501 - Ending Marriage, Keeping Faith

Ending Marriage, Keeping Faith

By Randall Nichols

New York, Crossroad, 1991. 216 Pp. $17.95.

Princeton Seminary teacher, administrator, and psychotherapist J. Randall Nichols adds this book on the potential for a spiritual journey in the face of the loss inherent in divorce to his other awarding-winning books on the creation of the sermon and the sermon as pastoral care (Building the Word and The Restoring Word ). The subtitle of this contribution to practical theology is "A New Guide Through the Spiritual Journey of Divorce." While Nichols would not deny that divorce most often means painful endings, he also argues quite powerfully that divorce is a process that one does rather than a state one gets. Within this process, there can be hope in the endings and the potential for new beginnings. It is also a process one need not do alone.

This is not a simple-minded "how to" book, though Nichols' own practical experience as a divorced marriage and family therapist gives the reader plenty of practical material. The book is also a contribution to a much needed theology of divorce with the author struggling with biblical, historical, and systematic theology. I would recommend this book to the many in our congregations who are contemplating, anticipating, or still in the final stages of their own divorces. I would also recommend it to those outside of the church who may need, even more, the value of hope that the author describes.

Brian H. Childs, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Ga.