Publisher's Synopsis
Norm Habel is an Australian, an Earth child and a Lutheran who has survived accusations of heresy many times in his life. Why on Earth are you still a Lutheran? is not quite an autobiography. After all, Habel is many more things than a Lutheran - a family man, a social justice advocate, an amateur ecologist and a poet - but still a Lutheran. The scenes from his experiences are not an effort to define being a Lutheran in any official or unofficial sense. Rather, in telling his story, he searches for that elusive something that persists in his faith - the mystery behind the Lutheran jargon that has cluttered his world and battered his brain. For Norm Habel, Lutheran wisdom means reading life from a distance, reading the landscape as a sacred text, and reading the Sacred Text without biased biblical blinkers. He invites you to follow his journey, to explore anew the complex question of identity - whether you are an Australian farmer or a Brooklyn pastor, a politician from PNG or a Dalit from India. An absorbing read by a very Lutheran heretic pointing how to be truly Lutheran in an ever-changing world! And a warning of the cul-de-sac that churches enter when affirmation of doctrine trumps the search for truth and a book that celebrates what it means to be Lutheran in a world that never stops still. Rev. Henry Palenschus A well-told story draws you into the center of itself so that you experience the story- teller's story in all its richness. However, a really well-told story goes one magic step further, and compels you to engage with the story-teller in a personal dialog of shared discoveries, wonders and challenges. This is such a story. Bob Kempe, Emeritus lecturer in pastoral theology, Australian Lutheran College, Adelaide. Norman Habel is a Professorial Fellow at Flinders University. He has a Wendish Lutheran background and has long been exploring the boundaries of his faith in the context of the Lutheran Church. These boundaries relate to interpretation of the Bible, the spirituality of Aboriginal peoples, the mystery of ecology and the Book of Nature. He has published studies in all of these areas.
