• A new book coming August 13, 2024!

     

    A Journey Called Hope:

    Today’s Immigrant Stories and the American Dream

    by Rick Rouse

    Forward by Rick Steves

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    From the publisher at Chalice Press:

     

    While the American story aspires to be the story of welcome and refuge for all, our history often tells a different story. As wars are raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, creating millions of refugees merely seeking safety, American politics remains so polarized that the government appears deadlocked or unable to act on meaningful solutions to immigration policies.

     

    In A Journey Called Hope, author Rick Rouse shares the stories of immigrants from around the world to America — their successes, hopes, challenges, and dreams. He explores how we can share our planet with the understanding that it is a matter of human dignity for all people to have a safe place to call home. In sharing these inspiring stories and hope-filled futures, Rouse assures us the United States is still a nation of promise made richer by its diversity.

     

    A Journey Called Hope is available to pre-order from Amazon. It will be published on August 13, 2024.

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    The World is About to Turn:

    Mending a Nation's Broken Faith

     

    by Rick Rouse & Paul O. Ingram

    Published November 2020

  • About "The World is About to Turn"

    America is experiencing a time of crisis where its citizens are greatly polarized and where the ideals of religion and patriotism are weaponized rather than celebrated.

     

    The malicious rhetoric of politicians and others appears to have given alarming rise to the number of hate crimes in this country including the murder of worshippers in our houses of worship. It appears that the country has lost its soul or at least its moral compass. People seem to have lost faith in most institutions, including the government and the Church. Yet faith communities are intended to be agents of transformation and of hope.

     

    The authors, Rick Rouse and Paul Ingram, expose the underbelly of religious intolerance and then lift up a vision for a more civil and generous society.

     

    Using the Judeo-Christian scriptures along with writings from a variety of other faith traditions and contemporary theologians, we explore a way forward for people of all faiths to find common ground for a life of mutual respect and care for one another. The authors offer a Biblical and inter-religious approach to the question of “how does God intend for us to live well together in the common life?”

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    For individual reading, small groups or classrooms

    This book was written to help people, no matter what their faith tradition, think about and explore options for mending our nation through listening to one another and working together to do good in the world.

     

    At the end of each chapter, there are discussion questions to stimulate individual thinking. They may also be used in classes and other groups for deep listening, conversation and planning for working together to provide healing by drawing people of different backgrounds and faiths together.

     

    It is the authors' hope and prayer that this book will help people stand up against people and institutions that threaten to break down the fibre of our society and work in partnership for good.

  • A word about "The World is About to Turn"

    from The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry

    Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church

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    “Dr. King once warned that ‘we will either live together as brothers & sisters, or perish together as fools; the choice is ours, chaos or community.’ In this new work, which authors Rick Rouse and Paul Ingram describe as a ‘guidebook,’ they reveal a glimpse into the chaos that has been part of our nation's life, while offering an intentional way to make a difference and create a true community that is God's dream for us."

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    Table of Contents (click to download PDF)

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    A Review of "The World is About to Turn" in the Living Lutheran magazine

    January/February 2021 issue, page 44