Joshua: A Parable for Today

Author: Joseph E. Girzone

One-sentence summary: A mysterious but wise and humble man spends three months in the small town of Auburn and his presence causes people to examine their religion and incites unrest among religious leaders.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 5

Our favorite thing about it: The parable of Jesus in the modern era was intriguing and made us think about what that would be like.

Our least favorite thing about it: The repetitiveness of the message, the lack of a forward-moving story and the writing style were distracting to us.

Main Topics of Discussion: Religious practices, Jesus’ message to the Christians, Jesus as a human, interfaith relations

Our favorite quote: The function of religious leaders is to set an example, to draw people to God by their own deep faith and by the beauty of their personal lives, not intimidate people into sterile external observance. (Close second: You’re beautiful.) :)

Notes: Our discussion primarily focused on the things we would have liked to be different about the book. We were not overly impressed by the writing style, which came across as the author trying too hard. Some of the scenarios in the book we found to be unrealistic or not plausible and that distracted us a bit. Overall, we enjoyed hearing the message of the book, but we felt that it was stated over and over again with nothing new to add each time. In fact, we thought that this novel would best be packaged in a shorter version as a short story and it would have the same, if not more, impact. The novel was not lengthy by any means, but the lack of a real story line made it slightly less interesting. We were intrigued by the author’s idea of what Jesus would be like in modern times. At times, we sort of disagreed with his portrayal but recognized that this work of fiction was his vision of what might happen. One particular occurrence in the book that we all liked was when the two religious leaders who commissioned Joshua to make wooden sculptures for their respective churches ended up swapping sculptures twice and the implications that said about them as well as Joshua’s plan for them. Overall, we appreciated the message of this book but were slightly disappointed about the impact it had on us.

Memorable Meeting Moments: This was Amberly’s birthday meeting and we missed having her there very much! We discussed plans for some future meetings that will be a departure from our normal format and we’re really excited about them!