Why does God use fallen, broken people to speak for him? A review essay by Timothy T. N. Lim about Os Guinness’ 2015 book, Fool’s Talk, and how followers of Jesus can and should talk about God in the public square.

Introduction

How can the vocation and the craft of Christian apologists be reclaimed after decades of lambast against apologetics, as an inquiry of integrity, in the academia and scores of morally-discredited Christian leaders, pastors and apologists in recent centuries? Why bother with defending absolute truth in an age of hyper-pluralism? One professor in an Ivy-league business programme suggests to me that believing in Christianity in an age of science and hyper-plurality is equivalent to holding on to a garbage of past superstition. Many of us can think of highly educated folks who challenge the validity of subscribing to the Christian faith. Can faith in God be defended? Is there still a role for Christian apologetics, which the veteran apologist Douglas Groothuis calls, “a public voice for truth and reason in the marketplace of ideas”[1] in an age of autonomy, sensuality, and plurality?

Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2015).

We mourn, and we grieve. Notwithstanding, I hope to support the credibility of a vocation in Christian persuasion in this essay. For the task, a review of American Christian apologist OS Guinness’ book Fool’s Talk will provide an advocacy in that direction.[6] Although Guinness does not call the project a handbook for apologists, Fool’s Talk will inspire and challenge prospective apologists (laity or professional) to join the vocation, and to pursue their vocation with integrity. The book is as he confesses, the fruit of a lifetime of engagement in apologetics, what he acknowledges as “the fruit of nearly fifty years of thinking, thousands of conversations, innumerable talks and lectures, countless books read, and endless lessons learned [read, mistakes made]…” (p. 255). Its sources are innumerably rich: Guinness’ retrieval of C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer (and L’ Abri Fellowship), and particularly Peter L. Berger (whom he dedicated the book to), and the Veritas Forum, as well as his engagement with ideologies of philosophers, socio-political thinkers, and public intellectuals of various persuasions across millenniums, reminds all aspiring apologists the necessity of reading widely. The 272-page book reminds learners the essence, the craft and pitfalls (to avoid), and the milestones to chart with seekers in Christian persuasion which I will review shortly.

Essence

In a nutshell, Guinness coins “Christian persuasion” as a catchword for apologetics. But do not be mistaken, apologetics is not merely a field that only professional apologists or academics dabble into, but “a lost art” and a core of discipleship for those seeking fidelity in the Christian faith (p. 37). And unlike popular misunderstandings about the Christian defense of truth via apologetics, Guinness explains that persuasion with integrity in the Christian spirit relies neither on techniques alone nor on manipulative tricks and arguments (chapters 2 and 9); rather than working on improving the logos, ethos and pathos of standard courses in apologetics, it advocates providing “honest answers for honest questions” (p.37-38). Guinness urges apologists to attend to people’s heart, mind, and unique concerns (p. 4) while guiding listeners to the five, cardinal truths of the Christian faith reflectively, consistently, and prophetically (p. 26-27). Guinness’ five cardinal truths refer to biblical teachings about creation, the fall, incarnation, the cross, and the Spirit of God.

Persuasion in the Christian spirit, may I add, is less dependent on the agent’s wit and ability and much more dependent (or should I say, utterly dependent) on God who can best defend God’s self and truth (chapter 3) and who calls hearers in providential seasons (chapter 7). Otherwise, aspiring apologists may find themselves blindsided by their intellectual ability, which Guinness has observed: “The cleverer the mind, the slipperier the heart, and the more sophisticated the education, the subtler the rationalization. Erudition leads conviction to self-deception.” (p. 80). Worse still, if apologists depend only on their wit, these agents may fall into “a dangerous game” of playing politics, believing in politics’ power to change society, when they merely join the ranks of ruining societies with their attempts to manage vices (p. 198).

The Craft and the Pitfalls to Avoid

Guinness’ book is filled with wisdom, beginning with what to avoid as he then teases out the craft.

The quest to close the deal expediently by improving the skill and the use of yet better methods and techniques is for Guinness “the devil’s bait” (chapter 2, p. 30). Beware, no technique is ever neutral (p. 41). The “myth of progress” lies beneath the drive (and seduction) to procure the latest fad or to acquire a yet better method (pp. 30-32). Methods are not just instruments to be employed to achieve goals. Method needs to commensurate with what it serves: the message (p. 41).

