Reviews for Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children

The average rating for Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-08-10 00:00:00 Karen Edgar This is a very slim collection---84 pages---made as tribute to a guy who worked for a long time and did wondrous things for the Fund for Theological Education. I have a lot of love for the FTE; I've used several of their documents in doing my seminary search, and I know some of their monies have helped friends of mine do schooling because that shit ain't cheap, yo. So, the book. I'm not sure whether it's a good or a bad thing that I've been reading long and widely enough in Theological Things that I recognized almost every name in the Table of Contents, but man; there are some heavy hitters here. Walter Brueggemann has an essay, Barbara Brown Taylor has an essay, Fred Craddock has an essay, Thomas G. Long has an essay. Moderate bit of academic fangirling going on for me. And none of the essays (taken from sermons delievered to FTE students) are out-of-this-world mind-blowing, but all of them are reassuring and interesting. It's very cool to have people who are Doing Well in Their Field say hey, we started out falling off the bed, too. I think this is an interesting read for everybody, but I especially love it for someone going into/doing/planning around/running the hell away from ministry, even if that's just particularly intensive lay leadership. It feeds that special place of humans where we want to know that we're not the only ones who feel like we lost our class schedules on the first day or that we were supposed to be perfect when we started but failed to be so. It's a book of encouragement, sometimes by being discouraging as all get-out, but always by being honest. That's pretty darn helpful.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-11-04 00:00:00 Jordan Veelle This book is a collection of sermons, which offers a nice variety of inspiration for men and women. The group of writers is ecumenical and you can read a short bio about each at the beginning of the book. I wasn't sure what to expect and thought the book might be a bit dry--it is not! There are certain sermons I will definitely read again. As a woman, the sermon I connected to the most was written by Ellen Echols Purdum, "Mary and Martha and the Myers-Briggs." Her insights on Mary and Martha are unique, and she points out that Jesus reminds us in Luke's gospel that "we have a choice" in how we behave. As a member of the Disciples of Christ church I'm familiar with the work of the late Rev. Fred Craddock. His sermon, "If Only I Could Be Sure," offered encouragement to me as a later-in-life seminary student. This book is a quick read, yet one that will inspire anyone on a journey to discover their calling in ministry.