mary Cappello writes "The flower fell into our neighborhood like a shooting star." That neighborhood was a working-class suburb of Philadelphia divided by class distinction and haunted by contradiction her father, between fits of rage, tended the neighborhood's most beautiful garden; her mother, gutsy poet and activist, suffered from paralyzing fears that kept her from leaving the house. Delicately interweaving the bilingual journals of her grandfather (a southern Italian shoemaker), her mother's poetry, Sicilian folklore, and dreamwork with her own story, Mary Cappello writes as witness of the marks left on her family by immigration and assimilation. "Night Bloom" encounters America's obsession with mafiosi at the same time that it exposes the daily violence of grinding poverty.

American Encounters: Greater Mexico, the United States, and the Erotics of Culture
by Jose Eduardo Limon.
The idea of crossing the Rio Grande between the U.S. and Mexico has always conjured images of racial hostility and exclusion. Today these images include stories of immigrant drownings, drug killings, and toxic waste. Award-winning anthropologist Jose Limon looks into history, politics, literature, folklore, ethnography, biography, film, song, and dance to probe the deeply entwined and ambivalent relationship between both sides of the border over the last 150 years. Looking into Mexico's post-NAFTA plight and the United States' heated debate over Mexican immigration, Limon pays careful attention to how the forces of political economy create a context for domination and inequality. >From the writing of Katherine Anne Porter to the life of the late Chicana pap star Selena; from the career of the distinguished Mexican anthropologist Gamio to Henry Cisneros's 1990 Texas gubernatorial campaign, Limon's analysis engages us in the political, popular, and cultural dimensions of the border and offers hope for the future.

Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide and Mass Violence
by Martha Minow .
The author explores the rich and often troubling range of responses to massive, societal-level oppression; writes of the legacy of war-crime prosecutions beginning with the Nuremberg trials; and of whether reparation--such as the monetary awards given to Japanese-Americans for internment during World War II--can be a basis for reconciliation after immeasurable personal and cultural loss. Minow also writes with informed, searching prose of the extraordinary drama of truth commissions in Argentina, East Germany, and most notably South Africa, and in the process delves into the meaning of victimization, the worth of gesture, and the dynamic of gender in the midst of these riveting national experiments in justice and healing.

Voices of the Matriarchs : Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women
by Chava Weissler.
With Voices of the Matriarchs, Chava Weissler restores balance to our knowledge of judaism by providing the first look at non-Hebrew jewish source materials the vernacular women's devotional prayers called tkhines. In Weissler's hands, these Yiddish prayers open a window into early modern Ashkenazic (European) women's lives, beliefs, devotion, and relationships with God.

Women Who Would Be Rabbis : A History of Women's Ordination, 1889-1985
by Pamela S. Nadel.
For nearly a century, Jewish women fought for the right to equal religious participation--the right to become ordained rabbis. Pamela S. Nadell mines a wealth of untapped sources, from Yiddish newspapers to personal letters, to bring us the first in-depth history of their lives, faith, dedication, public reception, and especially their extraordinary courage. Her tale reaches from Mary M. Cohen, who published the first article on "the ordination question" in 1889, to Sally Priesand, the first woman rabbi, ordained in 1972, and also looks at the contemporary controversy over women's ordination in Orthodox Judaism. Women Who Would Be Rabbis offers compelling stories of dedication and reveals an exciting new angle of history for all readers interested in American judaism and the religious freedom of women over the last century.

The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women
by Rosalie Maggio (Editor).
Belying the image of the silent woman, this bountiful reference offers 16,000 quoted from 2,600 women--most of them found in no other collection. With dynamic and witty words by sources ranging from Bella Abzug to Ann Zwinner on over 1,400 topics large and small--love, coffee, death, football, poetry, politics, money, cats, and more--this is a wonderful source for writers, speechmakers, and quotation-lovers. A section explaining the origin of frequently cited misquotations, a biographical index, subject indexes, and practical advice on using quotations with sexist language complete this indispensable reference and browser's delight.

