Jim Wallis to visit the UK from 23 August to 4 September

Lion Hudson is delighted to announce that Jim Wallis will be visiting the UK from 23 August to 4 September to launch his new book, ‘On God’s Side’. After appearing as a main speaker at Greenbelt 2013 in Cheltenham, Jim’s tour itinerary will include a large number of events in London, Manchester and Edinburgh, as well as many high-level meetings and interviews.

Jim Wallis has met with Gordon Brown, George Bush, Tony Blair, Rowan Williams, Bono and other high-profile figures on many occasions to discuss global issues. A man who is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in, he has been arrested around 20 times for 'non-violent civil disobedience'. The president and CEO of Sojourners (an American network of Christians working for justice and peace), Jim is a public theologian, social activist and an international commentator on ethics and public life. He has been interviewed on Newsnight, Today, The Daily Politics, HardTalk, The Simon Mayo Show, Radio 4’s Sunday and BBC World Service’s Newshour, among other programmes, and featured in the national press. In the States, he has written for major newspapers including The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, and appears frequently on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and NPR. He teaches at Georgetown University and has taught at Harvard. He lives in Washington with his wife, Joy Carroll (the real-life inspiration behind The Vicar of Dibley), and their two young sons.

Jim’s new book, ‘On God’s Side’, is subtitled ‘What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned About Serving the Common Good’. In the preface to this timely and provocative book, Jim writes that:

‘The prerequisite for solving the deepest problems the world now faces is a commitment to a very ancient idea whose time has urgently come: the common good. How do we work together, even with people we don’t agree with? How do we treat each other, especially the poorest and most vulnerable? How do we take care of not just ourselves but also one another? Only by inspiring a spiritual and practical commitment to the common good can we help make our personal and public lives better.’                           

On God’s Side shows us how to reclaim the ancient and compelling vision of the common good. This is a vision that should influence and inspire not only our politics but also our personal lives, families, churches and neighbourhoods, and our vocational and financial choices. It is these individual and communal choices, writes Wallis, which will ultimately create the cultural shifts and social movements that really change politics in the long run.

Up to date information about events on Jim Wallis’ UK tour will be posted to the Lion Hudson website as they are confirmed.

For more information about Jim Wallis or to discuss author events, interviews and articles linked to the book, or to request a review copy of ‘On God’s Side’, Lion Hudson PR on marketing@lionhudson.com.

Praise for Jim Wallis and his writing:
‘Jim Wallis is compelling, provocative and inspirational, with the kind of faith that can move mountains and can certainly move people and communities.’
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

‘Wallis is a wrestler of values, ideas, and policies and how they interact to shape the world we live in. His deep, melodious voice is easy to listen to, but what he says takes a harder commitment to live by.’
Bono, lead singer of U2; cofounder of ONE.org

‘Two great issues of our time are addressed by Jim Wallis and his thought-provoking answers make powerful reading for anyone interested in social change; Jim Wallis challenges us to create a society which both addresses injustice and stresses personal responsibility and his call for a global covenant through which rich countries meet their obligations to the poor will have a resonance across the world.’
Gordon Brown, in his endorsement of God’s Politics by Jim Wallis

‘Jim Wallis and I have a variety of differences on domestic and international policy, but there is no message more timely or urgent than his call to actively consider the common good.’
Michael Gerson, The Washington Post

Chapter Headings for ‘On God’s Side’:

Part 1: Inspiring the Common Good
 1.A Gospel for the Common Good
 2.The Lion, the Word, and the Way
 3.Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters
 4.Lord, Help Us to Treat You Well
 5.The Good Samaritan Goes Global
 6.The Beloved Community Welcomes All Tribes
 7.Surprising Our Enemies

Part 2: Practices for the Common Good
 8.Conservatives, Liberals, and a Call to Civility
 9.Redeeming Democracy
 10.Economic Trust
 11.A Servant Government
 12.Making Things Right
 13.Healthy Households
 14.The World Is Our Parish

On God’s Side – Jim Wallis
Current affairs, paperback (216mm x 138mm), 320pp, 978-0-7459-5612-1, £9.99

"The Thing is, Everybody DOES Hurt..."

I've always hated the song “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. As a band, they always struck me as overly whiny and weaselly. R.E.M. was the guy in the perfect thrift-store ironic T-shirt, trying to find himself. Or the girl at the bookstore who was trying too hard to look casual. I’m from the middle of a cornfield (Hartford City, Indiana), and singing about how “everybody hurts” just seems soft, self-indulgent, and pointless.

