A Dangerous Report: Challenging Sermons for Advent and Easter

J. Harold Ellens

2014 ots. · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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This volume is tightly packed with surprising insights one simply does not normally hear from the pulpit, but yet are so obviously implied in the biblical narratives of Christmas and Easter. Dr Ellens has a unique way of cracking open familiar biblical sentences and stories and spilling out an entirely fresh cornucopia of life-changing insights about the radical nature of the good news about God’s grace. Ideas and metaphors from the Bible that we have heard or read so often that they have become routine and cliché suddenly flower with refreshing new meanings and intimations. Dr Ellens’ carefully and cogently expressed biblical interpretation and sermon oratory incarnate God’s truth and bring to lively new vitality a vivid experience of God as the driving force of Divine Spirit in our personal lives and in history. Preaching has seldom been this engaging, powerful, and spiritually empowering.

This warm hearted book is a clear and clarion call for one central theme: God’s radical, uncalculating, unconditional, and universal forgiving grace. Claims for God’s redemptive presence and intent for our world that pulpiteers have often feared, avoided, or failed to see in the center of the gospel are here set forth with unapologetic boldness. Dr Ellens’ trumpet is not muted at any point. Obviously this hearty soul has a passion for the spirit, a stimulating mind, and an informed pastoral appeal for life-changing encounters with the biblical story and of the insinuation of God’s self into human and historical life at Christmas, Easter, and all other times.

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The Reverend Dr J. Harold Ellens holds a PhD in Psychology and a PhD in Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins. His lifetime of professional work has been as a pastor, university professor, psychotherapist, and army chaplain (Colonel). His 220 volumes of scholarly publications, 171 journal articles, international lectureships, and university teaching have been focused entirely upon the interface of psychology and religion/spirituality. He is a noted preacher and much admired lecturer.