Kelowna, BC 11/1/2007 5:00:00 AM
God is NOT what you may think!
Bob Thompson, with the overwhelming support of his congregation launched his new book A Voluptuous God: A Christian Heretic Speaks (CopperHouse), at Lake Street Church in the Chicago area on September 30, 2007. All 500 copies of the book on hand were promptly sold out.
Lake Street Church is rooted in the Baptist/Protestant tradition but goes a step further - some even say that this congregation has marched off the Protestant map. The people of Lake Street Church, like many others, are spiritually hungry, intellectually engaged, in many cases politically enraged, and always asking important questions. And Thompson is constantly provoking this merry band of heretics to question authority and to find their own truth.
The book is endorsed by such spiritual luminaries as Deepak Chopra and Joan Borysenko. The unorthodox title draws from the words of a 14th - century mystic, Meister Eckhart, who made the statement, “God is voluptuous and delicious." This is a metaphor, says Thompson, for a specific type of experience practiced by ancient mystics. This kind of focused, sensing attention can provoke profound experiences of aliveness, beauty, and intimacy. Thompson says this practice can be used today with the same results.
As we are confronted with war, natural disasters, and a fear-based political agenda, it is hard for some of us to imagine God as “playful”, or as being “full of delight.” Yet this is exactly the God Robert V. Thompson depicts in his new book, A Voluptuous God: A Christian Heretic Speaks.
More information is available at www.avoluptuousgod.com
Published by CopperHouse, an imprint of Wood Lake Publishing
About the Author
Robert V. Thompson was ordained as a Baptist minister and has served in this capacity since 1973. For the past 25 years he has been Senior Minister at the Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois.
In the early 1990s, Robert began to explore the richness of other spiritual traditions. He began using his discoveries which incorporated indigenous and Eastern spiritualities with the Christian mystics in his sermons at church. Bob became a heretic. He and his church began to be leaders in the evolution of an emerging form of Christianity.
Rev. Thompson believes that the diverse religions of the world are all rooted in the same spiritual ground. He is committed to the interfaith movement as a vehicle of reconciliation, not only between religions, but as a new way to work for peace. He served for six years as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, for nearly four of which he was Chairman of the Board.
Endorsement
“A Voluptuous God speaks not only to Christians seeking a deeper Christianity but to all who search for deeper spiritual meaning. Here is a book that speaks to the questions of the mind and the hunger of the spirit. Reverend Bob Thompson reminds us that Divine truth lives at the core of human experience if only we will awaken to it.”
-Deepak Chopra, author, Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment.
Published by CopperHouse, an imprint of Wood Lake Publishing
A Voluptuous God: A Christian Heretic Speaks
Robert V. Thompson
Fall 2007
224 pages, paper Christianity/General Spirituality
$24.95
ISBN 10 1-55145-558-7
ISBN 978-1-55145-558-7
For author interviews or review copies:
Darcy Drobena
1.800.299.2926 x 221
publicity@woodlake.com
