:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

There have been quite a few reviews of Coffeehouse Theology of late from a wide variety of perspectives. I enjoy reading what different readers take away from the book. Here’s a brief run-down.

Marta writes

Coffeehouse Theology would be a wonderful resource for someone just beginning on his walk with God and also for the experienced Christian. To understand how we came to our beliefs about God we have to understand where the beliefs came from, and to do this we have to understand the context in which each of those interpretations were made.

Pastor Floyd writes:

Those things that make us unique can influence how we read and study scripture. By balancing our understanding of scripture with our interaction with Christians from different cultures and different eras, allows them to help us grow. Then we can better understand the God who loves all mankind.

Ed Blonski writes:

We live in a very diverse world and if we are going to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with other people, we need to know something about other people and we’re going to need lots of help from other Christians.

Another thought came to mind as I was reading – “why re-invent the wheel?” It would be presumptuous boarding on arrogance to think that we as Christians today are in a unique situation. But what Solomon said is still true today – there isn’t anything new under the sun. We can learn something from what the people of God were dealing with in the past. It helps us understand Scripture and it will help us formulate the words of our message of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Stephen writes:

At best this book argues that we need other Christians from other perspectives to help us realize our own blinkers. At worst this book suggests that though there may be truth intended by God in inspired Scripture, it is essentially unknowable, and we are merely bobbing around at the mercy of the swift-moving current of culture.

In light of Stephen’s review, I’d like to add a bit of commentary here. Stephen isn’t the first reviewer to take issue with my book. I worked very hard in fact to give my book to good reviewers who I knew would not like my book. Not all of them took me up on it, but for the most part, I have sought a variety of perspectives in the reviews, and in some cases there has been some criticism of the book.

Having said that, the kind of accusation Stephen levels is disappointing to me because he makes some bold accusations and dismisses the book without citing anything in particular from the book, and in fact, he has completely missed some key points I made great pains to emphasize. I’d like to paste a few passages from the book to settle this.

For example, there’s this at the end of the chapter dealing with postmodernism:

On the plus side, we learn that we don’t have the final word on theology, we have a lot to learn from others, and we need to keep rereading the Bible in light of these findings. However, sometimes we simply need to be the unpopular ones who inform skeptics that the Bible in fact is true, God does have moral standards, and that Jesus came to earth to save us and plans on returning some day so we best take him seriously! While people in a postmodern culture don’t exactly want to hear these truths, they need to.

Not exactly bobbing around I’d say… I also provide the following summary of some key points:

We know the modern age that shaped much of our world is being replaced by a way of thinking often labeled postmodernism.

We know that postmodernism values a diversity of perspectives, correcting the modern tendency to seek an objective and universal view of the world.

We see the value of studying and reinterpreting scripture while in conversation with other Christians and our traditions, even if we stay cautious about departing from the essential doctrines of our faith.

We recognize that seeking one objective perspective of the world can silence minority voices and generally blind us to a world of possibilities.

We keep in mind that more truth exists and can be found, even if we can’t comprehend all of it from our limited perspective.

So I don’t know how anyone could read my book and arrive at his conclusions. He may not be happy to see me interacting with postmodernism, advocating for a humble and limited approach to our knowledge, and he may think I place too much emphasis on the Holy Spirit in Bible study. However, I never use the word “unknowable.”

I know, I searched the document.