On Being Liked

Brilliant style and deep insight in the Gospels' teaching. This book, just as "Faith Beyond Resentment", renews and maintains my Catholicity.

James Alison is an extraodinary thinker. Having read his four other books, I found "On Being Liked" his most accessable. Alison is not any easy read and I don't always comprehend everything he writes, but what I do understand is audacious in it's conceptualizition and startling in its grasp of scripture. Alison is totally God centered --- not an avenging and punishing God, but a God who wishes to envelope his creations --- including us gay and lesbian folks --- like a warm blanket. Alison presumes a belief and basic understanding of Christianity because he is a Roman Catholic priest and theologian, but unlike what you would expect from someone with these credentials, he takes Roman Catholic orthodoxy and puts it to the test. The results are breathtaking in their unfolding and liberating in their effects. This book is for the thinking crowd that isn't afraid to work for their revelations.