What Athol Wrote...

Confused by Catholicism, Continued
Friday, July 13, 2007

I want to respond to J. Brisbin’s comment on yesterday’s blog. As he said, it is indeed strange that a Protestant might claim a religious Jew can go to heaven, while claiming a Catholic will not.



It is unwise to say a thing like, “Catholics are not Christians.”



I am not even prepared to say anyone in particular will go to hell, much less to classify an entire segment of the human race as uniformly damned. Jesus made it clear that no one ought to claim to know the spiritual condition of someone else. We should instead focus exclusively on our own personal status before God.

The blog yesterday was meant to point out some confusion, which the Catholics have been attempting to clarify since Vatican II. It seems to me the “means of salvation” language used (see yesterday’s blog) might mislead some Catholics to assume they can earn their way into heaven. I believe many knowledgeable Catholics share this concern. It even seems the pope’s own preacher is worried that many Catholics mistake ritual for redemption. (Do click on that link.) But while the language is often confusing, and while there are many side issues—doctrinal diversions, if you will—that seem to muddy the waters, from what I know of actual Catholic dogma it would be a mistake to say the differences between Evangelical Protestant Christianity and Catholic Christianity rise (or sink) to the level of damnation.

Take the controversial “means of salvation” language used in reference to church membership by Benedict and Vatican II, for example. Most Evangelicals have a problem with the fact that Catholics also view the sacraments of communion and baptism as “means of salvation,” in the sense that the Eucharist is the literal body and blood of Christ, and baptism is an absolute requirement that must be met before one can enter heaven. But this is not the same as saying the rituals are the “cause” of one’s reconciliation with God. While most Evangelicals do not agree that the Eucharist is literally Christ, we do agree that literal participation in His death is necessary for salvation. We literally die and are resurrected now in the spiritual sense; we will literally die and be resurrected later, physically. For us the “Lord’s supper” and baptism are thus inextricably bound up with our quite literal death and resurrection with Christ, therefore we can agree with Catholics that the thing at the heart of the Eucharist and of baptism is absolutely essential for salvation. These things—ordained as they were by Jesus himself—are a “means” in the same sense that the cross was a “means,” but they are not a “cause.” And so far as I know Catholic doctrine does not teach that the Eucharist and/or baptism can cause a soul to go to heaven in spite of an unbelieving heart. On the contrary, the current Catechism clearly states that only the cross has the power to accomplish salvation. And again, consider what the pope’s own preacher said: “Christianity does not start with that which man must do to save himself, but with what God has done to save him.”

We should remember that Christian doctrine explores many theological concerns, most of which do not directly apply to the question, “What causes one to enter heaven?” It is that question, above all others, that defines Christianity versus other religions. Answering it entails decisions about the nature of God, sin, morality, justice and grace. What matters, then, is whether Evangelicals and Catholics can agree upon these essentials. If so, then surely we are brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of our other differences. And fortunately, to my knowledge Catholic and Evangelical doctrine does indeed agree on all of the essentials.

As I said yesterday, my sole concern with Pope Benedict’s recent “clarification” is that such language can easily mislead some into thinking membership in, or participation in things like the Eucharist, Baptism and the Catholic Church might actually cause a person to be saved. In short, I wish the pope would be at least as clear as his own preacher, who explained, “[Conversion to the fact that faith in Christ is the only means of salvation] is the conversion most needed by those who already are following Christ and have lived at the service of his church.” When Jesus warned, “No one comes to the Father except by me,” he undoubtedly meant it not only as a warning against fruitless religions, but also against the kind of superficial Christianity—Catholic or Protestant—which does not begin and end in Him alone.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 12:25 PM 0 comments  

Labels: The Jesus Way

Confused By Catholicism
Thursday, July 12, 2007

Two days ago, Pope Benedict stirred things up a bit with Orthodox and especially Protestant Christians when he approved a paper that "restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, 'Dominus Iesus,' which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the 'means of salvation.'" I remarked on this in an on-line forum, and entered a discussion with a fellow Protestant who sent me the following quotes which he says are direct quotes from the current Roman Catholic Catechism, and which (to me at least) seem to contradict the story about Pope Benedict's "Dominus Iesus" position:

"...many elements of sanctification and of truth" are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements." Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity." (CCC 819)

Also from the Catechism:

"Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church: "For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Justified by faith, in Baptism, [they] are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church." (CCC 1271)

But why might Catholics be of two minds about the salvation of Protestants?

