This time next week I’ll be North Carolina enjoying the inaugural Wild Goose Festival. I’m going to be speaking in the Geodesic Dome venue on Friday evening at 8pm:
Loving Others in a World of Fractures
From noisy neighbours to racism, fundamentalism, issues about immigration and terrorism, the problem of dealing with ‘the other’ has been at the centre of our conflicts, both internal and international. Roping in pirates, poetry and quantum physics, as well as unhealthy does of TAZ, dirt, Facebook and theatre, this session will seek to uncover what Jesus’ instruction to love others might mean in our paradoxically fractured-yet-networked world.
I think there’ll be some beer to be had afterwards too – look forward to catching up with people there! One of the key reasons for my visit (other than to fulfil a life-long dream and share a tent with Pete Rollins and Jay Bakker) is to give the US release of Other a good push in the right direction. (Conveniently, the new compact format of the UK edition is now available for pre-order and is looking great too…)
BUT – I’m just a poor boy from London, so if this is going to fly in the big ol’ US of A then I’m going to need your help dear readers! So, if you’ve read the book – UK or US edition – and liked it, or you just wished you’d liked it, or if you read the other one and liked that instead, then please, consider writing an online review, speaking to people in your networks about it and generally being a superstar.
I can’t claim perfect foreknowledge, but God did say quite clearly that each extra copy you get people to buy will move you 2 rows further forward in the great cinema in the sky. Now we’re talking, eh?!
Seriously though, it would be great if people could spread the news a bit. Some good people have already said some wonderfully generous things:
This is a brilliant work. Half-mystic and half hard-core intellectual, Brewin here offers us an intimate, personable, completely accessible and, at times, hauntingly beautiful engagement with the hard questions of emergence theology.
Phyllis Tickle
With his new book Other, Kester Brewin joins Peter Rollins from Ireland and David Dark from the US as leading public theologians for a new generation of thoughtful Christians. He moves gracefully from Scripture to philosophy to pop culture to sociology and back to Scripture again, offering fresh, honest, and needed insights at each turn.
Brian McLaren
A book for mystics and poets and troubadours of a new world, Brewin dares you to see the world with new eyes.
Shane Claiborne
Masterful – this is a work of rare beauty.
Pete Rollins
Startling, heart-warming and thought-provoking.
Maggi Dawn
Very kind, all of you! The truth is, I really believe in this book. I think it’s timely and interesting… and has a section about pirates. Come on, what more do you want! Seriously though, it would be great to create a buzz about it and, more than that, to start putting some of this into action, from the local through to the national and international. Now more than ever do we need to love our neighbours, and love our own selves properly too, just as we need to love our God.
Hope you can help out, and look forward to catching up at Wild Goose. Get a ticket, it’s going to be sublime.