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Summary: Buy This Book!
Review: Recommended by a dear friend (reviewer - NotATameLion) and relished by me because it focuses on what I believe is THE central issue in faith based "christianity". (small 'c' to diffentiate from institutionalized churchianity/Christianity) This book and "Embracing the Love of God" by James Bryan Smith, "A Taste of Silence" by Carl Arico and "Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home" by Richard Foster comprise the foundation of spiritual reading that I have used as a guide for what Manning calls "The Second Call". At the age of 52, I find myself on the MOST exciting leg of the spiritual journey that I have embraked upon over the last 30 years. This is a moving book written for everyone who has opened their heart's to the life changing LOVE of the God of LOVE. To be read and reread, "The Ragamuffin Gospel" is for believers who fail and let God pick them up, dust them off, forgive them and set them on the narrow way once more. It is for all of us! BUY THIS BOOK!
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Summary: A world of Ragamuffins
Review: You know I thought I could say some great things about this book, but it's though to write about. The book has changed my life - I guess it just helps you to relax in Gods Grace. To realise that God loves you - not as you want to be (or what you think He wants you to be), but just as you are. Get it and Read it. I read it 5 years ago, and I still often pick it up and read a random chapter or two.
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Summary: Thought-provoking
Review: Brennan brings fresh air to the understanding of the essence of the Good News -- unadulterated and undeserving grace! He challenges much of our comtemporary thinking on the gospel, the church, and who we are to be as a Christian. Well worth reading!
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Summary: Tired of Religion??
Review: If you're tired of "Rotary Club" religion and want to meet a God that knows all about you and loves you anyway, this is the book for you. Be warned, this book will change your life!!
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Summary: Fall In Love with Jesus
Review: This book will help you fall in love with Jesus all over again.
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Summary: pure and radical GRACE
Review: Every so often, I find myself having to stop, jettison all my accumulated worldly trash, reject my growing spirit of religiosity, and return to fuller understanding and experience of God's overwhelming, all-consuming grace. I'm going to keep this book, as well as my notes on it, on hand just for those occasions. Manning presents the gospel of grace in its purest and, consequently, most revolutionary form. Both the self-doubting and the self-assured, for different reasons, will have trouble embracing the message. But I recommend this book to anyone who wants an impression, or reminder, of just how radical God's grace is. Just Receive It!
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Summary: A New Definition of Grace
Review: In The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning explores grace and it's significance in every person's life. I have heard my entire life about grace and I thought I understood it, but after reading this book I know that I never clearly realized how incredible God's grace really is. This book reminded me that there is nothing I can do to earn my way to heaven and forced me to question my motives for the things that I do. It also helped me look at the world in a new perspective. I have learned to be more accepting and forgiving, because Christ is so accepting of us and all of our flaws. This book is well written with clear examples and explanations. I recommend it to those who feel that their faith needs a boost or that they are not 'good enough' to be a Christian because it reminds us of our true nature. We are only little children, helpless and clueless, and our only hope is a God who loves us enough to continually forgive, who longs for us to come back to Him.
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Summary: Grace for a Skeptic
Review: I opened the cover to this book, filled with a lot of skepticism. I was pretty certain that I was about to endure 200+ pages of hollow, feel good, Christian cheerleading. The title put me off more than anything else. 'Ragamuffin' is a word I associated with old ladies who had weathered the Great Depression -- the same old ladies (sweet though they were) who, with their toughness, scared me when I was a little kid in the 1960s. 'You look like a complete ragamuffin,' they would say as we stumbled in from a day playing in the woods. What?? I had NO idea what Raggedy-Ann dolls and muffins had to do with how I looked!Even as a grown adult, I have kept a dislike for the term that Manning likes to use to describe so many of us. But, as I turned the pages of the book on a train ride from New York to Boston this winter, I found that sometimes the message is greater than the aesthetics of language. This book is a wonderful reminder of God's Grace. Much more than cheerleading, this book highlights a mistake we often make in our understanding of God...and corrects it. Sometimes it is so easy to feel that we are not good enough, or that we must somehow 'earn' our place in the heart of God. But Brennan Manning reminds us that this is not the way of God. The One Who Loves Us accepts and Loves us just the way we are...as <cringe> ragamuffins. (If you don't know what that means -- read the book. You?ll be glad you did.)
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Summary: star correction
Review: For some reason, my previous review gave 2 stars. This is an error. This book is worth at least 5 stars. Buy it.
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Summary: This book is the best definition of the Gospel of Christ
Review: Of the countless books on the Christian faith, this tops them all. I am a legal services attorney, and I have given many copies of this book away to my clients. This book makes you feel the love and grace of God. Manning minces no words when "cleaning house" with all the "extras" people add to the Christian faith, the "extras" meaning all those little self-righteous things we do to make ourselves feel spiritual. Next to the Bible, this is the book I read the most. I go back to it continuously, I have read it probably 20 times. In law school, our Christian group used this book for a Bible study. Our group had a revival!!
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