Bob’s Exploratory Theological Adventures — Bob Little

Reviews

Review date: 17th August 2023

A very thought-provoking book. Useful as a devotional, to prepare for church talks or preaching, or just to dip into for interest’s sake.

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Please click if this review was helpfulReview date: 11th April 2023

Robert Draycott in the Baptist Ministers’ Journal.
This is a delight which ought to be put in the hands of every Baptist. That is a rather OTT statement, but having feared having to damn with faint praise, I am impressed and excited to come across something that is theological, insightful, instructive, and readable. I can hardly improve on Sir Les Ebdon’s review—that recommendation forms part of the book’s introduction and I will deliberately not read it again until I have completed this effort. The author himself says that this collection of short pieces, written for a church magazine, is intended for preachers, for those who have to stand in at the last minute when planned speakers fail to turn up, and for students and disciples of all ages who are (key quote), ‘interested in applying biblical teaching to living effectively, practically and successfully in the modern age’. That sentence should be recommendation enough and I believe the book lived up to it. I will, however, enthuse and inform further, offering gems chosen at random. ‘Incarnation refers to the synthesis of matter and spirit...The dualism (splitting and separating) of the spiritual and the so-called secular is what Jesus came to reveal as untrue and incomplete’. Then, from another article, ‘Irenaeus was concerned (presciently, as it’s turned out) that the doctrine of creation out of nothing would lead to humans abusing creation...’.This illustrates an important truth: bad theology has consequences. Across the page in another article Robert Little says Teilhard de Chardin ‘came to acknowledge that the Darwinian revolution and contemporary cosmology have important implications for theology’. High quality, great relevance, stimulating, thought-provoking, and above all, theological and biblical. What more can I say, except to add that there is a very helpful index at the beginning. Then at the end there is a Bible references index, which indicates a very wide coverage of both Testaments. Thoroughly recommended.

Please click if this review was helpfulReview date: 26th September 2024

From the outset of this book, you can’t help loving it. Bob Little’s a Baptist who’s drawn to equality rather than hierarchy, and who, rather like the Quakers, practises lay ministry. As you read about the author, you get the feeling the universe, through a series of happenings in Bob’s life, has gently guided him to his destiny and, in this book, imbued with Bob’s huge experience of preaching and a natural propensity to write engagingly about life (which has also produced books about singing and cricket), you get to be involved in that destiny for a brilliant moment.

Although at humble pains in the introduction to point out the derivative nature of his work, Bob has crammed lots of innovation into this gem of a book, resulting in a work that reflects Christian values but that’s as non-conformist as Bob’s theological background. For a start, the index is at the front of the book, twinned with the contents and their biblical references: I’ve never seen it done that way before and, as it turns out, it’s incredibly helpful. Then there’s the 144 essays of which the book consists (is that number a reference to Fibonacci? An Angel Number? A Prophecy? This book gets you thinking). The essays are short: each is about a four or five minute careful read, tops. This too is revolutionary: gone is the earnest cleric delving into increasingly impenetrable hermeneutics over 50 pages of unbroken prose. Instead, here are brief and crystal clear commentaries that say just enough to get you thinking for yourself.

There’s an index of the biblical references at the end of the book for those wanting to expand their minds and hearts around certain verses but, although these references are biblical, not all the essays are referenced and the philosophical and intellectual capital contained within all of the essays, providing, as they do, non-prescriptive insights designed to nudge us into living life more meaningfully, will appeal to people of all faiths or none.

Since most of the essays draw from articles the author originally prepared for church magazines, there’s a brief history of these as an appendix. But it’s the essays that are the star of the show. They explore an extraordinary range of fundamental life issues: from peace-making to shadowboxing; from jewels to justice; from body to soul and from life to death. As the author says, you can either take in this adventurous spiritual treasure trove as a cover-to-cover book, or alternatively study bite-sized chunks of one or two essays a day or perhaps a week, or even adopt a dip-and-dive approach. As an experiment in divination, I closed my eyes, riffled through the pages until it felt like the right moment to stop, and looked at essay in front of me. “Travelling Light” it was called. While I was reading it, I was reminded of something very important that I must do. And I’m sure anyone who cares to take a look inside this amazing book will find equally important messages for themselves.

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