Picture a college town in the mid- 1970s. An English professor who has become an expert in extramarital dalliances is smitten by one of his graduate students. They meet for lunch around noon, and before three they make declarations of love. Is it possible that their subsequent affair could ultimately teach us something about true forgiveness and the radical meaning of grace? Only Robert Farrar Capon would have the audacity -- and the authorial skill -- to fashion such a tale. It has taken well over a decade for Between Noon and Three to appear in this, its original form. First published under two separate titles with significant parts excised and an entire section recast, the real Between Noon and Three is actually a trilogy of intertwined tales, each of which exhibits Capon's persistent insistence on the outrageous nature of grace. The original manuscript is here printed in full, including a new introduction by Capon on the work's unusual history. Reading sometimes like a provocative novel, sometimes like a theological wrangle between writer and reader, Between Noon and Three defies categorization. Capon sums up the book this way: "Those who read it as a novel are doomed to disappointment: at every turn, the story line entangles itself in theological ropework. On the other hand, those who prefer their theology straight up -- no ice, no olives, no twists -- will recoil at the plethora of oddments I serve with it, not to mention my penchant for mixing purple prose with low comedy. I always work two sides of the street at once, running from store to store, picking up what strikes my fancy. If you can stand the switching back and forth, it makes for a diverting experience." Diverting, disconcerting, engaging, enlightening -- it's pure Capon.
Here in one volume is Robert Farrar Capon's widely praised trilogy on Jesus' parables The Parables of the Kingdom, The Parables of Grace, and The Parables of Judgment. These studies offer a fresh, adventurous look at all of Jesus' parables, treated according to their major themes. With the same authorial flair and daring insight that have earned him a wide readership, Capon admirably bridges the gap between the biblical world and our own, making clear both the original meaning of the parables and their continuing relevance today.
Robert Farrar Capon is well known as the author of the modern classic The Supper of the Lamb (“awesomely funny, wise, beautiful, moving, preposterous,” said The New York Times) and other acclaimed books such as Genesis, the Movie. In Light Theology & Heavy Cream: The Culinary Adventures of Pietro & Madeleine, Capon returns to the kitchen to present a spirited collection of pieces he describes as “culinary and theological snack food.” Providing significant nutritive value in terms of both cooking and thinking, Capon offers them “as a lark.” The protagonists of this endeavor are Pietro and Madeleine, a husband and wife with clear resemblances to the author and his wife, Valerie. With Capon’s signature wit and precision, Pietro and Madeleine explore such diverse topics as creativity, addiction, televangelism, spirituality, the correct way to slice a leg of lamb, and the virtues of diners. “Given the irony of a God who saves the world by foolishness and weakness,” Capon writes, “and the hilarity by which he gives us corn, wine, and oil—not to mention his wonderfully two-faced creatures such as butter, salt, tobacco, and pork fat—this is no world in which to land on one side of a paradox.” Nibbling away on Light Theology & Heavy Cream is to encounter an author who has “always been perfectly substantial and perfectly silly at the same time,” but here “propels himself faster and farther in both directions.” “You challenge me to match the sum total of the world’s miseries with a fast, but then you complain that I fall short because I have eaten lobster instead of beetles or something. Why, I could starve myself stone cold to death and still fall short. To use your very own argument, the world’s miseries are tractable only to God’s grace, not my merits. A lobster, obediently ingested, can remind me of that as well as anything else, eaten or not eaten, on the same principle.” —from the first chapter
This engaging book probes the meaning of salvation--peace, forgiveness, grace, reconciliation--spoken of in the New Testament as a "mystery". (back cover).
Capon shows how the church has lost its astonishment over the Good News and has made Christianity into a religion that focuses on requirements and restrictions rather than on gospel. Recovery of astonishment is his saving remedy.
