If traditional religion no longer holds you, yet you yearn for a deeply spiritual and intellectually satisfying communion with the great Mystery, this book offers the New Story, the Universe Story, that is evolving out of all that has gone before.

Author Don Murray invites us into a quantum leap of consciousness that is now happening. He takes us through the 13.7 billion years of an evolving universe and assesses where humanity is, and how we can live into a creative future. Quantum physics, depth psychology, the human journey – which includes the biblical story – provides the material with which we weave the New Story.

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“I thoroughly enjoyed your manuscript…. Love the way you bring Bhonhoeffer and Jung into the spotlight…. It puts a lot together really well. This is great stuff.” Michael Morwood, Theologian, and leader in the Progressive Christianity movement.

Book Review: Freeman Patterson’s remarks on Don’s book, The Bible Beyond Religion

Freeman Patterson is a world renowned photographer and writer, living at Shampers Bluff, NB, surrounded by the beauty of the landscape, and that created by his own hand. He has travelled the world taking photos and giving workshops, especially to Namibia, where he has been over forty times.

I always have books stacked on my kitchen hutch beside a very comfortable chair and,
no sooner had I put down Harpur than I picked up (for the second time) Don Murray’s THE BIBLE BEYOND RELIGION: Witness to the Evolution of Consciousness. Don Murray is a friend who sent me a personal copy of this, his fourth book, a year ago, but when I opened it this time I found that I couldn’t put it down. More than a few times in my life a book has arrived before I am fully ready to read it, as if the book (or its author) is waiting for me to catch up with the contents, anticipating (or at least, hoping) that I will grow enough to experience the excitement that occurs when confronted with something of great personal relevance, i.e. something that “really matters.”

Although I had no intention of discussing spirituality, religion in general, or specific religions again in this letter, after rereading Don’s book and adding numerous “post its” to the pages I felt that simply continuing the discussion from my last letter made sense. So, to quote Don Murray …

“In my view the Bible is the best witness Western civilization has to the evolution of human consciousness. From Genesis to Revelation it tells the story of a people learning how to be human. That’s my fast answer; this book is my longer answer.
I write for those with little or no knowledge of the Bible but who are interested in
knowing something of a tradition that has shaped the Western world and brought us to our present time. It is also for those with considerable biblical knowledge who are looking for a different perspective to better understand its wisdom and relevance for today.”

This is a highly readable book with each chapter composed of many short units, each focussed on essential aspects of Biblical myths. You can read at a normal pace or consider one unit at a time. The following example is from one of the units devoted to the Garden of Eden: “Eve eating the forbidden fruit is a very picturesque image of our awakening. Eve is every two-year-old saying ‘no,’ discovering that she/he has an independent will. The terrible twos are the positive signal that this child is on the way to becoming a conscious, creative, responsible human being. … Understanding the story as the dawning of human consciousness makes everything else fall into place.”

Don’s book is available in both print and digital formats from Amazon, Indigo, etc.
I should add that Don and his partner/wife Emily Kierstead (both United Church of
Canada ministers) were resource persons at one of the INSCAPE workshops that David
Maginley and I facilitate every year in New Brunswick.

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About the Author

Donald F. Murray, B.A., M.Div., M.Th.; further training in Transactional Analysis, Education Design, Group Dynamics, The School of Sacred Psychology (Jean Houston’s Mystery School), Jungian Psychology. Don is a United Church of Canada minister, educator, workshop facilitator and author enjoying retired life with his partner Emily Kierstead in Truro, Nova Scotia. He served pastorates in the Maritimes for 32 years and as a Program Director and then Executive Director of Tatamagouche Education and Spirituality Centre for 8 years. Having awakened to the-death-of-God in the early 1960s, Don has been an avid searcher. He has authored four books, For Unbelieving Christians (1987), Celebrating Eve (2001), The Death and Resurrection of God: From Christianity to the New Story (2014), and now The Bible Beyond Religion: Witness to the Evolution of Consciousness. With Emily, he enjoys their families, eight children (two deceased) and eleven grandchildren, along with fiddle playing, singing, and a passion for the emerging Universe Story.

— Visit Don’s Website here: https://donmurraybooks.ca/

— Woodlake Books (customerservice@woodlake.com)

— The author (emilydon2@gmail.com)