We live in a culture of collective fear over climate change and mass migration, and we experience increasing intense personal anxiety and despair. How might the Bible’s themes of homecoming and homemaking address our physical, emotional, and spiritual displacement?
This collection of essays honors the academic and community work of Brian J. Walsh upon his retirement as Campus Minister at the University of Toronto Christian Reformed Campus Ministry. The collection is a stunning mosaic at once academic and personal—representing the many elements of Brian’s life as pastor, theologian, professor, farmer, mentor, and friend.
In an age when “home” feels physically and spiritually elusive for so many, this volume reawakens our imaginations to the foundational biblical themes of homecoming and homemaking. Academic, pastoral, personal, and timely, this volume honors Brian’s career and equips readers to engage the fear and anxiety of our age with the hope of the gospel.
Advance Praise for A Sort of Homecoming
“Be forewarned, this collection will leave you with a case of holy homesickness. This bouquet of contributions explores a range of themes in Brian’s work—eschatology, empire, ecology, and exegesis—held together by a robust thread of home. Poetry, places, and stories make it more than a festschrift; it’s an ode to the beauty of home and a prayer of longing to be at home—with God, one another, and all of creation.”
– Christopher B. James, author of Church Planting in Post-Christian Soil
“Whether in the dirt of the garden or in a seminary basement, Brian’s work has always been underground. This collection of subversive essays pulls us into the upside-down kingdom of God: a journey both liberating and disorienting. For some, these words will be offesnive. For others, they will be full of hope. It all depends which side of the surface you wish to make home.”
– Kevin Makins, Pastor of Eucharist Church and author of Why Would Anyone Go to Church?
“This book will open your ears to the hope and homecoming embedded in the Scripture’s story, with a chorus of voices serving as an encore to the vivid work of Brian Walsh. You should take in this show, and then read it again. It’s that good. And that important.”
– Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Books
Availability
This book is now available through the publisher, the following bookstores, and wherever fine books are sold:
Hearts and Minds Books (Dallastown, PA)
Phone: 1.717.246.3333
Regent College Bookstore (Vancouver, BC)
Phone: 1.800.334.3279
Email: bookstore@regent-college.eduWipf and Stock Publishers (Eugene, OR)
Table of Contents
Preface | Andrew Stephens-Rennie
Jesus as the Face of God | Hendrik Hart
Places That Shape Us: The Long Way Home | Deborah C. Bowen
Heaven as Home in Christian Hope | Andrew T. Lincoln
Searching For Home, Discovering Peace | Jamie Howison
Reflections on Interfaith Work and City-Building: Past, Present, and Future | Joe Mihevc
Jewelry in the Apocalypse | Grant LeMarquand
Welcome Homeless: One Village Idiot’s Journey of Discovering the Meaning of Home | Alan Graham
Voices from the Ragged Edge: The Gritty Spirituality of the Lament Psalms | J. Richard Middleton
Iris and Nereus Here and Now | Greg Paul
Hospitality as Hermeneutic and Way of Life | Rachel Tulloch
Springtime in Cape Town: The Sacramental, Prophetic Imagination of Desmond Tutu | Stephen Martin
The Wit(h)ness of Suffering Love | James Olthuis
The Reconciling Power of Public Art In a Broken Home | Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin and Jonathan Chaplin
Of Tents and Temples: A Sermon for the Wine Before Breakfast Community—1 Corinthians 3 | Beth Carlson-Malena
Revillaging the City: How One Congregation Transformed Its Charitable Food Ministry to an Agent of Shalom | Andrew Stephens-Rennie
Setting Another Place at the Table | Matt Bonzo
Reconciling the World? Theology and Exegesis 2 Corinthians 5 | N. T. Wright
Holiness and Homemaking: The Christian Doctrine of Creation Performed | Steven Bouma-Prediger
Animism Reconsidered: Coming Home in a More-Than-Human World | Rodney Clapp
Home Is Where the Wild Rice Is | Sylvia C. Keesmaat
Afterword | Martyn Joseph