A Serious Way of Wondering

Book excerpt: When renowned novelist and poet Reynolds Price, one of Christianity's most eloquent outlaws, was invited to deliver the annual Peabody Lecture at Harvard University Memorial Church in 2001, he chose to explore a subject of fierce debate and timeless relevance: the ethics of Jesus. In two succeeding lectures at the National Cathedral and at Auburn Seminary, Price continued to explore the apparently contradictory ethics that Jesus articulates in the Gospels and in a controversial act of artistic license, Price reimagined the historical Jesus. In A Serious Way of Wondering, Price expands these lectures to present Jesus with three problems of burning moral concern—suicide, homosexuality, and the plight of women in male-dominated cultures and faiths. A sweeping view of the inescapable implications of Jesus' merciful life and all-embracing thought—and of the benefits of enlarging our notions of humanity, community, and equality—A Serious Way of Wondering is a significant contribution to Price's penetrating works of religious inquiry.