Georg Retzlaff: 5 books

The Our Father is so much more than a simple, rather harmless prayer, suitable for saying Grace, ending meetings, or - due to the apparent absence of recognizable Christian theology - Interfaith conferences. This book does away with this innocuous approach and examines this prayer as what it originally...

The Christian Church has had a love-hate relationship with the Book of Psalms: it is supposedly the church's hymn book but every Sunday we select, leave out, bracket certain sections which are not in accordance with the Gospel of Jesus. There are many arcane person and place names as well as theological...

From Sunday School days on we are often asked to take sides in order to shape our moral universe: we learn about right and wrong, good and evil, saints and sinners, villains and heroes. Especially the Old Testament offers a wide range of easily identifiable and categorizable characters: Cain and Lamech...

Sunday gospel readings are normally "enforced" by hymns selected by the organist, according to suggestions made by a choirmaster's handbook. Often the choice is rather limited, both in number and intellectual or theological content. Preaching the gospel can be seriously undermined by a gospel...

Holy Week is an almost entirely private event in our culture. Apart from Palm Sunday and Easter there are no public holidays, no processions, no pageantry, often not even Church services to mark the last days of Christ on earth. There may be some evening worship, mostly poorly attended, to guide us...