Dear Patrons,
Welcome to the Bishop Payne Library web site, your portal to our theological research services. Contact our library staff through the Ask a Librarian service or call us at (703)461-1733.
Here are short-cut links to key sections of our website:
1) Library catalog
2) electronic databases (remote access for VTS students, faculty, staff and Board members)
3) information about borrowing privileges
4) Washington Theological Consortium reciprocal borrowing among seminaries
5) Virginia Seminary Archives
6) the African American Episcopal Historical Collection; the Black Episcopalians Research Guide
7) the Yattendon Hymnal online and the Alumni ENews Announcement
Mitzi Budde
Head Librarian &
Prof’s Picks
May 2013
The Reverend Dr. A. Katherine Grieb, Professor of New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary, recommends the following books as part of the Bishop Payne Library's monthly series highlighting a faculty member's "picks":
Richard Lischer, Stations of the Heart: Parting with a Son (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013)
Richard Lischer is a Lutheran theologian and pastor who teaches homiletics at Duke Divinity school. This autobiographical book is an account of the death of his son Adam, a promising young lawyer, married, with a daughter on the way, who died from melanoma in 2005. Lischer reflects theologically about the way suffering binds us together, about parents and children, about stations of the cross, about grief, and about the ways that joy and sorrow are bound together in the Christian life. He is a trustworthy guide with much to teach us about the geography of the heart.
William Sloane Coffin, Letters to a Young Doubter (Westminster John Knox Press, 2005)
The late William Sloane Coffin was the Chaplain at Yale University who led protests against the war in Viet Nam, marched at Selma with Dr. King, was imprisoned with the freedom riders, was the first president of SANE/FREEZE for nuclear disarmament, and served as Senior Minister of Riverside Church in New York City. In this book, modeled after Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, Coffin enters an imaginary dialogue with a young college student who is perhaps a composite of many whom he has urged to "love the questions." I just reread it recently (it is an evening's read) and was struck again by Coffin's articulate defense of the Reformed tradition for college students in the United States context. This small book would be a good present for someone you know who is graduating from high school this spring and beginning the process of achieving an owned faith.
Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Editor, Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5-8 (Baylor University Press, due out in 2013)
Watch for this one, hopefully coming out in time for the Society of Biblical Literature Meeting in Baltimore in November. Beverly Gaventa, well-known for her work on Acts, Mary, and especially Paul, is writing a major commentary on Romans, a project which has already generated a number of excellent intermediary papers on various aspects of Pauline apocalyptic theology in Romans. In this volume, she has edited the major papers, including her own, given at a conference hosted at Princeton last spring on the topic of Romans 5-8. This is an unusually strong collection of papers by respected Paul scholars that should be of interest to anyone preaching and teaching from Romans, especially Romans 5-8.
Brian J. Walsh, Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination (Brazos Publishers, 2011)
Brian Walsh, Christian Reformed Chaplain to the University of Toronto has written a number of books on the intersection of Christianity and culture. This book provides a sympathetic analysis of the Canadian songwriter and folk singer Bruce Cockburn who has influenced U2 and other prophetic Christian musicians for many years now. What is unusual about this book is that Walsh speaks of his own theological indebtedness to Cockburn and also how listening to Cockburn's challenging lyrics has impacted his own thought and actions. The social implications of the Christian faith are front and center in the work of both Cockburn and Walsh. This book deepens the discussion about social media and the importance of "praying twice" by singing the Lord's songs and thinking about what we sing.
For more Prof's Picks see the 'Useful Links' box here:
Just a reminder that Alums retain borrowing privileges with the Bishop Payne Library and can request these as well others in the catalog be sent at no cost. Alums do pay the shipping costs for the books’ return. |