The temptation to be well-liked, including to put up with falsehood and promiscuity by embracing prevailing politically-correct, relativistic ideologies and the abandoning of moral authority, will undercut the integrity and the message of Christian apologetics. Guinness validates the subversive approach of “fool-making” in Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly (1511) as a helpful paradigm for the present messy milieu. Apologists’ must be ready to be seen as a fool, treated as “fools for God” (chapter 4; 1 Corinthians 4) and face aggression to prick at folly of not believing in God and subvert the pride of the human heart of compromise against God and faith (p. 63). Instead of the seduction of win over the world, apologists should endeavour to prefer and follow the audience of the One God! (p. 70).

Apologists who are skilled in their craft comprehend the “anatomy of unbelief” (chapter 5). They distinguish truth-seekers from truth-twisters. The former will conform their thinking to reality, whereas the latter will try to explain reality to conform to their thoughts (p. 84). Truth-twisters employ one of four methods of “abuses”: silencing and suppressing truth deliberately, exploiting truth for their own agenda deliberately, inverting truth deliberately, or intentionally deceiving others – which increases their capacity for self-deception (pp. 84-93). The unbelieving worldview, in its rejection of God and reality, will always be in tension between truth and partial truth (part-falsehood) (pp. 94). Accordingly, unbelievers will face either of two poles: the lesser travelled and yet more courageous option of struggling with the dilemma which arises when they do not consistently live out their rejection of God, or the more preferred option of diversion (“empty phantoms” or “busyness”) which they would have to create so as to distract and comfort themselves for remaining in their state of unbelief away from God’s reality (pp. 96-99). Skilful apologists diagnosed that the course of diversion is futility and destruction (pp. 101-103).

Apologists ought to pay attention to the gradual and prolonged signs of God at work in communicants: via arousing desires, invoking fears, igniting joys, and responding to grief (p. 136). Working not just with words but also through our lives, skilful apologists invite communicants “to hear, to listen, and to understand these signs and then to help them follow to where they lead” (p. 147); in so doing, apologists help communicants trigger their tastes for the divine in their lives (chapter 7).

Truth, character, and virtue go together. So contrary to negative perception that apologetics is about winning arguments, a cardinal rule in apologetics is as Guinness tells it, stay away from the “deadly trap” of needing to win and be right, and avoid manipulating truth (pp. 170, 185). Instead, let truth itself persuade and indict inquirers (chapter 9). Be sure that we, communicators of the gospel, are “shaped by the very truth that we proclaim”, yielded to “the One who sends us”, and accordingly, reorder our style of communication inasmuch as we work on the substantive contents of our message (p. 175). Guinness raises searching questions for apologists and aspirants: do we love enough to listen, or do we merely love to hear our own answers? Are we arguing for Christ, or are we expressing our need to be right? Are we defending Christ, or are we defending our concerns, for ourselves, and for our standing in community? The caution: do not turn on the heels of the truth we seek to defend (p. 179). Virtuous authenticity sums up the cardinal rule (and by the way, Guinness did not use “cardinal rule” to frame the rejoinder to “boomerangs” and would-be “Judases”).

Continuing with the rejoinder, Guinness’ chapters 10 and 11 examines the often, ignored element that impaired the ministry of apologists (lay and professional): an inconsistent life that masks vices (such as pride and standing in community, which betrays one’s unhealthy self-love) as virtue so as to receive the approval it seeks (p. 198). At a time when Christian advocacy (persuasion) is urgently needed, the “deadliest challenges to the faith” are the hypocrisy, toxicity, cynicism, syncretism, and “revisionist faith” within the church (pp. 187, 210, 225). “Cowardice and compromises within the church” coupled with poor understanding of apologetics have led people dismissing apologetics as “an unworthy and a wrongheaded enterprise” (pp. 210-211). The way forward is then to return and repent from “false behaviours” and “false teachings” inside the church (pp. 212, 218).

Charting a Journey towards faith

Guinness concludes the book with its objective. He writes: “as apologists we should ponder the journey toward faith and know how it progresses as well as its principles and its pitfalls along the way … our task is to be skilled guides for the journey to faith … so that we may each become trustworthy guides to those we meet who are at any stage of their search.” (p.231).