Setting aside theological difficulties these quotes raise for Evangelicals about the nature of baptism and the concept of churches as a "means of salvation," these days I think the Roman Catholic Church might be particularly motivated to find new ways to interact with Protestants, especially Evangelicals, because we have managed to retain and even increase influence in the global socio-political arena in recent years, while Catholicism is in decline. The rise of Evangelical influence in U.S. politics is of course old news, and Evangelicals are making great spiritual inroads in Latin America and Africa. So if I was a Catholic bishop (or pope) I’d be looking for ways to connect with us, in order to understand why this is happening to them and to us, and in order to find ways to work with us toward a common good. In recent articles I have read, those are precisely the reasons they have given to nay-sayers within the RCC for Vatican II’s decidedly ecumenical focus. Vatican II was, after all, an “ecumenical council” attended by Orthodox and Protestant representatives. Yet Catholics who want to strengthen inter-Christian ties must deal with the fact that prior to Vatican II, the official RCC position was that Protestants were beyond salvation. “Excommunication” back then meant a death sentence for one’s soul (according to Roman Catholicism), and millions of “traditional Catholics” around the world still hold that belief. While the quotes above from the current catechism do seem to endorse a path to salvation for non-Catholic Christians, there have been other versions of the catechism through the years in the relatively short time since Vatican II, each of which interprets the Council slightly differently. (I have one on my shelf from 1976, and I believe there was another in the mid-1980's, while the current one was released in 1992.) Given the fact that a catechism is essentially an interpretation of the Church's dogma, an interpretation which may change, I think it’s best to go straight to the words of Vatican II:

“…it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the all-embracing means of salvation, that all fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained.”

It is this teaching (among others) that Benedict sought to clarify when he approved the recent statement released to the press, yet for me at least, he clarified nothing. As a non-Catholic, I still have trouble understanding how it is possible to be “incorporated into Christ” with “the right to be called ‘Christians’” (according to the quotes from the current catechism) while still not having access to “all fullness of the means of salvation.” I find these statements theologically confusing and apparently contradictory, and I do wonder if they are not attempts to have one’s cake and eat it, too.

For me the sticking point is simple: one is either saved, or not. There is no state of being “semi-saved.” Therefore it follows that one either has access to “all fullness of the means of salvation” (emphasis mine) or one has no access to the means of salvation whatsoever. Apparently, based on the quotes above, some Catholics see a way around this. But although I have read several papers by priests who attempt to reconcile the teachings with theologically limited definitions of the words “catholic” and “church” and so forth, so far I’ve read nothing that builds a bridge between them I can logically cross, because in the end it seems “Christ’s Catholic Church” in the Vatican II statement clearly means the “Roman Catholic Church,” which leaves me out.

My concern here is for Catholics, not for Evangelicals and certainly not for myself. So long as any Catholic believes the “Church” plays a causal role in salvation through baptism or any other aspect, he suffers from a work-based theology, which stands in opposition to Ephesians 2:8-9. Fortunately, there are many Catholics who understand the difference between a symbol and a Cause. For example, I recently read an article, which was extremely encouraging, quite beautiful, and in my opinion, does a much better job of explaining how people are reconciled with God than anything in the quotes above.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:18 AM 3 comments  

Labels: The Jesus Way

Matthew 1:1-16, JESUS THE STEPCHILD
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

In the prior two entries on Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, I mentioned that he uses the scriptural device known to Rabbinic Jews as remez (a “hint”) to draw attention to certain truths. These hints are found in the three ways he breaks with the genealogy’s normal pattern of defining each generation with the phrase “the father of.” He breaks with this pattern by mentioning brothers, by mentioning women, and finally, in the last generation by mentioning a husband, specifically, “Joseph, the husband of Mary.”


As is usually the case, here we find meanings within meanings.


For example, this remez draws our attention not only to Joseph, but to his father, identified as “Jacob” here in Matthew. In Luke’s genealogy (which is different for the generations after David) we see Joseph’s father called “Heli.” Why the difference? There are at least four reasons, all of which stem from the fact that the early church identified Heli as Joseph’s father-in-law, Mary’s natural father.

