Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times
Written by Soong-Chan Rah and Brenda Salter McNeil
Narrated by Soong-Chan Rah
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Hearts Minds Bookstore's Best Books
RELEVANT's Top 10 Books
Englewood Review of Books Best Books
When Soong-Chan Rah planted an urban church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his first full sermon series was a six-week exposition of the book of Lamentations. Preaching on an obscure, depressing Old Testament book was probably not the most seeker-sensitive way to launch a church. But it shaped their community with a radically countercultural perspective.
The American church avoids lament. But lament is a missing, essential component of Christian faith. Lament recognizes struggles and suffering, that the world is not as it ought to be. Lament challenges the status quo and cries out for justice against existing injustices.
Soong-Chan Rah's prophetic exposition of the book of Lamentations provides a biblical and theological lens for examining the church's relationship with a suffering world. It critiques our success-centered triumphalism and calls us to repent of our hubris. And it opens up new ways to encounter the other. Hear the prophet's lament as the necessary corrective for Christianity's future.
Soong-Chan Rah
Soong-Chan Rah (D.Min., Gordon-Conwell) is the Milton B. Engebretson Assistant Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. He was the founding senior pastor of Cambridge Community Fellowship Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also serves on the boards of Sojourners and the Catalyst Leadership Center. He is a frequent conference speaker and contributed to Growing Healthy Asian American Churches (InterVarsity Press).
More audiobooks from Soong Chan Rah
Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Healing Racial Trauma: The Road To Resilience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Prophetic Lament
Related audiobooks
Rediscipling the White Church: From Cheap Diversity to True Solidarity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Jesus Intended: Finding True Faith in the Rubble of Bad Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Church of Us vs. Them: Freedom from a Faith That Feeds on Making Enemies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Just Mission: Laying Down Power and Embracing Mutuality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBuilding a Multiethnic Church: A Gospel Vision of Grace, Love, and Reconciliation in a Divided World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Calling in Context: Social Location and Vocational Formation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Red Letter Revolution: What If Jesus Really Meant What He Said? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSoul Care in African American Practice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mentor for Life: Finding Purpose through Intentional Discipleship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ethnic Blends: Mixing Diversity into Your Local Church Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles: A Case for Gender Roles in Ministry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deconstruct Faith, Discover Jesus: Questioning Your Religion Can Lead You to a Healthy and Holy God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5After Doubt: How to Question Your Faith without Losing It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Let Justice Roll Down Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys: A Native American Expression of the Jesus Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Subversive Witness: Scripture's Call to Leverage Privilege Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Voices of Lament: Reflections on Brokenness and Hope in a World Longing for Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Church as It Is In Heaven: Cultivating a Multiethnic Kingdom Culture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inalienable: How Marginalized Kingdom Voices Can Help Save the American Church Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sacred Overlap: Learning to Live Faithfully in the Space Between Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Christianity For You
The Great Divorce Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mere Christianity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (updated with two new chapters) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Grief Observed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: Third Edition with Bonus Content, New Reflections Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Garden Within: Where the War with Your Emotions Ends and Your Most Powerful Life Begins Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Little Book of Letting Go Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership 25th Anniversary: Follow Them and People Will Follow You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Enoch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crazy Love, Revised and Updated: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holy Bible in Audio - King James Version: The Complete Old & New Testament Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Abolition of Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Prophetic Lament
14 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A powerful work challenging the triumphalist narrative of modern American Evangelicalism and a call to recover the lament traditions of the Bible through an exploration of Lamentations both in context and in light of modern American experience.The author rightly exposes the overwrought emphasis on praise and triumphalism in much of modern Christianity: it's all positive and successful all the time, and that's not life, and that's not even the lived experience of many. Such triumphalism cannot bear the exposure of the witness of those who have suffered or been oppressed so as to sustain that triumphalism. The author never denies the place or importance of praise; instead, he seeks to balance praise with another prevalent form of discourse in Scripture, the lament.To this end the author leads the reader through a study of Lamentations, which he believes is Jeremiah's response to the destruction of Jerusalem. The author does well to show the power, value, and need for the lament tradition, and how it works. He speaks of the need to identify that which needs to be lamented, to confess the sin and expose it as such, for as long as the corpse is not identified as such it will continue to cause the room to smell of death. He has no difficulty specifically identifying the legacy of racism and white supremacy in American Evangelicalism as something needing confessing and lamenting and has pointed out the rotten consequences of the attempt to minimize, hide, or justify past behaviors which demand lament. American consumerist culture also comes under indictment. The author continues on through Lamentations, noting the importance of both individual and communal lament, recapitulation in lament, the reason and ground of hope and trust in God, and the ability to persevere in faith through persistence in lament. There will be the great ending when justice is served, mercy is displayed, and life is found in resurrection, but there's no guarantee that the lament will have to stop while we are on the earth: Lamentations, as the author says, ends in a "minor key," and the kind of resolution we all desire and the comfort from that resolution are not guaranteed in this life. The lament penned in the epilogue regarding Ferguson and other travails of the early 21st century is compelling and haunting.This is no doubt a challenging read, especially for those who are white Christians; nevertheless, it is a powerful and important read, and worthwhile to sit in its discomfort. Highly recommended.