“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”Nothing has motivated Fleming Rutledge in her preaching more than addressing people’s struggles with doubt. Now with a new preface from the author
“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
Nothing has motivated Fleming Rutledge in her preaching more than addressing people’s struggles with doubt. Now with a new preface from the author, Help My Unbelief speaks directly to the “faithful doubters” and the “unbelieving believers” of the church who wrestle with questions and uncertainties about Christian faith.
What if I’m not very religious?
Why isn’t it enough just to be good and loving?
How can I respond to an abstraction like the Trinity?
Isn’t Christianity outmoded?
Can we still believe in the Resurrection today?
Fleming Rutledge approaches these questions with a combination of pastoral warmth and theological fearlessness, aligning herself with those seeking answers and pointing readers toward the One who creates and sustains faith.
“For those, like me, who rarely hear a memorable sermon, Fleming Rutledge’s wondrous collection is worth a month of Sundays. May she preach forever.”
— Kenneth L. Woodward
author of Getting Religion
“Among the many other blessings it brings, Rutledge’s book helps to restore our confidence that, both as a ministry and as a literary form, there is simply no substitute for good preaching. The need for such preaching is impossible to overstate. If we don’t have the good fortune to hear sermons like this very often, let us at least read them.”
— Christian Century
“It is extremely rare to find in any one preacher such deep faith, fearlessness before the powers that be, and deep humility combined with such crackling intelligence and stunning powers of expression. Fleming Rutledge is a gift to the Christian pulpit, and these sermons are life preservers thrown to a culture drowning in uncertainty.”
— Thomas G. Long
Candler School of Theology, Emory University
“Rutledge’s sermons shine with biblical intelligence and pastoral wisdom.”
— Cornelius Plantinga Jr.
Calvin Theological Seminary
“You will not be able to put this book down. Buy it, read it, and be refreshed in mind and Spirit.”
— Southwestern Journal of Theology
“Those who are nourished by good sermons will enjoy Fleming Rutledge’s well-crafted homilies. Those who are obliged to preach may profit from studying how she fashions her sermons and weaves both current events and ancient texts into them.”
— The Anglican
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Fleming Rutledge is an Episcopal priest, a best-selling author, and a widely recognized preacher whose published sermon collections have received acclaim across denominational lines. Her other books include Three Hours: Sermons for Good Friday, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, and The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, which won Christianity Today's 2017 Book of the Year Award.
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Table of Contents
Introduction: “Help My Unbelief” (Mark 9:24)
THE NATURE OF GOD
Haven’t we learned how to deal with the important questions without recourse to the God hypothesis?
1. Moses and Monotheism: A Response to Dr. Freud
Doesn’t everybody have his or her own idea of God?
2. Re-imagining and Revelation
How can I respond to an abstraction like the Trinity?
3. The Trinity in the Last Ditch
GUILT AND INNOCENCE: JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH
Isn’t Christianity about being good?
4. Christ vs. Adam: Kosovo and Beyond
5. Death Sentence, Life Sentence
What makes us OK with God?
6. Flying First Class
Shouldn’t we get rid of the idea that God is judgmental?
7. Access to Peter
Didn’t St. Paul mess up the simple gospel of Jesus?
8. Hope Among the Weeds
Don’t we need to make Christianity more inclusive?
9. True Inclusiveness
10. Mrs. Hammer, Mrs. Durr, Brother Will, and the Word of Faith
Why all the theological apparatus? Isn’t it enough just to be loving?
11. The Faces of Love
12. Love and Power
13. Rewriting the Book of Love
THE GOSPEL AND RELIGION
What if I’m not very religious?
14. No Religion Here Today
15. The Once and Future Doctrine
SIN, EVIL, AND SUFFERING
We don’t still talk about sin, do we?
16. God-damned Christians
What does the cross mean?
17. Common Sense, or Christ-Crucified?
18. Steering Toward the Pain
19. King, and God, and Sacrifice
FAITH AND WORKS
If God is doing everything, what is there for us to do?
20. The Resurrection Reach-Out
If we focus on eschatology (God’s future), doesn’t that discourage human action in the present?
21. Money in Trust
CONTEMPORARY ATTITUDES TOWARD THE GOSPEL
Isn’t Christianity outmoded?
22. Can These Bones Live?
23. Nothing Virtual Tonight
How can I believe stories like that of the Transfiguration?
24. Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
Can we today continue to believe in the Resurrection?
25. Death Shall Have No Dominion
26. A Way Out of No Way
27. Doubting and Believing
Hasn’t the notion of the Second Coming been discarded?
28. Jesus Will Show
29. Beyond the Valley of Ashes
Isn’t the Bible patriarchal?
30. Ruth’s Redeemer
31. Abigail’s Strategy
32. Lydia: The First Christian in Europe
CODA: TWO STORIES OF LITTLE FAITH GROWN GREAT
33. Gideon’s Three Hundred
34. Even Peter, Even Us
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