First, the genealogy in Luke through Mary’s family line establishes Jesus’ fundamental “Jewishness.” Rabbinic tradition interprets the Torah to define a person’s nationality as a Jew only through the mother (in the Talmud: Tosafos Yevamos 16b), while a person’s mishpacha, or “family” is determined by the father. For example, a child born to a father named Cohen (which means “priest”) becomes part of the priestly lineage, only if the mother is also a Jew. Otherwise, the child is merely a non-Jew named Cohen.

Second, Luke’s genealogy through Mary, underscores Jesus’ messianic credentials. The Messiah, as mentioned previously, must descend from David. Yet Christianity will claim that Joseph is not Jesus’ natural father as we will soon see, therefore it was essential to establish that David’s blood also flowed through Jesus’ veins by virtue of his mother.

(As an aside, it is interesting to consider the additional hint on this score provided by Matthew in verse 17, where he points out that there are “fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.” In the Hebrew language, each letter’s position in the alphabet corresponds to a number (A = 1, B = 2, and so forth). Using this system, known as the gematria, the Hebrew letters spelling the name “David” have a combined value of 14. Just as letters equal numbers in the gematria, some numbers equal ideas. For example, based on the creation account, the number seven means “complete.” For a Jew like Matthew, this lends deeper meaning to Jesus’ teachings in passages such as this, and this.)

A third reason for tracing Jesus’ lineage through David’s son Nathan and thus through Mary, rather than through Solomon and thus Joseph as Matthew did, is that in so doing Luke avoids the curse already discussed which precludes the progeny of King Jeconiah (a.k.a. Jehoiachin—a descendant of Solomon’s side of the family) from inheriting the messianic throne of David.


Fourth, by referring to Joseph as “the husband of Mary” rather than his more usual “father of Jesus,” Matthew joins Luke’s own remez (“the son, so it was thought”) in directing our thoughts to the most remarkable aspect of Jesus’ genealogy: the assertion that his natural father was none other than Yahweh's Holy Spirit. The man, Joseph, while undoubtedly a worthy step-father, was not Jesus’ actual father, a fact that Luke and Matthew both take care to emphasize.

In the next part of this series, we will begin an examination of the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth, and its many levels of meaning and importance, some of which may surprise you.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:47 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bible Studies

DANGEROUS SECRETS, by Lyn Cote

Posted byAthol Dickson at 8:36 AM 1 comments  

Labels: Other People's Novels

Matthew 1:1-16, JESUS THE LADIES' MAN
Thursday, July 5, 2007

Last week I mentioned the importance of reading scriptures in Jewish ways, especially with an awareness of the four main levels of meaning Jewish scholars identified in the Bible. One of these levels, the remez, or “hint,” is found in the way Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus includes three breaks in the predominant “…father of…” pattern. The first of these sets of hints is Matthew’s references to brothers as discussed last week. The second set of hints that fall outside the pattern is Matthew’s five references to women. Bearing in mind that Matthew is a Jew writing to Jews about a Jew, it is wise to carefully consider the women he chose to mention . . . .

• Tamar, a Canaanite, who posed as a shrine prostitute to trick Judah (her dead husband’s father) into giving her the twin children who are mentioned here in Matthew’s genealogy. This strategy of Tamar’s violated Jewish law, which required her deceased husband’s brother (not his father) to marry her and to father a son in his name.


• Rahab, a prostitute and Canaanite.


• Ruth (see the book of the Bible named after her), a Moabite (not a Jew) who thus married initially outside of normal Jewish law. Also note that Boaz, her second husband, was not her dead husband’s nearest relative as required by Mosaic law, although this was overcome legally.


• Bathsheba, married to Uriah, a Hittite (a non-Jew) and committed adultery with King David. (While some believe she was raped, this is not likely, since she prepared herself ceremonially for sex prior to visiting David.) David murdered to marry her, which is obviously outside the Mosaic law.


• Mary, possibly accused of adultery, and certainly pregnant before marriage, thus outside the Mosaic law.
  

To uncover the meaning of the remez, or “hint,” Matthew provided with these particular women, we begin by noting that all of them had something in their past that a Jewish reader might hold against Jesus. Most of them were not even Jewish. All but Ruth had questionable histories connected to prostitution or adultery. Most conceived their children outside the Jewish law. With such hints at the outset of his gospel, Matthew answers several of the main Jewish objections to Jesus, and sets the stage for some of Jesus’ more revolutionary teachings.

