February 18, 2004--Gary Holthaus has an amazing and unbelievable gift. Hes able to express delicate, tender and exquisitely painful outrage on behalf of the whole of mankind.
The Unauthorized Bible: Selected Readings by Gary Holthaus is a controversial book that contains a fresh new look at some of our most hallowed beliefs. In place of a more or less orthodox reading of Jesus passion and resurrection as a cure for humankind, this "unauthorized Bible" imagines Jesus as a "little man," owner of a weary 74 Ford Pinto, a man with "nothing to lose" who "came he told us, not to die, but to bring life, and to bring it more abundantly."
Holthaus tells near to life stories of real people experiencing modern times in short, sweet prose that is lyrical, universal, and visionary. He speaks tenderly of the Earth and exploited creatures, as those living beings suffering at the hands of global slumlords. He speaks through the voices of Old Testament prophets, of Jesus, of Lao-Tzu, of a Northwest Coast tribal elder, and of other wisdom figures, and what he says through them expresses pure, righteous anger.
The Unauthorized Bible is a social, economic, political and environmental critique of Americas powers and principalities. And, at its heart and in every voice, it roars a spiritual, humane and godly outrage over what is happening to our Earthly ecosystem and to "the poor of the land" (essentially most of humankind).
Holthaus outrage is dedicated to the idea that we are Gods people, "born of stars and rooted in Earth," and that we have a particular and only responsibility to "make the world right". through three tasks: healing the Earth, caring for our neighbors and cultivating ourselves. When these tasks are corrupted, the goodness of life is carried away exactly as topsoil is carried away by sheet erosion.
If someone were to ask Holthaus "by what authority" he writes these things, he would likely say that the condition of the Earth and its peoples are all the warrant he needs to propose an unauthorized reading of the Bible: a gospel of justice, environmental sustainability, inclusiveness, and universalism.
The gift of this book is that it stirs the heart to outrage. It will bring tears to your eyes and fill you with indignation and fury. The Unauthorized Bible will stir a social controversy because it shows us the results or our dismal performance in time and space. Holthaus, as most poets and prophets must, does this without the usual authorizations.
"We are standing at a crossroads near the end of Earthor the beginning of life abundant on Earth", Holthaus says. It is left to us whether we will choose life with the compassionate intensity these times make necessary.
The Unauthorized Bible: Selected Readings By Gary Holthaus ISBN: 0-9711146-1-7 North Berwick: The Boston Wesleyan Press, 2003 Paper, 104 pages, $15.95
Gary Holthaus received an Individual Fellowship for Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990. He has been a commercial fisherman in Alaska, a big-game guide in Montana, a wheat packer for Quaker Oats, a school teacher and worked "too long," he says, moving steel beams around for Iowa Steel and Iron Works.
Media kits, review copies and interviews available on request.
###
An "Unauthorized Bible" rewrites the future of the Earth
Suggested Books
Submit your article to our newsletter!
Article submission is super-easy and is a great way to show off your writing skills. When you submit an article we will add it to our newsletter circulation; the newsletter archive on our site, and possibly other sites as well!
The article will always be published with your information (your name and site address if submitted) so you get all the credit.
Please note that we cannot compensate you in any way other than giving you some exposure.