About the Author: Gene W. Marshall

Gene Wesley Marshall began his education as a mathematician and physicist. In 1953 he decided to leave a mathematics career and attend seminary at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas. He has served as a local church pastor, a chaplain in the army, and in 1962 joined a religious order of families (the Order Ecumenical), and traveled the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, India, Hong Kong, and Australia as a teacher and lecturer of religious and social ethics topics. These trips included an in-depth study of world cultures and a vivid sense of the social conditions of the world's peoples. He was an active participant in the civil rights revolution, serving for one year as the Protestant executive of The National Conference on Religion and Race. For six years he served as dean of an eight-week residential academy that trained leadership for religious and social engagement work throughout the world. In 1984 Gene and Joyce Marshall organized a nonprofit educational organization, Realistic Living, and began publishing journals, books, and essays. The couple were also organizers of bioregionalism, a geographically sensitive form of ecological realism, radical feminism, and interreligious sensibilities. This book is Gene's eighth book-length project. Gene and Joyce live in Bonham, Texas in a straw-bale house. For more see realisticliving.org.

  • The Thinking Christian: Twenty-Three Pathways of Awareness

    By Published On: August 6, 2020

    The practice of Christianity is going through a transition that is deeper than the Reformation. The Thinking Christian explores two main questions:

  • Radical Gifts

    Living the Full Christian Life in Troubled Times

    By Published On: July 21, 2020

    We are living in the midst of a turning point in the history of Christianity that is more radical than the Reformation period, perhaps as radical as the birth of Christianity itself. This emerging form of Christianity is so new that it does not seem to be Christianity at all to many people.

  • The Infinite Silence Speaks

    By Published On: February 14, 2015

    The Infinite Silence Speaks through every rustle of tree leaves, through every singing bird, through every sound of any kind, and through the silent spaces between the sounds.

  • The Road From Empire to Eco-Democracy

    By Published On: June 15, 2012

    An examination of Social Awakenment, History-Long Vision, Holistic Social Understanding & Strategies of Transformation as viewed by five United States citizens in 2011. Though vast changes are necessary, we believe humanity can find a vision and plan of action that is both satisfying and realistic. Our aim is to fertilize the fruitful imagination and courage it will require to walk this Road to Eco-Democracy.

  • Jacob’s Dream

    A Christian Inquiry into Spirit Realization

    By Published On: June 15, 2012

    This book is about coming home to Reality as movement from identification with our personality habits to identification with our essential Spirit nature of Trust, Love, and Freedom. The enneagram analysis of personalities is used to assist us in our Spirit journey. Also described is the role that community plays in the Christian nurture of our solitary journey. We recommend Jacob’s Dream as both a devotional book for solitary time and a study book for small group life.

  • The Call of the Awe

    Rediscovering Christian Profundity in an Interreligious Era

    By Published On: June 15, 2012

    Why do we do religion? Religion appears in human life because every human being, even if not fully aware of it, lives in a land of mystery with rushing rivers of freedom, imposing mountains of care, and wild seas of tranquility. This land of mystery penetrates the land of ordinary living at every point. Awe is our experience of this ever-present Eternity.This book is about how the Awe that is happening in our everyday lives is key to understanding both the renewal of Christianity and the need for non-bigoted dialogue among all religions on Earth.

  • God and Progressive Christianity

    By Published On: September 3, 2007

    Progressive Christians are achieving great clarity about the historical development of the Bible and about viewing biblical passages in a metaphorical rather than a literal way. Using the word "God," however, continues to be an area of unclarity and outright confusion.