Confronting Religious Denial of Gay Marriage:

“Catherine Wallace is a force of nature. She is brilliant, persuasive, compassionate, and wise. Her new book in the Confronting Fundamentalism series addresses the issue of gay marriage. She does so with such clarity, directness, and zest that it’s hard to imagine anyone reading this book without being challenged to understand LGBTQ identity—and marriage—afresh and anew.”

—Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker/activist (brianmclaren.net)

“We are fortunate that someone as formidably sharp and intellectually rigorous as Wallace has turned her attention to a topic impacting so many casualties of the ‘war on homosexuality,’ which has been raging for more than four decades. As one who has suffered great personal pain on the receiving end of fundamentalist thinking, I found Wallace’s words offering not only sound reason and logic, but deep healing.”

—Joseph D. Mole, LMSW, Executive Director, Emmaus House

“Wallace shows how the anti-gay hate-mongering typical of various fundamentalisms belies the humanity and wisdom of the deeply grounded moral imagination of Western cultures. In weaving together stories of her own and others’ experience, sound scholarship, and humane wisdom, Wallace invites all of us to the public and consistent support of gay marriage that will accomplish the social and cultural transformation promised by legal changes.”

—Ellen K. Wondra, Research Professor of Theology and Ethics, Bexley Seabury Seminary Federation; Editor Emerita, Anglican Theological Review

“Wallace argues effectively, passionately, persuasively for a deeply appealing conception of marriage that can and should be available to same-sex and different-sex couples alike. . . . As usual, Wallace is insightful, provocative, and thoroughly helpful.”

—Gary Chartier, Associate Dean, Professor of Law and Business Ethics, Tom and Vi Zapara, School of Business, La Sierra University

Confronting Religious Denial of Science:

“Grab a cup of tea and sit down with a provocative new friend. Wallace asks, are there proper places in the heart for both science and religion? She writes of her personal quest to appreciate how discovery and prayer must necessarily complement each other. With insight and warmth she traces the boundaries and the intersections of technology and belief. Like that student in class who asked the questions you wish you could have articulated so well, she bravely puts the challenge: How can human lives best make both logical and spiritual sense?”

—John Kender, Professor of Computer Science, Columbia University

“This is a sensitive and well-thought-out book that explores the relationships between literature, religion, physiology, morality, prayer, science, metaphor, truth and art. If that sounds like a handful, it is. But Catherine M. Wallace handles these subjects with grace and clarity in this excellent book.”

—Abby Hafer, author of The Not-So-Intelligent Designer: Why Evolution Explains the Human Body and Intelligent Design Does Not

“Catherine Wallace is right: fundamentalism is problematic on many levels. It is not leading us to the common good. But Wallace is also right that simply decrying fundamentalism is not enough. A winsome replacement must be offered. This book sparks the imagination of an alternative that affirms science and the humanities, including religion. Even those who cannot accept all of the alternative ideas proposed in this book will be better off for having pondered them!”

—Thomas Jay Oord, author of The Uncontrolling Love of God  and The Nature of Love

“Wallace skillfully demonstrates that the conflict between science and religion is rooted in distortions of both: a religion that has forgotten its mythic heart and hardened into fundamentalism, and a science that has been mutated by rationalist dreams into dogmatic scientism. Using conversational language and personal anecdotes, Wallace sketches out an alternative: a science shorn of dogmatic pretensions and a religion centered on story and practice, committed to shaping lives of deep compassion. The particular way Wallace puts the pieces together in this accessible book may not be persuasive for everyone (whether the secular humanist trying to make sense of religion or the religious believer trying to join faith with science), but observing how she does it can only inspire and illuminate their own efforts.”

—Richard Floyd, author of Down to Earth: Christian Hope and Climate Change

Confronting Religious Violence:

“Proclaiming Christianity that can cooperate with other religions and is understood as living the way of Jesus rather than as adherence to a theory about Jesus provides a welcome antidote to the violent God emulated by adherents of the contemporary form of Christendom, which Wallace repudiates so forcefully.”

—J. Denny Weaver, author of The Nonviolent God

Confronting Religious Absolutism:

“Wallace displays an enviable ability to present in reader-friendly terms her thorough grasp of fields as diverse as social and intellectual history, literary theory, and cognitive science, all in the service of a sympathetic evaluation of spiritual experience.”

—J. Gerald Janzen, Author of When Prayer Takes Place: Forays into a Biblical

World (Cascade Books)

“This is an extraordinarily timely book during an election year when humaneness and critical thinking are in short supply. Wallace holds up these two virtues as the antidote to the tyranny of religious absolutism, but her carefully layered argument has broader applicability to the rise of political meanness and proud know nothingness causing so many Americans dismay these days.”

—John Addison Dally, Professor of Religion and Culture, Bexley Seabury Seminary Federation, Chicago

“Rarely does a book make me catch my breath with one ‘aha!’ after another, moments where assorted random things I thought I knew suddenly coalesce into a new and clearer picture of the world. In this book, Cate Wallace weaves together history, philosophy, theology, story, and her own imaginative wit to shape a picture of Christianity and religious absolutism that is fresh and new while at the same time seeming almost selfevident in its clarity.”

—Jennifer Kerr Budziak, Author, composer, conductor

“Catherine Wallace has a gift. With piercing intelligence and an open heart, she not only shows us in this book why fundamentalism in general is dangerous (that would be too easy), but what a viable and more virtuous alternative can look like. Christianity, the virtuous art of faith, is worth rescuing from fundamentalists. In fact, it must be.”

—Tripp Hudgins, Director of Admissions, American Baptist Seminary of The West

Confronting Religious Judgmentalism:

“Dr. Wallace’s work is engrossing and readable. In my role as a therapist, I find her arguments about shame on target. The breadth and depth of knowledge expressed in her book are the culmination of decades of scholarly work overlaid by a life deeply lived.”

—Zahava Springer Davidson, LCSW, NorthShore University HealthSystem

The Confrontational Wit of Jesus:

“Catherine Wallace gives us a provocative look at the heart of the four gospels— political satire that subverts empire, that unveils the thoroughgoing nonviolence of God, and that inspires humane living. Clearly written, deeply thoughtful, and spiritually nourishing.”

––Ted Grimsrud, Author of Instead of Atonement: The Bible’s Salvation Story

and Our Hope for Wholeness

“Wallace has done us a great service. She has reminded us that the Gospels make the kind of satire performed on television shows like The Daily Show and Samantha Bee (whom I really like!) appear banal in comparison. The satiric reversal of Jesus is, ultimately, as subversive as it is comical. It’s subversive because it exposes both the ridiculous and violent nature of the kingdoms of this world, and it is comical for those very same reasons.”

—Tripp York, Author of The Devil Wears Nada; Professor, Religious Studies

Department, Virginia Wesleyan College