Book Review – No Delusions

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NoDelusions

Amazon Book Review:

“Roger tells his story in three parts – his ambitions to make a change in the world in the first half of his life, his embarrassments and setbacks in the second half, and his sense of convergence over the past three years. The stories in the first part are great, really. But it’s the next two parts that make the book a life-changer. Who writes of their limitations and failings with as much honesty and also as much self-acceptance and Grace as Roger does? And the short reflections on Roger’s landing place – a generous faith in a transcendent and accepting Jesus – are just gold. I read this in one sitting in Starbucks and teared up several times, leading me to explain to a neighborhood buddy I met there just why this Roger Dewey story is so remarkable!”

— Steve Watson

Excerpts – The Bible The Never Told Me About

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TheBible

From the Preface:

Most people today ignore the Bible. And I don’t blame them. I mean, it is mostly used as a book of rules for the convinced and a justifier for political anger and denials, especially against LGBTs. And strangely, the Bible’s advocates seem to reject Jesus’ main point: that there is a living supernatural force who accepts us just as we are, with all our excesses and hang-ups, and wants to help us find the most amazing life we can imagine.

If you have been turned off by self-righteous religion, with its sexual abuse by priests, its boring, demanding rules, its medieval God who torments those who make mistakes, and its justifications for anger, wars, racism, sexism, and ignoring the poor, I hope you will read on. This book is a summation of seventy years of discovering that the Bible has a lot more to say than I was being told. As a teenager I began to realize that in church a lot of the good stuff was being left out, and in its place I was hearing the limited religious message that I was not good enough, and never would be, and that God was angry with me. But I knew that was not true of Jesus. I remember saying to myself, out loud, “I’m not going to let them shut me out. Jesus is too important.”

Roger Dewey, “The Bible They Never Told Me About”

The Bible They Never Told Me About

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TheBible

 

The Bible They Never Told Me About

Ray and Elsie Dewey raised their son to see differences as intriguing. Differences of ethnicity, religion, culture and nationality were fascinating and to be explored, never feared. So every prejudice he discovered within himself became a request for God to heal him. This open exploration challenged Roger’s view of the Bible. Brought up to trust it as God’s Word, he went to it for clarification when preachers claimed it promoted something he questioned from personal experience, especially about poor people and justice. He discovered that many who quote the Bible use invisible scissors to cur away huge parts they want to ignore or deny. He concluded that the “non-Christian” Jesus exemplifies a reality far more beautiful and transcendent than what we usually hear from Christianity’s apologists. Genuine spirituality is accessible to those lacking discipline and literacy skills or else God is not loving and just.

As Roger says, “This book is a summation of seventy years of discovering that the Bible has a lot more to say than I was being told. As a teenager I began to realize that in church a lot of the good stuff was being left out, and in its place I was hearing the limited religious message that I was not good enough, and never would be, and that God was angry with me. But I knew that was not true of Jesus. I remember saying to myself, out loud, “I’m not going to let them shut me out. Jesus is too important.”