Retrieving from his earlier book, Long Journey Home (WaterBrook Press, 2001), he presses home four stages of “a thinking person’s journey toward faith” (p. 232), which he emphasized is not to be read as either “a new four-step apologetic method” or a “four-rung ladder of ascent … toward God.” These stages are also not a consistent path, for each will progress, stay put, or regress in the searchers’ own uniquely, personal and unhurried pace, and not necessarily in a straight line.

A time for questions emerges when a person’s “previous sense of the meaning of life is thrown into question.” The cause could be from storms and stresses of life, or passages and seasons of life, or unfolding of a grand historical event, thereby leading the person to recognize the inadequacy of present worldviews and so propel the search for better answers. The focus is the source from which the person derives identity, purpose, ethics, and community. The apologist listens to the person’s story with love, and seeks to understand the seeker’s heart-treasures, burning question, and direction of the search.

Next is a time for discovering “conceptual” answers to the burning question. Apologists will “engage in discussions of ideas on its own level” (p. 237), recognizing the critical importance of ideas and worldviews. Once adopted, these worldviews and beliefs, which carry eternal consequence (of salvation or damnation), will enable the seeker to perceive and experience reality in a radically different way. Through comparison (including comparative religions of “family of faiths”) skilful apologists will focus on helping seekers find “solid reasons” for belief, and the “key” that fits or the “switch” that turns on the light to their burning life question. Guinness also registers that issues of human dignity (and worth) and the problem of evil and suffering have troubled many people.

The third stage is a time for gathering evidences or justification for faith. Seekers are preoccupied with honest investigation of truth claims, claims of Jesus and the gospel, and the conviction for believing in the Christian faith. At this stage, apologists are prepared to offer “much needed explanations and caring encouragement.” And instead of falling for what Guinness calls, the futility of contemporary apologetics which fights battles leaning on either evidentialist approach or presuppositionalist approach, Guinness reminds that both spectrums play out in the first three stages of a thinking person’s journey toward faith, and a sharp apologist goes to work without accepting the modernist condemnation of the Christian faith as an embarrassment. Instead, truth carries consequences for life and the “Christian faith stands and falls unashamedly by its claim to truth” (p. 247).

The previous three stages will culminate at a time, and with a step for making personal commitments for seekers “to place their trust wholeheartedly in God” (p. 247). Guinness reminds apologists that this final step however is only half the story as it merely describes reception of truth from the side of the seeker. The most important part is what follows: to pray for seekers to yield to “the Spirit of God… the Senior Counsel and the lead apologist” who takes the lead “in attracting, convincing and convicting seekers,” thereby enabling the seeker to progress from investigating to deciding, and finally experiencing the One who reveals, seeks, and loves the seeker (p. 248). The work of being apologists is to participate in God’s gift of grace with love: “without God, we cannot know God” (p. 248). Without love in the endeavours of apologists, all persuasions, arguments and witness will fail to introduce others to the Person who is love and who so loves seekers! And without reason, commitment will fail to silence “the charge of fideism, a belief without reason and against all reason,” which in no way represents warranted Christian faith that has been upheld by “the most brilliant minds of the centuries”, including “the most brilliant philosophical minds of our age” (pp. 249-250). Here, Guinness unravels one last pitfall facing apologists, the apathetic who presumed that they have arrived and thus showed no interest in an “examined life” and the inquirer who instead of coming home takes their passion onto an unending search for meaning without landing (p. 251). Skilful apologists recognizes then just as commitment ends the journey in search for meaning for seekers, it begins the deeper and more meaningful journey of knowing and experiencing God with us now as “brothers and sisters on the long way home” (p. 252)!

Conclusion

Returning to what I have introduced at the beginning of this review essay, can Christian apologetics and the vocation of Christian apologists be defended after one internationally-esteemed advocate has been discredited and found to be “twice-dead”[7]?

With many books on apologetics available in the market, Guinness’ many rejoinders for Christians living amid a generation given to quick fixes, mass distraction and rapid plurality will be engraved in the hearts of readers, and for that reason, Guinness’ Fool’s Talk can also be read profitably by those who are unsure of where their conscience is taking them. I would venture to even speculate that readers who may not agree with Guinness’ advise against the use of techniques and methods would also have to give due consideration to his subtle and weighty correction unless critics totally dispenses with the logos, pathos, and ethos of Guinness’ plea in the book. To these, readers may also pick out more direct apologetical approaches. The British pen of Alister E. McGrath describes “gateways for apologetics”: explanation, argument, stories, and images in Mere Apologetics (Baker Books, 2012) [Editor’s note: see Bradford McCall’s review]. There is also Paul M. Gould’s use of a web of imagination, reason, conscience, and a society disenchanted with the Christian worldview to create a re-enchantment for Christianity in his Cultural Apologetics (Zondervan, 2019).

