Winner of Christianity Today Book Award (Spirituality) 2006
Winner of Book of the Year (Top 10) 2006

"Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places is the pivotal work on spiritual theology we have been waiting for. Eugene Peterson allows classical theology to make its own claims for contemporary spirituality. His particular genius is to reveal these insights by peering beneath the surface to speak of deeper, eternal truths for the soul as well as the mind." (M. Craig Barnes)

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places reunites spirituality and theology in a cultural context where these two vital facets of Christian faith have been rent asunder. Lamenting the vacuous, often pagan nature of contemporary American spirituality, Eugene Peterson here firmly grounds spirituality once more in Trinitarian theology and offers a clear, practical statement of what it means to actually live out the Christian life.

Writing in the conversational style that he is well known for, Peterson boldly sweeps out the misunderstandings that clutter conversations on spiritual theology and refurnishes the subject only with what is essential. As Peterson shows, spiritual theology, in order to be at once biblical and meaningful, must remain sensitive to ordinary life, present the Christian gospel, follow the narrative of Scripture, and be rooted in the "fear of the Lord" -- in short, spiritual theology must be about God and not about us.

The foundational book in a five-volume series on spiritual theology emerging from Peterson's pen, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places provides the conceptual and directional help we all need to live the Christian gospel well and maturely in the conditions that prevail in the church and world today. (Publisher's Comments)

"Eugene Peterson keeps surprising us. It is hard to imagine where he will go next with his spiritual theology. . . His pen hugely blesses the church.
(The Christian Century)

Such a wonderful book. The final third is worth the price alone. ( )

There is a lot of good stuff in this book. Almost too much. One one hand, I like the way he expresses himself, but on the other hand, sometimes I feel he is working so hard to say something in a poetic, lyrical, creative way that he almost missed the point he was trying to make. I didn't agree with a few things he talked about, but 98 percent of the time I felt he could have been a conservative Lutheran. High praise indeed! An enjoyable book, one that has a lot of sections underlined, but most certainly not a fast or easy read. ( )

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places reunites spirituality and theology in a cultural context where these two vital facets of Christian faith have been rent asunder. Lamenting the vacuous, often pagan nature of contemporary American spirituality, Eugene Peterson here firmly grounds spirituality once more in Trinitarian theology and offers a clear, practical statement of what it means to actually live out the Christian life.

Writing in the conversational style that he is well known for, Peterson boldly sweeps out the misunderstandings that clutter conversations on spiritual theology and refurnishes the subject only with what is essential. As Peterson shows, spiritual theology, in order to be at once biblical and meaningful, must remain sensitive to ordinary life, present the Christian gospel, follow the narrative of Scripture, and be rooted in the "fear of the Lord" — in short, spiritual theology must be about God and not about us.

The foundational book in a five-volume series on spiritual theology emerging from Peterson’s pen, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places provides the conceptual and directional help we all need to live the Christian gospel well and maturely in the conditions that prevail in the church and world today. ( )

In three main sections Peterson discusses Christ in Creation, History, and Community. Each section is divided into Exploration, Kerygma, Threat, Texts, and Cultivating the Fear-of-the-Lord.

It sounds heavy, and in many ways it is. I must admit I don't see why the subtitle calls the book a "conversation", these are definitely lectures rather than conversations.

However, it is worth persevering for some great insights based on Peterson's work as a pastor, with an emphasis on how God through Christ was and through the Holy Spirit is involved in the nitty-gritty of real people's lives rather than with some super-spiritual elect and that without genuine loving relationships everything else fails. ( )