When you write a book, it’s easy to allow the pressures of marketing and selling to eclipse the more basic, fundamental reasons that you sent out on the adventure.
I’ve been no different, of course, having certainly succumbed to the winds and waves of Amazon-rankings-watching and the highs and lows of sales reports.
But all that, ultimately, is nothing more than the emptiness of vanity that distracts from the more substantive, exciting opportunity.
We yet have the chance to make the body an explicit area of evangelicalism’s concern and care, to think about our practices and how they might need to be reformed in light of Scripture.
Which is why I am hosting the Earthen Vessels Symposium.
Think of it as your local book group, proceeding through the volume chapter-by-chapter. I’ve lined up a few contributors (names below) who will offer the lead responses, people from a wide range of backgrounds whose thoughts and opinions I respect.
But I am inviting you to participate as well.
If you write reflections on any of the chapters and leave a comment on that chapter’s lead post (at that person’s blog or at Mere-O), I’ll include it in my own responses. If you tweet a link to your post and mention me (so that I see it), I’ll retweet it.
The symposium will have its first contribution here at Mere-O on Thursday, and will feature new posts every Tuesday and Thursday after that. The list of contributors and their blogs is below.
- Ch. 1: Jonathan Sprowl (at Mere-O)
- Ch. 2: Stephanie Smith
- Ch. 3: open
- Ch. 4: Joseph Sunde
- Ch. 5: John Dyer
- Ch. 6: Jason Hood, Tim Dalrymple
- Ch. 7: Jake Meador
- Ch. 8: Brian Hedges
- Ch. 9: Benjamin Simpson
- Ch. 10: Fred Sanders
- Ch. 11: Zac Hicks
It should be a fun and challenging discussion, one that I am sure will stretch my own thinking on these issues and edify all of us. Let me know in the comments if you plan to participate.
