discussion guides

Ready for Downloading and Printing

The book is alive and well. There are thousands of small book clubs and book discussion groups across the United States. Friends (and even strangers) meet together on a regular basis to read and discuss good books. This enhances their reading enjoyment, offers them an opportunity to increase their understanding of important issues of the day, and allows them to share enthusiasm for really great work. Just getting together with new friends for lively discussions has also proved to be a lot of fun.

These small book clubs and book discussion groups represent a new and vibrant activity, especially in today’s media-rich age. And we want to do our part both to encourage those that already are meeting, and also to encourage others to form a book discussion group. Your local bookstore will be delighted to help you get started.

To help with discussion of an important and timely work of non-fiction, our own Bondage of the Mind: How Old Testament Fundamentalism Shackles the Mind and Enslaves the Spirit, we have prepared a Discussion Guide for you to download that outlines seven key topics covered in the book:

There are specific questions for the reader to answer under each topic, questions that will encourage thought and discussion. There are no “right” answers – only new ways of looking at ideas that are important, in some way, to each of us.

There are two Discussion Guides, but the seven topics and the questions are identical. One guide is aimed at book clubs and book discussion groups. The other is offered as a teaching and study guide for the upper grades in synagogue or church religious school classes, as well as their adult education programs. Which one you download and print out will depend on the use to which you intend to put the Discussion Guide. The only difference is in the opening paragraph.

To download and print out your Discussion Guides, please click on the version that meets your needs: