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  • Being Christian

  • Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer
  • By: Rowan Williams
  • Narrated by: Peter Noble
  • Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (47 ratings)
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Being Christian

By: Rowan Williams
Narrated by: Peter Noble
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Summary

Full of sensitive pastoral advice and shot through with arresting and illuminating theological insights, Rowan Williams’ new book explores the meaning and practice of four essential components of the Christian life: baptism, Bible, Eucharist and prayer.

This book is an invitation to everyone to think through the essentials of the faith and how to live it, making it an ideal gift for anyone at the start of their spiritual journey or thinking about confirmation.It is designed for use by individuals or groups, with questions for reflection or discussion at the end of each chapter.

Written by The Right Reverend Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth PC DD FBA FRSL FLSW, an Anglican prelate, theologian and poet. Williams was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, Metropolitan of the Province of Canterbury and Primate of All England, from December 2002 to December 2012, and was previously Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales.

©2014 SPCK Publishing (P)2014 Spokenworld Audio & Ladbroke Audio Ltd

Critic reviews

"It is a privilege to enter into the mind of one of the most distinguished theologians of the modern age. Being Christian deals in matters that are necessarily complex, but the style is elegant and lucid, and the book, although written primarily for Christians, will be interesting and helpful to those who are seekers after, rather than finders of, religious faith." (PD James)
"Christianity is both simple and profound. Rowan Williams understands these two levels, and how we come to the depth of what Jesus is by the simplicities of informed Christian practice. This is a handbook for Christian living." (Sister Wendy Beckett)

What listeners say about Being Christian

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A pleasure to listen to.

Well written, well read and lots of food for thought. An enjoyable and insightful listen.

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Superb summary of Christianity!

What did you like most about Being Christian?

This audio book was a superb summary of Baptism, Bible, Eucharist and prayer. I particularly liked the pastoral approach and delivery. Rowan Williams even touches upon the dark passage in the Old Testament which is very important. For example: many of the early Israelites in the Old Testament clearly thought it was God’s will that they should engage in ‘ethnic cleansing’ — that they should slaughter without mercy the inhabitants of the Promised Land into which they had been led. If he did, that would be so hideously at odds with what the biblical story as a whole seems to say about God. This means we really should read the OT through the eyes of what we know of Jesus. This is a very important learning for Christians.

This is an excellent book and I would highly recommend it.

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Once you have heard this it becomes a must have

Rowan Williams speaks directly to you at whatever stage you are on your Christian journey, even if you haven't yet started out, His clear analysis of the four essentials of Christianity guides the novice and refreshes the life long Christian with insights that refresh and encourage.

An ideal book for a study group meeting for 1hr - 1hr 30m, there are questions for consideration at the end of each of the four main chapters.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Succinct and fused with love

This book is full of sensible statements, is lovingly constructed and easy to listen to.

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    2 out of 5 stars

Doesn’t explain why anyone should trust or respect the content of the Bible in the first place.

I recently ditched fundamentalist Christianity after studying history and realising that most of the Bible stories never really happened. Worried I was throwing the baby out with the bath water I picked up this volume hoping that Ro could rescue something of Christianity for me.

I was sorely disappointed. He harps on about the value of the Bible and calls it the Word fo God but does nothing to justify its importance or provide evidence for the gospel accounts of Jesus life and death, not to mention supposed resurrection.

All this belief is just assumed by the author so I don’t see how this could possibly be a useful text for someone “starting out” in Christianity as the description suggests.

For example in his chapter on how to read the Bible he keeps repeating that all of the Bible needs to be interpreted through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus but not once does he enlighten us as to how we can know any reliable details about Jesus life and death. A couple of chapters from a decent Biblical critic for example Bart Ehrman completely blows up both the baby and the bath water.

I gave the book two stars instead of none because at least Rowan’s view seems more tolerant than a fundamentalist Christian’s. For example he states that homosexuals are welcome at church.

But he doesn’t explain how the Bible text allows for that, he just goes on to quote the most homophobic author in the Bible - Paul. See Romans chapter 1 if you have any doubts about this guy’s nastiness.

All his talk of Jesus’ words being so great and no mention of the fact that even in the earliest gospel Mark, Jesus was predicting the End and Judgement Day to happen in the first century. No mention of how much damage this apocalyptic worldview has done eg. USA climate/environment policies influenced by evangelical Christians and the election of Trump by fundamentalist Christians.

It seems to me that the Bible is not the word of God at all. It is the word of old males from the Iron Age. None of it is “useful for teaching, rebuking..” (Timothy) unless we first judge its content by our own modern day ethics and in the context we’re in. So we have authority over the Bible.

Clearly this version of Christianity is for people who are either not brave enough or too vulnerable to ditch Christianity all together. That’s ok, maybe I would too if I was in their shoes, but it needs to be clarified instead of launching into a chapter about the Bible simply stating that it’s the Word of God. The dangers of this assumption have been all to apparent recently.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

An illuminating review of the Christian faith

Easy to follow and very well structured book. This is the first time that I have read one of Rowan Williams' books - based on this, I will have a look at his other titles. Through the fundamentals of the Christian faith - baptism, prayer, Eucharist and the Bible - Williams gets the reader to contemplate the whole of life and what it means to call yourself a Christian.

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