The creation story stands as one of the most famous and familiar in Scripture. But, says best-selling author Robert Farrar Capon, most of us misconstrue it. The reason? We have fallen into the habit of reading Genesis the way we read all of Scripture -- as a manual of religious instructions. To break this (bad) habit, Capon here offers a whimsical yet wonderfully fruitful approach -- "watching" the Bible as a historical movie whose director is God. Though Capon does have fun with this concept, he's very serious about its liberating effects. -When you watch a movie, he says, -you never ask questions about whether the events depicted actually happened. Instead, you accept the history the director shows you on the screen. And, as Capon points out, we typically suspend judgment of a film until we've seen all of it, letting later scenes inform and enrich earlier ones. That, he says, is exactly how we need to see Genesis -- as just the beginning of the whole movie of Scripture. Using this novel approach in "Genesis, the Movie," Capon develops a commentary of theological scope and depth on the first three chapters of Genesis. He gives every verse as it appears in the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the Vulgate, as well as in the KJV, RSV, and NRSV versions of the Bible. Making extensive use of Augustine's commentary on Genesis in his "Confessions" and "De Genesi ad Litteram," Capon also shows the interpretive freedom with which the church's fathers and mothers approached Scripture. This book is as much Capon the charming writer-teacher as it is Capon the scholar, characterized as it is by the conversational, entertaining style for which Capon is so well known. Enriched by Capon'ssignature wit, imaginative wisdom, and broad-ranging engagement of saints, poets, and religious thinkers across the centuries, "Genesis, the Movie" presents a remarkable new look at Scripture that will delight and challenge its many readers.
From a passionate and talented chef who also happens to be an Episcopalian priest comes this surprising and thought-provoking treatise on everything from prayer to poetry to puff pastry. In The Supper of the Lamb, Capon talks about festal and ferial cooking, emerging as an inspirational voice extolling the benefits and wonders of old-fashioned home cooking in a world of fast food and prepackaged cuisine. This edition includes the original recipes and a new Introduction by Deborah Madison, the founder of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco and author of several cookbooks.
What is the foundation of good preaching? How should preachers prepare themselves to faithfully and effectively address the church? And, just as importantly, what ought congregants, who come to church to hear a word from God, hope for from their preachers? These are often asked — and often answered — questions. But Robert Farrar Capon tackles them with a freshness and a frankness that make both the questions and the answers new. In Part 1 of the book, "The Bedrock of Preaching," Capon discusses how essential it is to have "a passion for the Passion" (to believe passionately in the Good News of salvation in Christ), how to overcome the stumbling blocks to genuinely accepting grace, and how to relinquish a false sense of control over our salvation. This part of the book also has important things to say to those of us who listen to sermons and who look to the pulpit for words of grace and hope that are truly meaningful to our lives today. In Part 2, "The Practice of Preaching," Capon concentrates on the mechanics of preaching in anything but a mechanical way. He begins by discussing the ingredients of preaching, emphasizing the importance of not just reading but really hearing the Word in the original Greek and Hebrew, and offers some pointed comments on the Common Lectionary. He then goes on to illustrate how to preach effectively from notes, giving specific, day-by-day suggestions for preparation. He also shows, using the full text of one of his sermons as an example, how to preach from a more fully written manuscript and explains how to move from first notes to final notes for a sermon, again using some of his own notes as an example. In Capon's creative hands these instructions are not just a nuts-and-bolts exercise; they are lively, challenging lessons in preaching that, for all their practical advice, never lose touch with the center of preaching and belief — the astonishing grace of Jesus Christ.
This volume makes available three of Capon's sought-after early works: An Offering of Uncles, The Third Peacock, and Hunting the Divine Fox. Each book offers a refreshingly different take on key theological issues--the priesthood of humankind, the problem of God and evil, and the language of theology.
In this delightfully twisting, engaging, multi-genre narrative. Robert Farrar Capon explores three areas of life that concern us all -- health, money, and love -- pokes fun of the religions we make of them, and trumpets the radical gospel of grace, the only alternative that can free us to be truly happy.
In The Fingerprints of God best-selling author Robert Farrar Capon takes readers on a sleuthing project, using his own uniquely developed history of images to find evidence of the Divine Suspect in our midst." "Capon first explores various images that prompt proper talk about God and the nature of Scripture. The Bible, he says, is the mystery story of God's hidden presence as the Divine Suspect behind all history. Capon discusses the misuse of Scripture due to literalist interpretation, looks at the ways Christ has suffered at the hands of human image-makers, and proposes a novel understanding of salvation history that clarifies the proper roles of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus." "In the second part of the book Capon turns his magnifying glass on major thinkers from church history - Irenaeus, Athanasius, Anselm, Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Julian of Norwich, and others - pointing out both the strong and the weak images they have produced. Throughout the centuries, Capon sees God as the "Divine Bowler" trying to knock down the faulty "pins" of ideas that have been set up in the lanes of religious history, while also disclosing himself in profound and powerful ways.
