“You never say anything good about America!”

In a world of constant change, how does one balance life as an individual, as a person of faith, as a citizen? Anton K. Jacobs, author, clergyman, and professor, addressed this challenge for eight years in his bi-weekly newspaper column, My Country, My Faith, & Me. These essays treat politics, religion, the arts, culture, and ethics that counter the views of the fundamentalist religious right and our national glorification of warriorhood. Serving as a pastor while teaching philosophy, Anton Jacobs began sharing his view of life in The Record, a long-established newspaper in Kansas City, Kansas. Building on his professional career as well as his early work as a carhop and a truck driver, no topic was outside the range of his reflections. Anton’s deep understanding of the world’s great religions allows him to apply his own critical thinking and courageous questioning to the daily world around him. His essays follow the teachings of Jesus, whose parables, Jacobs maintains, “were spoken not to define a belief system, but to make us think.” The results are funny, poignant and profound. They are in line with liberal Christian thinking in a conflicted world. His timeless interpretations continue to help readers find meaning and justice in a confusing world. This book will bring smiles, questions, and perhaps even resolution to those who want to walk a path of integrity and commitment.

Anton K. Jacobs, M.Div., Ph.D., is a United Church of Christ clergyman and the Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies at Divine Word College in Epworth, Iowa. He is the author of Religion and the Critical Mind: A Journey for Seekers, Doubters, and the Curious (2012) and the co-author of Introductory Sociology: An Interactive Text (2013). Cover photo: In late June 1804 the Meriweather Lewis and William Clark party, charged by President Thomas Jefferson with exploring the Louisiana Territory, camped at the mouth of the Kansas (aka Kaw) River where it meets the Missouri River, seen here from Quality Hill in Kansas City, Missouri, a hill on which they gathered apples and shot a moose. Photo: Anton K. Jacobs (taken 113 years to the day that the Lewis and Clark explorers were camped at the mouth of the Kaw).