In conclusion, apologetics will continue to have a glorious ministry in spite and despite of its agents’ failings, which we all are prone to fail to some lesser or greater degrees. The phenomenon of “fallen” leadership recurs more frequently than has been publicized or studied. Disequilibrium hangs dangerously on the edge of anyone called to public vocations, and if not submitted under the tutelage of Christ and the Spirit in accountable relationships, cracks in a private life risk discrediting and tarnishing the person’s life, work, and ministry besides incurring rippled damages.[9] Still, the future of apologetics remains glorious because its glory rests on the God who summons, calls and invites those who would come, hear, taste, see, experience, and commit. May we hear the sharp, thundering and still small whispers and voice of God so radiantly in an age that is inclined towards the voice of social media, popularity, and power in all its forms.

PR

Publisher’s page for Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: https://www.ivpress.com/fool-s-talk

Notes

[1] Douglas Groothuis, “Apologetics: Six Enemies of Apologetic Engagement,” CRI, 30 March 2009: https://www.equip.org/article/apologetics-six-enemies-of-apologetic-engagement/

[2] “Open Letter…”, and “Why Make Public a Private Investigation,” RZIM, February 2021:  https://www.rzim.org/read/rzim-updates/board-statement; and https://www.rzim.org/read/rzim-updates/theological-statement

[3] Lynsey M. Barron, and William P. Eiselstein, Report, Miller & Martin PLLC, 9 February 2021: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rzimmedia.rzim.org/assets/downloads/Report-of-Investigation.pdf

[4] E.g., anonymous, “In Defense of Ravi Zacharias,” Mount Carmel, 14 May 2020: https://mountcarmelapologetics.com/2020/05/14/in-defense-of-ravi-zacharias/

[5] E.g., Steve Baughman, “RaiWatch…”: http://www.raviwatch.com/

[6] Os Guinness. Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2015). For a video summary, see OS Guinness’ “Creative Subversion in the Grand Age of Apologetics,” 22 January 2015, at Wheaton College:  http://osguinness.com/video/creative-subversion-in-the-grand-age-of-apologetics/

[7] Douglas Groothuis, “Apologetics After the Two Deaths of Ravi Zacharias,” 19 February 2021: https://douglasgroothuis.com/2021/02/19/apologetics-after-the-two-deaths-of-ravi-zacharias/. While Groothuis faulted Zacharias for ethos (credibility), he recognized the soundness of Zacharias’ method of using logos and pathos: “the 3.4.5 Grid” of asking the logical consistency of a worldview, the factual empirical adequacy of a worldview, and the existential quality of a worldview for living with meaning in life and at death. The arguments presented by Zacharias were not unique to Zacharias, and can stand the test of logos. The intrinsic irresistibility of the gospel is despite the immorality of the human messenger. Rather, by remaining accountable to God and others may we not strike another blow to the truth we submits to and witnesses for.

[8] And with what we now know of his duplicitous life, what was Zacharias’ state when he shared his address at the opening of the Zacharias Institute, RZIM’s global headquarters at Atlanta, GA in June 2018, with OS Guinness and Edmund Chan: did he condemn himself, or was it a cry for help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ciUFFINbk

[9] As to whether fallen leaders can be restored, posthumously or not, see my forthcoming essay in Sacra Testamentum 3, edited by Kevaughn Mattis (submitted in October 2020).

In the book under review, Ronald Sider provides an alternative to the just war vs. pacifism discussion. Just war activists will accept “killing as the last resort” to overcome or end an oppressive, dictatorial regime. Pacifists would risk death in nonviolent confrontation and demonstration to bring about social and/or political change. Still, the just war vs. pacifism argument is unable to generate sustained social/political reconciliation, claims the president emeritus of Evangelical for Social Action and distinguished theology and ethics professor at Palmer Theological Seminary. With many examples, Sider shows that the twentieth century has become the “bloodiest of human history” (xiv). More importantly, Sider draws from a number of historical exemplars to encourage the pursuit of a just war policy that will also grant preference for nonviolent action where possible. Essentially, he invites Christians to head a call to nonviolent social action.

