Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation
Merritt has become an influential voice for and among that growing body of Christians known as the 'hyphenateds' or the 'loyal radicals.' InReframing Hope, she speaks elegantly and eloquently about the blessings of keeping the treasures of inherited Church even as we move, in our times, toward new ways of being Church. What Merritt gives us here is just autobiographical enough to be easy reading and yet, at the same time, just academic and pastoral enough to be deadly accurate. It is also a clarion call to a revitalized practice within the established traditions of Western Christianity. --Phyllis Tickle, author,The Great EmergenceIf you have been inspired and moved by the writings of Brian McClaren, Phyllis Tickle, and Diana Butler Bass, you must now add Carol Howard Merritt to the mix.Reframing Hopebegins to address what so many have known in the 'emergent church' conversations for years: that the mainline church has been and will be a significant factor in the formation of whatever is next for the Protestant church in America. Through thoughtful generational insights, an unmistakable prophetic word, and novelesque narrative style,Reframing Hopeis a must for anyone who cares deeply about God's reality for the church: past, present, and future. --Bruce Reyes-Chow, Founding Pastor, Mission Bay Community Church, San Francisco Former Moderator, General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA)Carol Howard Merritt's writing reflects both her prophetic and pastoral calling. She has a welcomed (if unsettling) clarity about where the church is now as well as an inspired vision of where it ought to be. And at the same time, her reader feels the love of a pastor who truly cares for the people of the Church and encouragingly walks with us as we sojourn towards a more liberated and renewed faith. --Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, Associate Dean of Religious Life and the Chapel at Princeton University