To a conservative church in a south-western Ontario town comes Jonah Arias-a troubled, left-leaning, pill-popping United Church minister. Reverend Jonah is young and idealistic, with courage enough to challenge the power-brokers in his small community. When he starts an inappropriate relationship with a young woman in the congregation, and then decides to repatriate a former member of the church expelled for being in a lesbian relationship, the ensuing battle threatens to derail Jonah's career and fracture the church. The play, like Reverend Jonah himself, is unafraid to ask the tough questions: Do we have the right to judge one another? What constitutes integrity? What is courage? Are we prepared to embrace rather than censure our fellow human beings? Thoughtful and powerful, Reverend Jonah challenges us to explore the meanings of community in the very broadest sense.

An angry prophet. A feared and loathsome enemy. A devastating storm. And the surprising message of a merciful God to his people. The story of Jonah is one of the most well-known parables in the Bible. It is also the most misunderstood. Many people, even those who are nonreligious, are familiar with Jonah: A rebellious prophet who defies God and is swallowed by a whale. But there's much more to Jonah's story than most of us realize. In The Prodigal Prophet, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller reveals the hidden depths within the book of Jonah. Keller makes the case that Jonah was one of the worst prophets in the entire Bible. And yet there are unmistakably clear connections between Jonah, the prodigal son, and Jesus. Jesus in fact saw himself in Jonah. How could one of the most defiant and disobedient prophets in the Bible be compared to Jesus? Jonah's journey also doesn't end when he is freed from the belly of the fish. There is an entire second half to his story--but it is left unresolved within the text of the Bible. Why does the book of Jonah end on what is essentially a cliffhanger? In these pages, Timothy Keller provides an answer to the extraordinary conclusion of this biblical parable--and shares the powerful Christian message at the heart of Jonah's story.

Pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller reveals the hidden depths within the book of Jonah—the most misunderstood parable in the Bible. Previously published as The Prodigal Prophet The story of Jonah is one of the most well-known parables in the Bible. It is also the most misunderstood. Many people, even those who are nonreligious, are familiar with Jonah: A rebellious prophet who defies God and is swallowed by a whale. But there's much more to Jonah's story than most of us realize. In Rediscovering Jonah, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller reveals the hidden depths within the book of Jonah. Keller makes the case that Jonah was one of the worst prophets in the entire Bible. And yet there are unmistakably clear connections between Jonah, the prodigal son, and Jesus. Jesus in fact saw himself in Jonah. How could one of the most defiant and disobedient prophets in the Bible be compared to Jesus? Jonah's journey also doesn't end when he is freed from the belly of the fish. There is an entire second half to his story—but it is left unresolved within the text of the Bible. Why does the book of Jonah end on what is essentially a cliffhanger? In these pages, Timothy Keller provides an answer to the extraordinary conclusion of this biblical parable—and shares the powerful Christian message at the heart of Jonah's story.

Vols. 4-17 were done by Clifford Kenyon Shipton.

"THE ABOLITIONIST" is a three-act play occuring between the years, 1851 - 1861. The protagonist is Jonah MacKenzie, a wealthy minister renowned throughout the nation for his abolitionist activities. His aristocratic wife, Elizabeth, is a partial invalid from a stroke; and their only child, Reuben, adoring his father, has gone on to become a minister as well. In Act I we learn that Jonah is torn between an equally intense love and hatred for his son whom he and his wife have banished. Mary Beaton, a young well-to-do neighbor, once engaged to Reuben but secretly in love with his father Jonah, comes to visit and implores Jonah to find his son and reconcile. Elizabeth, overhearing Mary's entreaties, and wary of the young lady's intentions toward her husband, wheels herself in and commands Mary to leave, never to return. Act II occurs in the past (1851) and focuses upon the abolitionist activities of father and son. We find them in the Free state of Ohio where Jonah delivers an impassioned sermon against slavery in a little church near the Kentucky (a slave state) border, dodging stones. Jonah then visits his friends, Moses and Kathleen Pendleton, leaders of the Underground Railroad. Meantime, Reuben is in Kentucky, present at a slave auction. He is smitten with love for an exquisitely beautiful mulatto named Veronica. She is purchased by a murderous slave-holder, Roland Jeffries, from whose Kentucky plantation early in the morning Reuben rescues her. He brings her to the Pendletons. Determined to retrieve the slave-girl, Jeffries barges in, shooting and wounding Jonah who is barring the way. Reuben enters in time to save Veronica and Jonah. Reuben escorts Veronica on the Underground Railroad to Canada where he proposes marriage to her. At first dissenting, pointing out the probable social consequences, Veronica yields. Though proud of his son's rescue of Veonica, upon learning that his son intends to marry a negro Jonah becomes enraged and forbids the marriage, threatening disinheritance and banishment. The act ends with a soliloquy by Reuben expressing horror at his fate. Act III returns to the present. Elizabeth thinks she has convinced Jonah to accept a professorship he's been offered at Oxford University in England but he is secretly determined to find Reuben. After initial hesitation, but then swayed by Jonah's charm, Reuben and Veronica consent to leave Toronto and live with Jonah. When Jonah returns home to Boston he finds that Elizabeth has suffered a new major stroke which has left her in a vegetative state. Mary, once again in vain, pursues Jonah, who, in turn - flattered by daughter-in-law Veronica's coquetry and succumbing to his own weakness of mind, impulsively attempts to seduce her. Veronica's initial attraction to him quickly turns to repugnance. Once again, Jonah banishes Reuben and his daughter-in-law from his household. The play ends on a catastrophic note just before we hear the booming sound of cannon announcing the advent of The Civil War. Barry Bennett Blander

The Reverend's Apprentice, the third novel by David N. Odhiambo, is a powerful, tragicomic novel about power, culture, and identity politics in contemporary America, as seen through the eyes of an African student. Jonah Ayot is a graduate student from a fictional central African nation, studying in a fictional American city some time after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003; the novel mirrors Jonah's own struggle as a newcomer to American life, trying to organize his perceptions around an identity that is global rather than parochial. But those perceptions become muddied in the reality of the new war zone - on American soil, where the foreign becomes familiar, and the familiar is no longer what it used to be. Dissonant, frantic, and full of the white noise of a culture at war with itself, The Reverend's Apprentice takes the familiar story of the stranger in a strange land to new, disturbing, breathtaking new levels. The American magazine Black Issues Book Review has said: ''David Odhiambo joins a third guard of African novelists made up of peers like Uganda's Moses Isegawa and Nigeria's Chris Abani. The books of this younger generation of African writers (heirs to the continent's greats from Chinua Achebe to Mark Mathabane) shed the starched language and steep romanticism of Africa's literary tradition to expose the rawer, hipper, more vulgar aspects of life as lived by most Africans today.''