Rickie Lee Jones The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.

Rickie Lee Jones recently released The Sermon on Exposition Blvd. We're spending some time listening to this evening, but I'm already blown away by the concept, the sound, and the background of the album. Read the link to see what I mean.

The album is based on a book that is available on-line titled The Words by Lee Cantelon.

In the 1990's, Lee Cantelon organized the words of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, into a concise book, with the intention to make available the message of Christ to non-religious readers, persons curious about the meaning and depth of Christ's words, who found themselves alienated from organized church and religion. The result has generated a great deal of interest outside the Christian tradition, and exposed the words of Jesus to many non-traditional readers. During the process, he partnered with many Bible translators and commentary writers, from a very wide range of scholarship that reached from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, to Fuller Seminary, in Pasadena, California (with many links in between). The final product, The Words, offers the message of Christ in expressive language that is easy to understand. Improbably, the finished manuscript, following review by Vatican theologians, was granted the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, the official authorization of a theological text by the Catholic Church.