Anticipating Jewish opposition to Jesus’ “illegitimate” birth (an objection which did indeed appear later in the Talmud), Matthew demonstrates that Mary’s pregnancy outside of wedlock is not a cause to deny the Gospel’s message. Even David was descended from prostitutes, and if God can use a king descended from prostitutes to accomplish His will, then all the more so can an “adulteress” like Mary be used in sacred ways.

Also, Jewish objections to the radical idea that gentiles could form part of the Jewish sect of Christianity are met with reminders that gentiles such as Ruth and Rahab form an integral part of Israel’s history. This is Matthew’s way of anticipating the very objections that were indeed raised within the Jewish church in Jerusalem.

We also note that Matthew chooses not to mention Bathsheba by name, referring instead to her husband Uriah, and thereby drawing oblique attention to the fact that Jesus’ ancestor David was a murderer. (David had Uriah sent to the front in a battle and abandoned there in order to take Bathsheba for himself.) By reminding Jewish readers that the Messiah could be descended from the offspring of such a criminal act, Matthew demonstrates that God’s perfect will is often accomplished through humanity’s defiance of His will. This foreshadows the power of the cross, the most evil of all human acts, which was used nonetheless to free humanity from evil.

Consider what this means in terms of your own sins and your usefulness to God. If you will just make yourself fully available to God, absolutely nothing in your past is beyond redemption. Indeed, God often makes the best use of your worst sins.

So far we have seen how Matthew used these women to head off objections to Jesus’ credentials as the Messiah. As with most passages of scripture, we can find still other meanings deeper down. For example, by applying the Jewish tradition of interpreting one scripture through a d’rash, or connection to another scripture, it is useful to consider Mary’s situation in light of the Pharisee’s confrontation of Jesus with the woman caught in adultery. Surely they were aware of the rumors surrounding Jesus’ birth. Perhaps they hoped his emotions as a “bastard son” would cloud his judgment. Perhaps they hoped that Jesus harbored latent anger at his mother for allowing him to be born under a cloud of suspicion and shame. But of course, given the fact that God is love, Jesus’ birth circumstances actually fostered great sympathy in him for the woman. Thus Matthew alludes to the power of God’s great love, which can convert shame and harm to support and healing if we will only allow it.

Matthew’s choice to underscore female gentiles in Jesus’ genealogy is also a hint that Jesus came to challenge not only to the religious hierarchy of the day, but also the social. Both the Roman and Jewish worlds were fiercely ethnocentric and patriarchal. In both cultures, it was a man’s world. Although the original “Mary” was a prophetess, (Miriam is the actual Hebrew name of Jesus’ mother), in Jesus’ time Jewish women were forbidden from reading the Torah aloud in synagogues. The Talmud reveals much debate about whether women should even be allowed to learn the Torah. Women could not be legal witnesses in trials. Women could not teach Jewish law. Women could hold no official religious or legal office. Since Israel in Jesus’ time was ruled by a religious elite, this rendered women almost completely powerless. Here, Matthew hints that Jesus has come to challenge that. He wants his readers to consider Jesus’ relationships with women throughout the Gospels in light of God’s relationships with these women mentioned in his genealogy.

Jesus welcomed women into his inner circle of followers and supporters. This was very unusual, since women normally didn’t even speak to men outside their family in public, much less travel with them. Jesus was kind to prostitutes and adulteresses, allowing them to play important roles in his ministry by example. We see this in his treatment of the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman already mentioned who was caught in adultery, and the “woman who had lived a sinful life.” Jesus also challenged the customary role of women as housekeepers and opened the Torah to them. Jesus challenged rabbinic traditions which discriminated against women in divorce. Jewish men could divorce wives for “any and every reason.” (The famous rabbi Hillel, who lived at the time of Jesus, even allowed it in theory for burning the dinner.) Married women could own real property, but their husbands had the right to the produce of the property, so divorce was tantamount to a sentence of poverty. Thus, Jesus’ strict limitation of the proper cause of divorce was a protection for Jewish women. He also ignored other rabbinic traditions that put undue religious burdens on women. For example, a Jewish woman in menstruation was “unclean” and anyone who touched her was unclean until evening but the rabbis had elongated the period of impurity to a week long purification ritual. This means the woman who had been “subject to bleeding for twelve years” was a social outcast. Imagine how she must have suffered, without feeling the touch of another human being for so long! Yet Jesus, totally unconcerned about the rabbinic tradition, not only allows her surreptitious touch, he calls her “daughter” and praises her faith.