To be clear, Sider’s position of nonviolent action is not the same as passive nonresistance. As he puts it, coercion need not always be violent. In his view, nonlethal coercion (or a boycott or peaceful march) is not immoral or violent. Rather, nonviolence employs strategies and methods of persuasion. Some nonviolent strategies are verbal appeals. Others strategies are symbolic persuasion through forms of social, economic, and political noncooperation, boycotts, and strikes. Sider acknowledges his credit to Gene Sharp’s classic The Politics of Nonviolent Action, 3 volumes (Porter Sargent, 1973). He also credits William James as an antecedent to modern peacekeeping among other contributions (8). And without rigidly following the one hundred and ninety-eight tactics developed by Sharp, Sider explains: “concrete situations demand a unique mix of tactics” (xvi). Conceptually, nonviolent activists will respect opponents as they promote their cause. Self-sacrifice may be a necessary path.

Sider may have offered a too optimistic account of the history of successful nonviolence movement. For instance, if nonviolence as a paradigm has been truly effective, why is it that the World Wars in the twentieth century, and the genocide of Jews under Adolf Hitler’s regime could persist for so long before their eventual defeat (see Sider’s account, pp.8-11)? War and ethical historians may quibble with Sider’s brief treatment. Still, if one takes a macro-view of Christian attempts at justice, peace, and reconciliation projects, it is not too hard to follow and even agree with Sider’s basic thesis. Nonviolent action done right is better able to end dictatorship and social political oppression than aggressive, militaristic efforts to overthrow a regime.

Can Evangelicals unite amid its constituencies’ diverse denominational affiliation? Nine North American religious scholars from the Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal and Presbyterian denominations explain how their own confessional membership supports their corollary belonging as Evangelicals. Of the contributions, seven of all nine professors were presidents and deans of schools in theological educational at the time the volume was published, and so this volume carries implicit weight coming from the personal reflection of senior administrators and leaders in their respective ecclesiastical theological education institutions.

Byron D. Klaus on the cover of his book, And That’s the Way I See It!: Reflective commentary on contemporary issues (2013).

Readers will learn about navigating denominational identity, evangelical affiliation, and how their dual traditioning relates with the historic Christian faith. The last essay in the volume reviews the historical developments, the contemporary challenges, and the global opportunities for the renewing denominations. Baptist David Dockery explains how those who seek to renew their denominations do so by their emphasis not so much on theological distinctives but by their anchor and practice on denominational polity, liturgical practice. Indirectly, Dockery’s essay also encourages the traditions to become more trans-generational and transcontinental while maintaining fidelity to the historic Christian faith in doctrine and in its gospel-centered mission (pp. 209-232).

The Reverend Dr. Jørgensen’s Equipping for Service is a substantially revised version of two of his earlier teaching modules: his manual, Equipping for Service (1995) and his Norwegian book translated as Vision and Every Day Life: Leadership in Mission and Congregation (1991). Unlike the earlier two projects, this version marries scholarly research on leadership and management, as well as biblical and practical ministry studies, with an applied focus on developing leaders in church and society. Though written as a scholarly contribution and the ideas are expressed in a manner familiar to an academic readership, the book is clearly not written for scholars. His intended audience includes practicing and aspiring missional leaders, pastors, elders, deacons, and community leaders in civil society. Readers will find reflective experiences scattered throughout his rigorous treatment of theories and models on leadership, strategic planning, management, organizational structure, behavioral consideration and leadership training.

Jørgensen is no mere theorist. The project is backed by his varied experience as i) chair of the Edinburgh 2010 study process monitoring group, ii) directorship of Scandinavian mission foundation Areopagos and Radio Voice of the Gospel in Ethopia, iii) executive secretariat for communications with the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva, iv) deanship at Mekane Yesus Seminary in Addis Abaha, Tao Fong Shan in Hong Kong, and v) adjunct professorships in MF Norwegian School of Theology and Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong.

