Our friend, Jeffrey Munroe, has recently published a book titled, Reading Buechner: exploring the work of a master memoirist, novelist, theologian, and preacher.
Here are some of Dr. Munroe’s thoughts on Telling the Truth:
‘Telling the Truth is the book that launched my journey with Frederick Buechner. I was taken off-guard immediately as Buechner jumps in with a description of Henry Ward Beecher, awash in scandal, cutting himself shaving and writing the text of the inaugural Beecher lecture in blood. Then I was absolutely hooked by Buechner’s account of Pontius Pilate resolving to quit smoking the morning of that memorable day he met Jesus. Buechner inserts several anachronisms in Pilate’s story: although Pilate is a three-pack-a-day man, he has read the surgeon general’s warning and taken it to heart; he is driven to his office in a limousine; he talks to his wife (who is subject to troubling dreams) on the phone … and then, in the middle of Pilate’s ordinary day, an upcountry messiah is brought in for questioning. Before he can stop himself, Pilate has lit a cigarette, and when this man with the split lip and swollen eye tells Pilate, “I’ve come to bear witness to the truth,” Pilate “takes such a deep drag on his filter tip that his head swims and for a moment he’s afraid he may faint.”’ (p.138)
-Jeffrey Munroe on Buechner’s sixth non-fiction work, Telling the Truth (1977)
Reading Buechner: exploring the work of a master memoirist, novelist, theologian, and preacher has been published by IVP, and is available to view here: https://www.ivpress.com/reading-buechner