But the thing is, everybody does hurt. Life (thirty-six years and counting) has shown me this. I’ve felt pain caused by others and, what’s worse, my own sin has caused mental, physical, and emotional pain in others. Everybody hurts, and sometimes because of me. And in the church we sometimes expect people to just shrug and say, “Well, it’s all part of God’s plan,” which isn’t necessarily untrue, but it’s a response that strikes me as a little inhuman and, if Scripture is to be believed, unspiritual. Job rent his garments and screamed, and the Bible said he was without sin in that particular situation. Jesus sweat blood in the garden. He didn’t just skip to the cross saying, “Hey, I know how this is going to work out, so it’s all good.” Pain is real, and it’s not necessarily unspiritual to acknowledge it. This book, in part, is an acknowledgment of pain and a reflection on what to do with it. My chapters are narrative in nature. By the ripe old(ish) age of thirty-six, one of the things I’ve learned about myself is that this, for better or worse, is how I write. This is a book about finding God in the dark. My chapters, in particular, will tell the stories of my “dark”—losing an adoption; experiencing professional failure; and then ultimately, by a movement of the Holy Spirit, confronting my own dark, sinful heart. Now, looking back, I am filled with thankfulness for these events because they are the events that God ordained for me to bring me into closer, deeper communion with Him. But in the midst of them, there was great pain.

Still, a temptation in reading a book like this, and narratives like these, would be to say, “Yeah, but Kluck hasn’t gone through ________. He hasn’t gone through what I’m going through.” I know this will be a temptation because I’ve said similar things myself about stories that belonged to other people. “Yeah, but . . .” I fully and openly acknowledge that there are many people who have gone through things that are much harder than the things I describe on these pages. But what’s worth acknowledging, I think, is that these are the circumstances that God put me through in a particular time, and a particular place, for a particular purpose (my good and His glory). I’ve tried to re-create them as accurately as possible, even though the process was, at times, more than a little painful. If you’re in Christ, you can trust that God is doing, and will do, the same for you in your circumstances. I’ve also tried to include Scripture that’s practical and relatable—the kinds of Scriptures you can pray through when you can’t seem to find the words or energy to pray on your own.

One of the things I’ve always struggled with in life is listening to spiritual input from anyone whom I hadn’t perceived as having gone through “deep waters.” My hope and prayer for this book is that by reading about my deep waters, you can love and trust God more through yours.

Humbly, in Christ,
Ted Kluck

The above is Ted's introduction to Finding God in the Dark.
Full book information and a sample chapter is available via the above link.
You can pre-order the book via your local Christian bookshop, or any other bricks and mortar or online bookshop.
For digital readers, this is also available in ebook format.

Thoughts on Winning a Christy Award...

...and growing up in England.

"You can't cry while wearing a pink dress, or you'll never be taken seriously again as long as you live."

So writes Anne Elisabeth Stengl on her reaction to winning the 2011 Christy Award for Best First Novel. Her thoughts on her Christy Award experience can be read in full in her very entertaining blog post.

It takes a long time for a book to come to publication, and there are often many influencing factors along the way. It turns out that the Goldstone Woods of Anne Elisabeth's books were strongly influenced by the English common on which she used to play as a child when her father was stationed at Lakenheath in Suffolk with the USAF. Her family went exploring on this local common almost every day and it seems her parents and brothers encouraged her sense of imagination:

There was a dragon on the Common. We saw it a few times, though it was disguised as a mean tabby cat at the time. "Just because a dragon is disguised doesn't mean it's any less a dragon," Papa said.
So dragons clearly had an early influence on Anne Elisabeth!

As well as dragons, there were elves, which the 8-year-old Anne Elisabeth was certain were living in the ancient hollow oak trees. The trees themselves became sailing ships and castles as the Stengl children played in them.

So it was that a small-ish, wild-ish, open English space became to a young child an enchanted forest, and perhaps it was from one of the acorns from an ancient English oak tree in that 'real' yet magical place that Goldstone Wood grew...

For more on Anne Elisabeth's English childhood, and much more on Goldstone Wood, see her blog post W is for Wood.

Read a sample chapter of Heartless here.

Anne Elisabeth's next book Veiled Rose is out in the UK in August.

O! That Dragon!

"I love a truly frightening dragon. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with tame dragons, or friendly dragons, or wise and helpful dragons. I’ve read books I’ve enjoyed featuring each of these. But tell me, dear reader, what dragon compares to Tolkien’s Smaug? Or to classic Disney’s Maleficent? And, especially, to Ms. Hyman’s terrifying portrayal of Spenser’s Dragon of Error?"

I came across this wonderful little paragraph while browsing Anne Elisabeth Stengl's blog. Anne is the author of Heartless which includes some pretty impressive dragons! (By the way, Veiled Rose is the next in the series, and it is out in the UK in August.)

I have to agree that truly terrifying dragons are wonderful! But I also like 'Green Smoke', a dragon from my childhood and I'm rather fond of Eustace-the-dragon from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (both the book dragon and the film dragon!).

But I think my very favourite dragon of all is Saphira from Christopher Paolini's wonderful Inheritance Cycle. (Hurrah, book four is now confirmed!) I love her multi-faceted character, and the way we the reader were able to grow with her. She is a simply superb dragon!

(You can read Anne's whole post on dragons here: D is For Dragon)