This volume makes available three of Capon's sought-after early works: An Offering of Uncles, The Third Peacock, and Hunting the Divine Fox. Each book offers a refreshingly different take on key theological issues--the priesthood of humankind, the problem of God and evil, and the language of theology.
This engaging book probes the meaning of salvation--peace, forgiveness, grace, reconciliation--spoken of in the New Testament as a "mystery". (back cover).
Here in one volume is Robert Farrar Capon's widely praised trilogy on Jesus' parables The Parables of the Kingdom, The Parables of Grace, and The Parables of Judgment. These studies offer a fresh, adventurous look at all of Jesus' parables, treated according to their major themes. With the same authorial flair and daring insight that have earned him a wide readership, Capon admirably bridges the gap between the biblical world and our own, making clear both the original meaning of the parables and their continuing relevance today.
In The Fingerprints of God best-selling author Robert Farrar Capon takes readers on a sleuthing project, using his own uniquely developed history of images to find evidence of the Divine Suspect in our midst." "Capon first explores various images that prompt proper talk about God and the nature of Scripture. The Bible, he says, is the mystery story of God's hidden presence as the Divine Suspect behind all history. Capon discusses the misuse of Scripture due to literalist interpretation, looks at the ways Christ has suffered at the hands of human image-makers, and proposes a novel understanding of salvation history that clarifies the proper roles of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus." "In the second part of the book Capon turns his magnifying glass on major thinkers from church history - Irenaeus, Athanasius, Anselm, Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Julian of Norwich, and others - pointing out both the strong and the weak images they have produced. Throughout the centuries, Capon sees God as the "Divine Bowler" trying to knock down the faulty "pins" of ideas that have been set up in the lanes of religious history, while also disclosing himself in profound and powerful ways.
Picture a college town in the mid- 1970s. An English professor who has become an expert in extramarital dalliances is smitten by one of his graduate students. They meet for lunch around noon, and before three they make declarations of love. Is it possible that their subsequent affair could ultimately teach us something about true forgiveness and the radical meaning of grace? Only Robert Farrar Capon would have the audacity -- and the authorial skill -- to fashion such a tale. It has taken well over a decade for Between Noon and Three to appear in this, its original form. First published under two separate titles with significant parts excised and an entire section recast, the real Between Noon and Three is actually a trilogy of intertwined tales, each of which exhibits Capon's persistent insistence on the outrageous nature of grace. The original manuscript is here printed in full, including a new introduction by Capon on the work's unusual history. Reading sometimes like a provocative novel, sometimes like a theological wrangle between writer and reader, Between Noon and Three defies categorization. Capon sums up the book this way: "Those who read it as a novel are doomed to disappointment: at every turn, the story line entangles itself in theological ropework. On the other hand, those who prefer their theology straight up -- no ice, no olives, no twists -- will recoil at the plethora of oddments I serve with it, not to mention my penchant for mixing purple prose with low comedy. I always work two sides of the street at once, running from store to store, picking up what strikes my fancy. If you can stand the switching back and forth, it makes for a diverting experience." Diverting, disconcerting, engaging, enlightening -- it's pure Capon.
Capon shows how the church has lost its astonishment over the Good News and has made Christianity into a religion that focuses on requirements and restrictions rather than on gospel. Recovery of astonishment is his saving remedy.
Preachers, are you preaching authentically and effectively to your congregation? Those who sit in the pews, are you truly expecting and receiving genuine Gospel preaching?In The Foolishness of Preaching Robert Farrar Capon challenges preachers to preach faithfully and effectively to their congregations and challenges congregants to expect and demand genuine preaching. "A passion for the Passion" is the necessary ingredient for authentic preaching, declares Capon. A preacher must believe passionately in the Good News of salvation in Christ. Preachers often experience stumbling blocks preventing them from authentic preaching. In Part One, "The Bedrock of Preaching," Capon discusses these stumbling blocks and ways to overcome them. In Part Two, "The Practice of Preaching," Capon offers practical advice and insight into the mechanics of effective preaching. The Foolishness of Preaching is not simply a nuts-and-bolts exercise in preaching, but a lively and challenging lesson that never loses touch with the center of preaching and belief-the astonishing grace of Jesus Christ.
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