Book Reviews | James Woodward

Understanding Spiritual Accompaniment

Posted on 25 October 201623 December 2016 by James Woodward

Spiritual Accompaniment and Counselling: Journeying with psyche and soul Edited by Peter Masden Gubi Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2015 paperback 192 pages £16.99 Here at Sarum College (www.sarum.ac.uk) our two year certificate in spiritual direction is very popular to a wide variety of individuals who wish to build upon, reflect and improve their practice. In a world dominated […]

Loving Later Life An Ethics of Ageing

Posted on 10 October 201623 December 2016 by James Woodward

Loving Later Life An Ethics of Ageing Frits de Lange Eerdmans, 2015, 169 pages, pbk, £12.99 If asked to name one of the urgent ethical priorities for academics and practioners working across a number of sectors it would be to deal with this question ‘what are older people for?’ We are all familiar with the demography […]

Andrew Walker, Notes From A Wayward Son: A Miscellany

Posted on 10 August 201623 December 2016 by James Woodward

Andrew Walker, Notes From A Wayward Son: A Miscellany, ed. by Andrew D. Kinsey (Cascade, 2015) This is an intriguing, stimulating and rewarding book that offers a space within which Andrew Walkers rather original and distinctive voice can be heard. Some will know Walker through his groundbreaking study of the 1970s and 80s house church movement […]

How Do We Access the Spiritual?

Posted on 18 July 201623 December 2016 by James Woodward

How Do We Access The Spiritual Edited by Jonathan Pye, Peter Sedgwick and Andrew Todd, Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2015; 280 pages; £19.99 I review this book (the second week of July 2016) when two particular conversations were at the forefront of my mind. The first was the smooth transition between Cameron and May into 10 […]

Performing Pastoral Care

Posted on 10 June 201621 December 2016 by James Woodward

Making the case for the relevance of pastoral care today, this book explores the role of pastoral care through the prism of music. Using musical analogies, the author provides a new way of understanding and practising pastoral care, grounded in practical theology. Challenging overemphasis on mission, he shows that pastoral care remains essential to the […]

Good Disagreement? Grace and Truth in a Divided Church

Posted on 10 March 201621 December 2016 by James Woodward

Good Disagreement? Grace and Truth in a Divided Church Andrew Atherstone and Andrew Goddard (Editors) Lion Hudson 2015 There is a little bit of the playground and its visceral realities still in all of us. We prefer to get our own way and sometimes go to some lengths to achieve that. We easily dismiss, obstruct, even […]

Chaplaincy Ministry and the Mission of the Church

Posted on 10 January 201623 December 2016 by James Woodward

Chaplaincy Ministry and the Mission of the Church Victoria Slater, SCM Press 2015, 160 pages, pbk There are three distinctive and attractive characteristics of this book. The first is the authors’ skilful ability to open up her research in an accessible and stimulating way. The second is the quality of theological reflection based, thirdly, in […]

Writing Methods in Theological Reflection

Posted on 10 November 201523 December 2016 by James Woodward

Writing Methods in Theological Reflection Heather Walton, London: SCM Press, 2014 Most readers of this journal will be book collectors. They are necessary tools of our trade as teachers, seekers after wisdom, researchers and writers. Having recently moved house the task of downsizing a library is certainly a demanding judgement. For example it was relatively […]

Between Dark and Daylight by Joan Chittister

Posted on 10 September 201523 December 2016 by James Woodward

Between Dark and Daylight by Joan Chittister I am busy at the moment embarking upon a major exercise of downsizing in preparation for my move to Sarum. This must include books! The process is illuminating. What do we attach ourselves to? All this ‘stuff’ faces me with the paradoxes and contradictions of living and even […]

What shapes us for happiness?

Posted on 23 October 20077 January 2017 by James Woodward

These bricks form part of the place where I live – well over 300 years old – and in need of some repair – history is fascinating. Imagine what life and change they have experienced! Andrew Marr has turned his pen to writing history A History of Modern Britain ( Macmillan 2007). The pages are […]

Wise Politicians?

Posted on 15 October 20077 January 2017 by James Woodward

( ) Most biography falls into the danger of self justification as we attempt to explain, defend or excuse ourselves. Only the very honest or deluded dare to tell it as it is! An official biography must attempt some balance and objectivity and that can be a problem when the subjest is still alive! Kenneth […]

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