About the Book
The recent spate of God bashers - Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris - have received their own thumping in the secular press, most notably Dawkins in "Harper's", the "London Review of Books", and the "New York Review of Books". Yet there are very few books on the God phenomenon that one would confidently entrust into the hands of readers who would be hard pressed to describe themselves as either true believers or "cultured despisers of religion". But Val Webb's "Like Catching Water in a Net" is such a book. Like Karen Armstrong in "The History of God" or Jack Miles in "God: A Biography", Webb is not out to prove the existence of a God or the Divine, but to set out intuitions or intimations of the Divine nature and attributes from the stories and poems of the world's religions.Casting her net more widely than Armstrong or Miles, Webb delves deeply into the poetry and sayings of Sufi, Buddhist and Hindu mystics. A microbiologist by early training, she is attuned to the nature religion of the ancient Mesopotamians, their kin the Israelites, and the Aboriginal people of her own beloved Australia.
Raised in the Christian fundamentalist tradition, she poses a critical challenge to the ways in which Christianity has straitjacketed our Western notions of the Divine, here aligning herself with modern "mystics" like William James, Leo Tolstoy and Florence Nightingale. In the final chapter, she shows how the process theology of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshore, and their contemporary followers, is highly compatible with so many of the traditional notions about God surveyed in the book.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Divine Sounds and Smell; 1. Is Something Out There?; 2. Metaphorically Speaking; 3. The God Who Is Not; 4. To Be or Not to Be?; 5. What's in a Name?; 6. A God for all Reasons and Seasons; 7. Feathers on the Breath of God; 8. Spirit of the World; 9. Nature Speaks; 10. God Is Like...; 11. The Power of the One; 12. Imago Dei; 13. In the Family Way; 14. "Whom Do You Say I Am?"; 15. "The Bible Tells Me So"; 16. "What Is Truth?".
About the Author :
Val Webb is a university lecturer in religion, with a graduate degree in science, a Ph.D. in theology and a passion for encouraging lay people of all faiths, and none, to think critically. She is the author of 7 books, most recently, Florence Nightingale: The Making of a Radical Theologian. Her book John's Message: Good News for the New Millennium was commissioned by the World Methodist Council. Dividing her time between the U.S. and Australia, she teaches every year at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Whitley College in Melbourne.
Review :
"An absorbing book written with a lightness of touch, but grounded in deep knowledge and experience. As writer, teacher, artist, trained theologian and scientist, Val Webb draws on an amazing storehouse of ideas and explores in vivid, often unexpected ways the myriad of symbols and images that disclose the Divine in the contemporary world. Chosen from a host of multireligious sources, including the rich biblical heritage of Jews and Christians, but also science and nature, her work celebrates the ever elusive, mysterious Divine Presence, Power and Life in many original, refreshing ways, even as Communication itself.  This is an intensely personal book packed with critical comment, insight and wisdom. Its searching questions and reflections can inspire a wide group of readers in their own attempts to decipher the wealth of symbols speaking to us about Divine Reality today."-Ursula King, Professor Emerita of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol
"A lecturer in religion at universities in the US and Australia, Webb offers an absorbing book of metaphorical theology, one that follows the many and varied traces of the Divine in history. To this end, she explores the writings of Sufi, Buddhist, and Hindu mystics, the nature religions of the ancient Mesopotamians, the ethical monotheism of the ancient Israelites, the stress on the Creating Rainbow Spirit among the Aboriginal people, and theologies associated with traditional as well as progressive Christian traditions...Webb upholds process theism as the most fruitful, satisfying way to describe the Divine today. This astute book carries wide appeal." -Darren J.N. Middleton, Religious Studies Review, September 2008
"Val Webb is a writer, teacher, artist, theologian and scientist who weaves knowledge and experience together as she encourages the reader to open themselves to a myriad of metaphors, symbols and images that reveal the divine across cultures, relgions and centuries." - Journey
Word and World