Don't Call Us Out of Name : The Untold Lives of Women and Girls in Poor America
by Lisa Dodson.
A radically new vision of girls and women living below the poverty line--a frontal assault on media myths. The book takes us across classes, and into fellowship with people who are seldom invited to speak but have powerful stories to tell. It delves deep into the realities of their own lives, often with tales of remarkable courage, unimaginable strength, and resourcefulness, giving us the truth about how women battle and survive poverty. Their words force us to abandon common myths about school dropouts, teen pregnancy, and welfare "cheats," and offer hope for change based on their own experience and analysis.

Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue
by Leslie Feinberg.
A stirring call for tolerance and solidarity from the acclaimed activist and author of Transgender Warriors (Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman). In this collection of Feinberg's inspiring speeches, s/he argues passionately for the acceptance of all trans people--and for the absoute necessity of building coalitions between progressive and plitical groups. Trans Liberation is a book for all who care about civil rights and creating a just and equitable society.

Sowing the Dragon's Teeth: Land Mines and the Global Legacy of War
by Philip C. Winslow.
Philip Winslow offers the most complete and compelling book on land mines -- the issue brought to world attention with the awarding of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize to the Campaign to Ban Land Mines. He draws on his years as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, the Balkans, and Africa, and journeys into rural Angola, where he introduces us to the victims, and deminers, and the way land mines destroy economies and infrastructures. He also writes about the Campaign to Ban Land Mines and the ways we might finally pull the "dragon's teeth" from the earth, to restore it to those who live there.

Evening Tide: Meditations
by Elizabeth Tarbox
In her latest collection of meditations, Elizabeth Tarbox examines life's more difficult moments. Whether listening to gay children voice their fears about coming out, or saying good-bye to her dying father, she acknowledges pain and despair as integral parts of life. At these instances, when the soul is most empty, she looks to nature and manages to find hope in ordinary things like the simple chore of chopping wood or the quiet music of a pine forest. Part of the UUA Meditation Manual series.

Glory, Hallelujah : Now Please Pick Up Your Socks: Meditations
by Jane Ellen Mauldin
Using the colorful threads of her experience as a minister, wife, mother and daughter, Jane Ellen Mauldin explores the connection between all life and captures the moments when she fails to see that link. Beginning with her family and extending her reflections to include cats, dogs and butterflies, Mauldin playfully and poignantly examines lessons learned from everyday events - from discovering the location of her kids' secret clubhouse and observing the love between her aging in-laws, to noticing the beauty of an egret standing beside a busy highway. Part of the UUA Meditation Manual series.

Without Apology: Collected Meditations on Liberal Religion
by A. Powell Davies, edited and introduced by F. Forrester Church
From the book ... Life must have its sacred moments and its holy places. We need the infinite, the limitless, the uttermost - all that can give the heart a deep and strengthening peace. We need religion with its faith and purpose; we need it as experience. We need the touch of beauty, bringing back to life its lustre and its loveliness. We need the unutterable communion of our spirits with the spirit of the highest - all that joins the soul with what it yearns for, all that can raise the frailty of our incomplete humanity toward the level of the spirit's aspirations - that our earthly dust may meet and mingle with the majesty and mystery of God.

All Are Chosen: Stories of Lay Ministry and Leadership
edited by Margaret L. Beard and Roger W. Comstock
The work of the church is the shared responsibility of both the minister and the laity, in all aspects of their lives. Collected here are more than 20 inspiring narratives, told by the people undertaking this shared ministry. Exploring such topics as handling intergenerational differences, leadership during disasters and campus ministry, each story is an in-depth look at the work of ministering to one another.

The World's Religions
by Huston Smith
A standard introduction to its eponymous subject since its first publication in 1958. Smith writes humbly, forswearing judgment on the validity of world religions. His introduction asks, "How does it all sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? ... We cannot know. All we can do is try to listen carefully and with full attention to each voice in turn as it addresses the divine. Such listening defines the purpose of this ". His criteria for inclusion and analysis of religions in this book are "relevance to the modern mind" and and his interest in each religion is more concerned with its principles than its context. Therefore, he avoids cataloging the horrors and crimes of which religions have been accused, and he attempts to show "at their best." Yet The World's Religions is no pollyannaish ": It is about religion alive," Huston writes. "It calls the soul to the highest adventure it can undertake, a proposed journey across the jungles, peaks, and deserts of the human spirit. The call is to confront reality." And by translating the voices of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Christianity, and Judaism, among others, Smith has amplified the divine call for generations of readers.

Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life
by Howard Thurman, Walter Earl Fluker (Editor), Catherine Tumber (Editor), Martin E. Marty (Foreword)
A Strange Freedom features important, previously unpublished work. Through selections tht include a remarkable tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., and powerful reflections on the nature of democracy, authority, and reconciliation, we gain an understanding of how our experience of God dictates our responsibilities to one another and determines the strength of our communities. Thurman wrote, "Ultimately there is only one place of refuge on this planet for any man -- that is in another man's heart. His call that we each live our life as "an act of faith towards our " remains one of profound importance.

How We Want to Live: Narratives on Progress
Edited by Susan Richards Shreve and Porter Shreve Introduction by James Reston, Jr.
Is progress a blessing or a curse? How do technology, gender and race identity, choice, and freedom affect our lives? At the end of a technologically overwhelming century, can we be true to our personal ideals? How We Want to Live is the second in a series that asks extraordinary writers to take on an issue of passionate social concern. Major American writers give compelling and often quite unexpected answers to the many questions we must ask ourselves about progress at the close of the century. Contributors include: Alan Cheuse, Annie Dillard, Bill McKibben, Rebecca Walker, Ishmael Reed, Susan Wood, and others.

The Presence of Absence: On Epiphany and Prayer
by Doris Grumbach
The Presence of Absence follows Grumbach's journey to recover through prayer the sense of God's presence. Abandoning formal prayer in church, she begins to celebrate God using a private ceremony of worship. Illuminated by her reading of accounts of epiphany, her searching attempts at private prayer reflect some of the most compelling issues of our faith. Intensified by an extended period of extreme and chronic pain, Grumbach's quest to feel the presence of God is a moving and inspiring journey through vanity, faith, and love.

The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith
by Marcus J. Borg
The author is an Episcopal professor of religious studies and provides a brief autobiography of growing up in a Lutheran household and church, of the beginning of teen-age doubts, of going out into the world of new ideas, and of gradually arriving at his present views of God. It is a surprisingly Unitarian Universalist saga, even though it never mentions our faith by name. Most of the book is a detailed description and personal proof of God being all around us and in us too, and his details and applications are pertinent to UUism. It is a human, thoughtful, and scholarly study. I particularly appreciated his review of how all churches express the presence of God--sounds, silences, rituals, particular words, etc. In my view this is the kind of vision and thinking that transcends sects, organizations, and the larger categories. This book is in our church library.
Brooks S. White

Commodify Your Dissent : Salvos from the Baffler
by Thomas Frank (Editor), Matt Weiland (Editor)
This book is a collection of writings from the best cultural studies magazine in America. It is the intelectual version of the Emporer's new clothes!
Hank Peirce

The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart
by Peter J. Gomes
An engaging study of the purported Biblical roots of homophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism, racism, and other prejudices... Both a Biblical primer and a critique of the religious right, The Good Book is intended for the vast group of secular Americans who have only a passing acquaintance with the Scriptures but want to know more; Lord Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, touts it as "easily the best contemporary book on the Bible for thoughtful people."
The New Yorker, 11/11/96

Stranger at the Gate : To Be Gay and Christian in America
by Mel White
Until Christmas Eve 1991, Mel White was regarded by the leaders of the religious right as one of their most talented and productive supporters. He penned speeches for Ollie North, was a ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell, worked with Jim Bakker. What they didn't know is that Mel White--evangelical minister, committed Christian, family man--is gay. In this book, White details his twenty-five years of being counseled, exorcised, electric-shocked, prayed for, and nearly driven to suicide because his church said homosexuality was wrong. His salvation--to be openly gay and Christian--is much more than a unique coming-out story.
amazon.com

Returning : A Spiritual Journey
by Dan Wakefield, Harvey Cox (Introduction)
Returning is the book in which Wakefield speaks most directly about the physical and mental desperation that sent him back to his faith. And it turns out to be not only the best of his books about his spiritual journey, but the best book he has written. A vivid memorable description ... it traces the forces that formed him as a writer and intellectual.
The Nation, Leonard Kriegel