Because of Jesus’ example and teaching, women in the early church were considered:

• Leaders (10 of the 29 church leaders Paul greets by name at the end of his letter to the church in Rome are women, including the first two who came to Paul’s mind)


• Prophets (the New Testament book of Acts mentions Philip the Evangelists’ “four unmarried daughters, who prophesied”)


• Equals with men in terms of spiritual status.
  

Christianity has been harshly criticized in recent years as burdensome on women by some who read scriptures such as “wives, submit to your husbands” out of context, ignoring the fact that Christian husbands are subject to a similar provision. In reality, throughout Jesus’ three years of teaching on the earth he took every opportunity to liberate the women he encountered from their bondage to a male dominated culture that reduced them to a status not much elevated above livestock. Jesus celebrated women, encouraged women, and demonstrated his respect for women in highly visible, counter-cultural ways. Women, of all people, should honor Jesus for his teachings.

Next week we will examine the third of Matthew’s “hints” within his genealogy of Jesus, which is his listing of Jesus’ father as “Jacob,” in direct contradiction to his own story of Jesus birth.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 11:54 AM 5 comments  

Labels: Bible Studies

Matthew 1:1-16, JESUS THE JEW
Thursday, June 28, 2007

Today I start a series of commentaries on the gospel of Matthew. I plan to write one post once per week on this topic for a while, to see how they are received.

When studying a gospel account of Jesus’ life, we should first consider the author’s intentions. Every gospel author sought to offer a particular and unique understanding of Jesus. Comparing Matthew’s opening line to the one in John’s gospel, for example, we find that John is mainly concerned with Jesus as God, while Matthew is more interested in Jesus the man. Specifically, Matthew sets out immediately to present Jesus as a Jewish man, the “son” of David, who is the “son” of Abraham. From a Jewish point of view, these are arguably two of the most important Jews who ever lived.

At the outset, then, we find Matthew writing as a Jew, to Jews, about a Jew.

He quickly places Abraham in Jesus’ genealogy to establish Jesus’ Jewish credentials. And with David, he goes further to establish Jesus as the right kind of Jew. It is Matthew’s contention, after all, that this Jew is the messiah, and all Biblically literate Jews were aware that the messiah would descend from David, as can be seen in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Later in Matthews’ Gospel he will record the Pharisees’ understanding of this, and he will show that a pair of blind men understand it, which indicates that it was known even by Jews who could not read the Hebrew scriptures.

Matthew’s Jewish approach is also seen in his use of the word “son,” which is a kind of metaphor meaning “descendant.” This metaphorical treatment is seen again in the genealogy to follow, where, because several kings are left out of Matthew’s list, some of the “fathers” are really grandfathers or great grandfathers. Matthew’s symbolic use of these nouns and his omission of certain generations from the lineage are common in the Jewish tradition. One finds it often in the Talmud, and it is likely there are also generations missing from the genealogies in the Torah’s book of Genesis. If not, then Abraham was born only 2 years after Noah died and his grandfather Nahor died before his great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather Noah. Also, if the Genesis genealogies did include every generation, then Moses’ grandfather would have already had 8,600 descendants before Moses died. This is very unlikely.

Rabbinic tradition holds that the scriptures speak on several levels. Especially when reading scriptures intended for a Jewish audience (most of the New Testament and all of the Hebrew Scriptures, or “Old Testament”), these levels of meaning should be kept in mind. The four most common are:

P’shat (“simple”) – the plain sense meaning.
Remez (“hint”) – the implied, or broader meaning.
D’rash (“sermon”) – the meaning gleaned in connection with other scripture.
Sod (“concealed”) – the mysterious, or divinely hidden meaning.

In presenting Jesus’ genealogy, we find Matthew revealing his Jewish roots with a generous use of remez. Note the “…father of…” pattern he establishes. A careful reading reveals three breaks with this pattern. Each break hints at something.

