“We live in a secular age, a world dominated by science and technology. Increasing numbers of us don’t believe in God anymore. We don’t expect miracles. We’ve grown up and left those fairy tails behind, culturally and personally.
Yet five hundred years ago the world was very much enchanted. It was a world where God existed and the devil was real. It was a world full of angels and demons. It was a world of holy wells and magic eels. But since the Protestant Reformation and the beginning of the Enlightenment, the world, in the West, at least, has become increasingly disenchanted.
While this might be taken as evidence of a crisis of belief, Richard Beck argues it’s actually a crisis of attention. God hasn’t gone anywhere, but we’ve lost our capacity to see God.
The rising tide of disenchantment has profoundly changed our religious imaginations and led to a loss of the holy expectation that we can be interrupted by the sacred and divine. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With attention and an intentional and cultivated capacity to experience God as living, vital presence in our lives, Hunting Magic Eels shows us, we can cultivate an enchanted faith in a skeptical age.”
From the book cover
Pastor Andrew will be leading a Sunday School class this summer in exploring Richard Beck’s book Hunting Magic Eels. How do we attune our eyes to seeing God and God’s work? How can we solve our attention problem? The class will meet at 9 AM in room 3 in our educational room and will also be on Zoom.
Participants should pick up a copy of Richard Beck’s Hunting Magic Eels (paperback edition). If you would like the church to order a copy of the book for you, please contact the church office. The cost of the book is $15. If the cost of the book will be a problem, please talk to Pastor Andrew. If you would like to order through the church, please let us know by Sunday, June 18.
Schedule
- July 2-Introduction
- July 9-Chapter Two
- July 16-Chapter Three
- July 23-Chapter Four and Five
- July 30-Chapter Six and Seven
- August 6-Chapter Eight
- August 13-Chapter Nine
- August 20-Chapter Ten
- August 27-Chapter Eleven and Epilogue
