Description: Can Christians be spiritual and religious? Do they even know the difference between the two? Through a guide for guardian angels entering into basic training for service to womankind, Bound, an Earth Walker's handbook overhauls Western Christianity with integrity and clarity. Tackling subjects such as hypocrisy, racial prejudice, and misogyny, Bound cuts traditional religion back to its healthy roots: love, rigorous honesty, and fellowship. It then draws from contemporary sources, modern science, and an intriguing third-party perspective to graft openness, inclusiveness, and diversity, yielding an authentic way to be Christian today. Written for the layperson by a layperson, readers will appreciate Charles S. Stone's use of fantasy, humor, and novelty to capture insights that evoke that gratifying sense of aha! about good and evil, humanity, and salvation--ultimately seeking to answer life's most basic questions: What is God? Who are we? How should we live? Endorsements: I have loved Bound since the day I first saw it in early manuscript form two years ago. Imaginative theologically, and charming as well as rigorous, Bound is the best example I have ever seen of riveting and holy fun. This is one book I can enthusiastically recommend to every Christian friend I have. Try it; you'll love it too. --Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence Probably the most imaginative attempt ever to differentiate the spiritually counterfeit precepts put forth by so many of our religious institutions from actual spiritual truth. Stone's training manual for a highly select brigade of angels being sent to earth to save humans from their own religious foibles will keep readers laughing--all the while delivering an enlightening perspective on a 'bigger spiritual story' than is told in most churches. Don't miss this engaging read! --Margaret Placentra Johnston, author of Faith Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind Bound offers a fresh take on an ancient faith. Intriguing, creative, and inventive! --Philip Gulley, author of The Evolution of Faith In the spirit of Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, Stone provides for believers today a fresh and insightful guide for succeeding in the all-too-real day-to-day struggles we all face in confronting the sin that lies within each of our hearts. . . . Those wishing to win the battle of the spirit would therefore do well to take on Bound as their own personal guidebook. --Mark H. Mann, Professor of Theology, Point Loma Nazarene University About the Contributor(s): Charles Stone began his professional life as a West Point graduate leading a tank platoon in Desert Storm under the command of General Norman Schwarzkopf. Faced with his own mortality on the battlefields of Iraq, he began to closely examine his inherited religious faith, embarking on what became a twenty-year layman's study of religion, spirituality, and philosophy. He currently lives near Washington, DC, with his wife, Mary.
