Synopses & Reviews
This book goes far beyond covering the subject of homelessness as the social problem we all recognize in our cities. Mass emigrations, displaced families, and human alienation from the earth all mark our times. In critiquing contemporary North American culture, Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh discuss various forms of homelessness -- socioeconomic, ecological, and psycho-spiritual -- and creatively show how biblical attentiveness and Christian faith can heal the profound dislocations in our society.
Ending each of their chapters with a moving biblical meditation, the authors also interact throughout with characters and themes from current literature and popular culture -- from Salman Rushdie to Barbara Kingsolver, from the Wizard of Oz to Bruce Cockburn.
About the Author
Brian J. Walsh is a campus minister at the University of Toronto, and adjunct professor of theology of culture at Wycliffe College.
Table of Contents
There's no place like home -- A culture of displacement, amnesia, and homelessness -- Which memories, what home? -- Biblical homecoming -- Kenneth and Kkenny again -- The meaning of home -- Categories of displacement -- The problem of boundaries -- The necessity of boundaries -- A phenomenology of home -- The ambivalence of home revisited -- Socioeconomic homelessness -- Streetcar sped away -- Nobody's child -- Homelessness : a socioethical crisis -- Why socioeconomic homelessness? : a structural analysis -- Homelessness : a socioethical crisis revisited -- Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery -- From housing to home-making -- The shape of worldviews -- Worldviews, houses, and homes : a summary -- Houses and homes again -- Housing for home-making -- Economics for home-making -- Rights, public policy, and the church -- More than bricks and mortar -- The ecological crisis and the defilement of home -- The plight of planet earth: -- Ecological degradation and human deafness -- Why ecological homelessness? : a sociocultural analysis -- The home planet : the earth as oikos -- Shalom and the character of earthkeeping -- The biblical vision of Shalom -- The virtues of Shalom -- Practices of earthkeepers -- Christians as aching visionaries -- Postmodern homelessness -- Double homesickness "over the rainbow" -- Homeless home constructors -- Homelessness, migrancy, and the tourist self -- On the road to nowhere -- Postmodern migrants or homeless consumers? -- The indwelling God and the sojourning community -- The God of love and creation as other -- The God of grace and creation as gift -- The God of goodness and creation as good -- Christ-followers as sojourners -- Homeward bound -- Redemptive homecoming -- Hope, home, and imagination -- The home-making father.