It seems we are in a time where thoughtful Christians are seeking fresh ways to express timeless truths. The challenge is to neither compromise nor change the truth in the process but to convey it in a way that captures this generation’s imagination.
In Theology Remixed: Christianity as Story, Game, Language, Culture, Adam C. English[1] attempts to do just that by coming up with four analogies for expressing the content of the Christian faith:
- story
- language
- game
- culture
One thing I like is that English identifies both the ways in which each analogy works, and some of the ways that the analogy does not work or can be pressed too far. For example, while language like Christian faith is open to all people, it is unlike Christian faith in being simply a human construction. Of all the analogies, English explores the anology of story the most, which may be appropriate because so much has been done with narrative approaches to the Christian faith and it is very possible to frame our understanding of the story as having a beginning with creation, development with fall and redemption and the working out of that in history, and a conclusion in the consummation of all things.
I would have loved for the author to develop the idea of Christianity as being like culture more. These chapters were short and seemed merely to sketch further direction for this line of thought–as if the author either ran out of room or hadn’t worked this out further. I would not give this book to a young believer working out the basic contours of Christian belief but rather, I see this useful for those who teach, whether in the classroom or pulpit in thinking through fresh ways to express the coherence of Christian truth.
Notes
- Adam C. English (Ph.D., Baylor University) is an associate professor in the department of religion and philosophy at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. He has published articles and book reviews in Christian Ethics Today, Perspectives in Religious Studies and the Journal of Church and State. English is an ordained minister in the Baptist tradition and the author of The Possibility of Christian Philosophy (Rutledge, 2007). Biography from the InterVarsity Press author page. ↩
Bob Trube is Associate Director of Faculty Ministry and Director of the Emerging Scholars Network. He blogs on books regularly at bobonbooks.com. He resides in Columbus, Ohio, with Marilyn and enjoys reading, gardening, choral singing, and plein air painting.
Leave a Reply