From Eugene Peterson’s Memoir: Vocational Vigilance and Cultural Toxicity

Over the last few years, my appreciation for Eugene Peterson has grown. I find myself reading him slowly – slower than most things I read – in order to not miss the depth of the story that he shares through his writing.

Next week, Peterson’s memoir, The Pastor, will be released. The first pages of the book can be previewed online at HarperCollins.

I loved these words:

I love being an American. I love this place in which I have been placed – its language, its history, its energy. But I don’t love “the American way,” its culture and values. I don’t love the rampant consumerism that treats God as a product to be marketed. I don’t love the dehumanizing ways that turn men, women,and children into impersonal roles and causes and statistics. I don’t love the competitive spirit that treats others as rivals and even as enemies. The cultural conditions in which I am immersed require, at least for me, a kind of fierce vigilance to guard my vocation from these cultural pollutants so dangerously toxic to persons who want to follow Jesus in the way that he is Jesus.

Love it. Looking forward to reading the rest of his words.