In All Things Goodness
In All Things Goodness: A Christian Vision for the 21st Century

Lyn Clark is an assistant editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

An Anglican priest in the Diocese of Niagara and a former principal of
the Centre for Christian Studies in Toronto, Gertrude Lebans writes that
it is “time for the church to move or be left behind, as the Spirit
moves in all humanity to bring about a new day.” What is in question
is what to believe. We need, she says, to go deeper in our belief system
in order to “adapt the first century metaphors and cosmology to a 21st
century consciousness.”

To facilitate new ways of thinking about life and faith, Lebans melds
biblical wisdom with her own thoughts and those of contemporary writers
such as Matthew Fox, Rupert Sheldrake, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas
Merton, Barbara Walker, Elaine Scarry, Susan Griffin, and Elaine Pagels.
Goodness, for instance, sheds its former meaning of behaviour to take on
the fundamental meaning of being alive, whole, and holy. In change
(learning) there is wisdom; in suffering there is wholeness; with
repentance comes compassion.

This short book would be a useful reference for postmodern scholars and
clerics of all Christian faiths. For those who keep journals, the final
chapter consists of spiritual exercises based on each of the five
previous chapters. In All Things Goodness is a book that readers should
revisit again and again in order to absorb the wisdom it contains.