This text is part of a series. To read the previous text, click here.
Reading proposed by the author this week: pages 28 to 52.
- The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
- Marilynne Robinson Gilead.
- Is texture-rich research into family life and pastoral ministry in a small American town.
- Here are some basic facts about the book:.
Release date: 2004
Genre/category: fictional autobiography, epistolar novel, small fictional village, farewell letter, sermon, parent instruction, diary or newspaper.
Environment: Gilead, Iowa, summer 1956; most of the action takes place in the parish residence of the city’s congregational church.
Main characters: John Ames, pastor of a third-generation congregation who has remained in his hometown for most of his life; Lila, Ames’ young wife, whom she married years later, and her six-year-old son; Robert Boughton, Ames’ best friend, pastor of Galaad Presbyterian Church; Boughton’s beloved son and Ames’ playboy John Ames Boughton, the antihero whose spiritual flaws and struggles cause most of the book’s central conflicts.
Later Romance: In 2008, Marilynne Robinson published Em Casa, which talks about many of the same events from the perspective of Glory, sister of John Ames Broughton.
Route synopsis
At the age of sixteen, the Reverend Jonh Ames III realizes that his heart is failing. The lessons he learned from a life dedicated to ministry. His genealogy includes a fiery and visionary abolitionist preacher (Ames’ grandfather), a pacifist minister who rebelled against his father’s militant Christianity (Ames’ father) and a brilliant scholar whose theology was liberalized at the higher levels. Education in Germany (Edward, Brother of Ames).
The family’s history is affected by the unexpected arrival of Forty-three-year-old John Ames Boughton, who was absent from Gilead for twenty years. Jack, as he is called, is the proverbial prodigal son (and the godson of Ames, for that matter) Though loved beyond what he deserves, Jack has humiliated his family in the past, among other things, by leaving a local farmer pregnant.
He returned to Gilead with another secret, which only revealed to Ames: a companion and his son (“colored”) in Mississippi. Ames struggles with his irritation over Jack’s misconduct and his own sense of guilt for not loving his godson or giving him the pastoral direction he needs and almost seems to love. Is God still thanking this stubborn son?
Ways to read Galaad
As mentioned above, this series takes a Gilead approach. Instead of analyzing it sequentially and systematically, future articles will briefly explore some of their core topics.
In this first stage, it may be helpful to suggest several different ways to read Galaad. The book is, in part, the story of a November-May romance between an elderly pastor and a much younger woman who wanders around his church and then in Also is the story of a father’s love for his only child, who is still too young to understand everything he needs to know about life. So it’s also a story to grow old and die, to leave your family behind in search of glory beyond.
On a broader level, Robinson’s book can also be read as an imaginative account of the history of Protestant Christianity in the United States, with members of the Ames family taking the place of the main traditions and characters typical of the American religion after the Puritans. Is the fiery and one-eyed abolitionist and abolitionist gunman John Ames a visionary prophet in John Brown’s tradition, who convinces his church children to fight for the Union?After the Civil War, then, proclaiming the just purity of his sacrifice. toucher becomes a pacifist, stating that fighting such wars has nothing to do with Jesus. Nothing? (p. 106).
The eldest son of the next generation is called “Edwards”, after the great theologian of America (Jonathan Edwards). But do you eliminate the end in college? A small but significant indication that he is moving away from Puritan theology. Edwards went to study theology in Gottingen, where he was subjected to the influence of liberalism and abandoned Orthodox Christianity. thanks to the dining room table when you go on holiday home.
The son who remains at home all his life – at home in both the humble city of Gilead and in the practice of the ancient Protestant religion – is the Reverend John Ames III. Although he was well aware of the various intellectual attacks on Christianity, he devoted himself at the end of his ministry, leaving a legacy of faith. Writing with a constant awareness of his own mortality, he said in Gilead Ames goodbye to the life, family and ministry he loves.
By: Philip Ryken. © 2013 The Gospel Coalition. Original: Knowing the Essence of Galaad.
Translation: Leonardo Bruno Galdino. © 2016 Faithful Ministério. All rights reserved. Website: MinisterioFiel. com. br. Original: Capture the essence of Galaad.
Authorizations: You are authorized and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that the author, his ministry and translator are no longer no longer modified and not used for commercial purposes.