First we notice that he only mentions brothers twice (Judah’s brothers and Jeconiah’s brothers).

By emphasizing Judah “and his brothers,” he reminds Jewish readers that not all Jews are equal in God’s eyes simply because they are Jews. Remember what Judah and his brothers did to Joseph. As Paul wrote elsewhere, the Torah makes it clear that one’s bloodline is not enough to claim God’s favor. The “promise” given to Abraham must also be accepted, as Abraham did, with belief.

With his enigmatic reference to Jeconiah “and his brothers,” Matthew provides another hint intended to direct a Jewish reader’s thoughts to several important truths. Jeconiah is another name for Jehoiachin, the king taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar. Given the later events of Jesus’ life, this should remind Jewish readers that God can use human weakness and suffering to achieve His will, something even Jesus’ disciples failed to understand at first. It was also Matthew’s way of hinting that the messiah would not be an earthly king. This hint also answers one Jewish objection to the genealogy. In Jeremiah, the descendants of king Jeconiah (Jehoiachin) are cursed with rejection from “the throne of David.” How then can Jesus be a “son of David’s” and a “king”? Matthew directs us to the solution. Joseph’s ancestor Jeconiah belonged to the line of David through David’s son Solomon, while Mary’s connection with the throne of David was through Solomon’s brother Nathan, who was of course also in the Davidic line. This is one reason why the virgin birth is so important, since it means Mary was Jesus’ “natural” parent while Joseph was a “step-parent,” thus Jesus actual blood line was not through Jeconiah. (We will explore the virgin birth in an upcoming post.)

Note that both Nathan and Solomon were sons of Bathsheba, the famous adulteress. This brings us to a second remez Matthew embeds within his genealogy of Jesus. He violates the “…father of…” pattern five times to mention women.

Next week I will explore the implications of Matthew’s enigmatic references to women here in this first section of his gospel. In the meantime, I encourage you to identify the women Matthew mentions in the genealogy (one of whom is not listed by name), ponder their similarities, and consider what those similarities imply about Jesus and his Way.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:06 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Bible Studies

THE OAK LEAVES, by Maureen Lang
Tuesday, June 26, 2007

This week's novel, The Oak Leaves, is about a child with a mental disability, something I've been thinking about a lot these days since the same scenario plays a major part in Winter Haven, the novel I am currently wrapping up.

Maureen Lang thought she’d write about her experience with Fragile X Syndrome (a genetic form of mental retardation) “someday.” After all, having a child who requires round-the-clock care doesn’t make for the upbeat, escapist reading most romance novelists prefer to write about. Still, Lang wanted to include Fragile X in a story because so few people have heard of the disorder that affects her 12-year-old son. So she put the tale in the middle of a love story.

The Victorian romance of Cosima Escott is interspersed between the pages of a glimpse into the contemporary life of Talie Ingram as her world is forever altered by her son’s diagnosis of Fragile X Syndrome.

If there’s one thing Maureen Lang would like readers to take away, it’s that God loves us all, even through the trials He allows into our lives. And one more thing…the next time you happen to see a family with a disabled child…send a smile their way!

From the back cover:

Talie Ingram has an ideal life: a successful, devoted husband; a beautiful one-year-old son; and another on the way. But her world is shattered when she discovers a shocking family secret in the nineteenth-century journal belonging to her ancestor Cosima Escott. Only in reading Cosima’s words can Talie make peace with the legacy she’s inherited and the one she’s passed on to her son.

Media Reviews:

From the very beginning, Lang, a romance novelist and author of Pieces of Silver, deftly navigates back and forth in history… It’s Cosima's lingering voice—her determination and faith—that inspires Talie to reconcile her son's diagnosis of fragile X syndrome (a disability Lang's own son suffers from) with her belief that God is merciful.
Publisher’s Weekly

A tender account of unconditional love and the deeper joy that results from overcoming the odds, Lang's latest is recommended for all collections and is an essential read for those with fragile X syndrome in their families.
Library Review

“…A lush and moving tapestry of love, fear and faith…spellbinding… Flawlessly plotted, filled with flesh-and-blood characters and a radiant faith…Very highly recommended.”
Christian Book Previews

Available at a store near you or order The Oak Leaves by Maureen Lang online.

Posted byAthol Dickson at 12:44 PM 2 comments  

Labels: Other People's Novels