Martin Davis asks—

What is the value of a community of writers?

Since our founding in 2007, our publishing house has fostered communities of writers nationwide and, in some cases, around the world. As 2022 opens, a long-time contributing columnist to ReadTheSpirit magazine is becoming one of our authors with the release of his first book, 30 Days with America’s High School Coaches, which is available for pre-order right now. In our Cover Story this week, Martin Davis writes about the importance of such writing circles. Please, enjoy his column, share it with friends—and, if you are aware of like-minded writers who might like to connect with us, email us at [email protected]

And Larry Buxton adds—

Another author in the writer’s community Martin describes is Larry Buxton, whose specialty is exploring the challenges and the values that shape great leaders. Larry is welcoming 2022 with a new video in his ongoing Leading with Spirit series of weekly inspirational messages. We are featuring Larry’s video, this week, in our Front Edge Publishing website. Please, take a moment to hear from Larry via this new video. It’s just a few minutes long—then you may want to share this message with friends, as well.

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Dr. David Gushee’s outreach

ONE OF OUR AUTHORS who encourages families around the world to accept the ever-growing diversity of our communities is Dr. David Gushee. In early 2022, Dr. Gushee will publish his first multi-media book, Introducing Christian Ethics, a summary of his teachings over many years. The book includes text, audio and video. As this new year opens, Dr. Gushee is appearing in news media and podcasts, including:

• JOIN A FREE ZOOM with Dr. Gushee on Friday January 14, hosted by Baptist News Global (BNG)—the worldwide wire service where many of Dr. Gushee’s newsy columns appear. BNG is extending a free invitation to any interested listener either via Zoom or Facebook. Dr. Gushee will be talking with BNG Executive Director Mark Wingfield on Friday January 14, 2022, to discuss Dr. Gushee’s new book, Introducing Christian Ethics. The online webinar begins at 10 a.m. Eastern time, so if you’re on the West Coast, you would have to be online by 7 a.m. It’s free—but advance registration is required to participate via Zoom. Register here.
• The BNG webinar also will be livestreamed via Facebook.
• WANT TO HEAR FROM DR. GUSHEE RIGHT NOW? This week, Dr. Gushee sent us this update: “I’ve been on a lot of wonderful podcasts lately. One of them, The Fear of God Podcast with Nathan Rouse was an
  incredibly rich conversation from a very different angle. We discussed ideas often found to ‘scare’ people of faith as a means to find ways to be ‘saved’ of those fears. More than that, it was an honest attempt to wrestle
  faithfully with the real world we all occupy. Please, check out this podcast.”

Changing Our Mind is now on Audible

DR. GUSHEE’S BEST-SELLING BOOK about accepting LGBTQ members of our communities now is available on Audible via Amazon. The moment this new audio version of Changing Our Mind appeared online, Audible listeners began requesting it.

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Holidays & Festivals

Stephanie Fenton’s new 2022 Calendar

EACH YEAR, we hear from readers around the world who use Stephanie Fenton’s interfaith calendar as a guide to holidays, festivals and other observances—because it’s challenging to determine when the many moveable holidays fall each year. Please, look over our new 2022 interfaith calendar and contact us if you have questions, or if you think of an observance we should add to this annual guide.

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Rabbi Lenore Bohm on Tu BiShvat—

CONSIDER A JEWISH FRUIT SALAD THIS YEAR as one way to observe Tu BiShvat, the “birthday of the trees,” writes Rabbi Lenore Bohm. Please, enjoy her column and share it with friends this week.

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WANT TO SEE ALL THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS?—It’s easy to find our annual calendar of global observances. Just remember the web address: InterfaithHolidays.com

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Milestone for First Nations

THROUGHOUT 2021, our writers focused on news about Native communities across what is today North America. The most widely shared of our stories appeared in June, along with links to coverage of news about so-called Indian “boarding schools.” We also received a great deal of reader comments, via emails and even some calls to our office, about two other Native American stories we published this year. We called one of them Rethinking Thanksgiving and the other widely shared and discussed column was Bill Tammeus’s reporting on Land Acknowledgment.

IN 2022, WE WILL CONTINUE THIS COVERAGE. Here are two different news perspectives on the major milestone achieved in Canada concerning First Nations.

• From The Washington Post, headlined: Canada reaches $31.5 billion deal over Indigenous children put in foster care unnecessarily
• From The New York Times, headlined: Canada Pledges $31.5 Billion to Settle Fight Over Indigenous Child Welfare System

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Faith & Film

ED McNULTY, for decades, has published reviews, magazine articles and books exploring connections between faith and film. Most of his work is freely published. Ed supports his work by selling the Visual Parables Journal, a monthly magazine packed with discussion guides to films. This resource is used coast-to-coast by individuals who love the movies and by educators, clergy and small-group leaders.

Among Ed’s free reviews and columns:

• THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH—“Working without his brother this time, Joel Coen adapts and directs this new version of Shakespeare’s great tragedy of ambition overwhelming decency and leading to destruction.”
• AMERICAN UNDERDOG—”Brothers Andrew and John Erwin, adapting football player Kurt Warner’s same-titled memoir, American Underdog, have given us an underdog story to beat all such unlikely stories.”
• C’MON C’MON—”After watching another superhero fantasy, I found Mike Mills’ relative simple tale of the growing relationship between an uncle approaching middle-age and his nine-year-old -young nephew a refreshing tonic.”
• WHO KILLED MALCOLM X? Documentarians Phil Bertelsen and Rachel Dretzin focus on the 30-year search by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad for details about the real assassins in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965.
• BEING THE RICARDOS—”Writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s film  is a fascinating take on perhaps the most crucial week in the history of the I Love Lucy Show during its second season.”
• THE POWER OF THE DOG—Ed writes, “Director/writer Jane Campion’s adaptation of Thomas Savage’s 1968 novel is set in Montana, but she has found a region of her native New Zealand as a serviceable stand-in.”
• WEST SIDE STORY—“Director Stephen Spielberg and scriptwriter Tony Kushner have triumphed in their revision of the smash Broadway and film musical West Side Story!”
• ENCANTO—“This time Disney transports us to the mountains of Columbia where the Madrigal family live in an enchanting village called the Encanto.”
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  Forest Whitaker plays the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu in The Forgiven, a 2017 film.

  THE FORGIVEN—“Roland Joffé and co-writer Michael Ashton take us to South Africa where they focus upon the work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Forest Whitaker), President of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission shortly after the demise of apartheid.”

• PASSING—Ed writes, “Actress Rebecca Hall steps behind the camera to co-write and direct this adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 Harlem Renaissance novel about two light-skinned black women able to fool a racist society by passing as white.”

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