Jack Good

Jack Good is an author, writer,and retired pastor of the United Church of Christ. He served extended pastorates in Sherburne, New York, and in Champaign/Urbana Illinois. For a dozen years he was therapist of the Sherburne Area Pastoral Counseling Center. Earlier in his adult life he participated in a cultural exchange program that allowed him to live in the villages of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Dr. Good was an early member of The Center for Progressive Christianity and remains active in the organization. His book "The Dishonest Church" indicated the need for a different understanding of the faith; the volume is an exposé of the difference between what religious professional are taught in seminaries and what they preach in pulpits. The book also suggests ways a more honest faith can be shared by pastors without causing major disruptions.

Since he and many others have established the need for an interpretation of Christianity that can be sustained in the twenty-first century, Jack Good feels that the next step is to show that progressive faith can be as much at home in the heart as it is in the head. His book "Emotions and Values: Exploring the Source of Jesus' Strength and Influence" (Jt. Johann Press, 2009) depicts Jesus as a man so passionately committed to his basic values that his influence survived his death and continues to changes lives today.

Another volume, to be published late in 2010, continues the effort to reveal the spiritual as well as social impact of a faith focused on the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. Entitled "Beatitudes and Biographies" (St. Johann Press), the book consists of a meditation on each of the eight Beatitudes. Each meditation is followed by the life story of a person who has lived out the meaning of Jesus' teaching.

Dr. Good's wife, Diana, was a woman of remarkable strength and spiritual depth. She had, before her death in late 2009, a positive influence on many lives, despite the limitations imposed by multiple sclerosis. Sharing for more than fifty years in the life of this remarkable woman, and participating pastorally in the lives of many parishioners who fought debilitating diseases, has made Jack Good the enemy of all simplistic "solutions" the problem of human suffering. He also has a low opinion of the concept of an omnipotent god who causes all the events of human life.

Each of his books is an effort to bring the reader along on his spiritual journey as he shares the ideas that have formed him.