Upon analyzing the crisis of leadership in church and society, Jørgensen proposes that churches urgently need leadership, and sustainable leadership development for professionals and laypeople. While he agrees that administrators and managers hold important roles, Jørgensen also claims that “people with values, credibility, visions and perspectives, who walk in front and show the way, who are able to inspire our hearts” are the ones truly able to “hold back the forces of evil in cities and nations” (pp. 1-2). Jørgensen bemoans the churches are “training helpers… to relieve the pastors and leaders of some of ‘their’ tasks, like house visiting, evangelism, Sunday school” when they ought to be nurturing leaders in their own right” (pp. 2-3).

Studying the definitions of leadership and influence, he shows how these definitions reflect various leadership theories and models – such as trait theory, great events theory, abilities and qualifications theory, situation and transactional model, transformational leadership, and various theories of leadership and management behavior plotted on a grid – country-club management, team management, middle-of-the-road management, impoverished management, and authority-compliance management, and theories on leadership style and situations – of whether task and/or relational focus, of decision styles – delegating, participating, selling or telling (ch. 2). Key elements include, leadership role (e.g., proven through ability, education and experience?), leadership behavior (e.g., being task-oriented), and leadership style (e.g., showing vulnerability).

The volume under review presents a compelling case for a Protestant reception of a literal heaven and hell (not metaphorical torment), and an afterlife, and it reads as a breath of fresh air, especially in a contemporary religious cum cultural climate that tends to sideline or dismiss the aforementioned topic. In eight chapters besides an introduction and a conclusion, the book distills for a popular readership the Houston Baptist University philosopher Jerry Walls’ academic trilogy – Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame University Press, 1992) [Editor’s note: read a physicist’s in-depth review], Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy (Oxford University Press, 2002), Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford University Press, 2012). The book under review also examines corollary conversations, such as the intricate relationship between the trinity, the meaning of life, the nature of personal identity, the intricacies of sin and salvation, the problem of evil, the wideness of divine mercy, and the contemporary foundations of moral philosophy behind human decision-making.

At last! A reliable and accessible book on philosophical hermeneutics for pastors, seminarians, and Christians, who may know little about the philosophy of interpretation.

Merold Westphal is a distinguished professor of philosophy, postmodernism and ontological theology at Fordham University. In this book, he demonstrates that key lessons in the development of philosophical hermeneutics—from Frederick Schleiermacher to Hans-Georg Gadamer—can enrich Bible reading, whether studied professionally by a theologian, expounded orally by a church leader, or read devotionally by a Christian.

Underlying Westphal’s concise treatment is the argument that postmodern philosophical perspectives on hermeneutics (which some believed to be only a faddish ideology) can contribute to the churches’ quest for rightly reading and understanding Scripture. As the series editor James K.A. Smith introduces in the foreword, Westphal makes careful distinction between the “relativity of finitude” (recognizing that our interpretations are deeply affected to our finite and relative understandings) and “an absolute ‘anything goes’ relativism.”

Postmodern approaches to interpretation have led some to feel “hermeneutical despair” while the opposite extreme could be described as “hermeneutical arrogance,” those that believe pure truth can be received without mediation. Westphal’s nuanced treatment will help Christians navigate between such despair or arrogance, and because of that, Whose Community? Which Interpretation? “is a gift for the Church” (p.11).

Westphal explains there is a myth that goes like this: to read the Bible “plainly” is to read it correctly, but those that “interpret” the Bible read it incorrectly because their methods predispose them to a subjective bias. However, can a reflective reader really preserve the objectivity of the biblical message yet ignore the mediatory role and pre-understandings they brings to the text? In reality, because we are finite beings, we will not have infinite and total knowledge. Westphal shows that from Schleiermacher, a reader will approach texts with presuppositions, and often these assumptions are fed to us from our “hermeneutical circle.” We have to learn to hear the author, including their psychological state, and not just the subject. We have also to learn to see how the different context is dependent on the larger contexts. From Dilthey, we learn that rules help overcome some levels of subjectivity in our readings although many scholars remained critical about any supposed “universal validity of objective/scientific” methodology. From continental philosophers (like Heidegger, Riccoeur and Gadamer), we learn that, to a large extent we are all relativistic in our interpretations: we never interpret “out of nowhere” but from our respective “locations” (not limited geographically), and even at conversion, we read texts from a prior location of “somewhere” ideologically to another ideological position “somewhere else” (p.36). These locations are what philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer calls, “our throwness – the immersion and formation of our consciousness and pre-understandings” (p.70) and “historically-effected-consciousness” (p.74), and in which as readers, we later introduce “a fusion of horizons” (p.107) into our readings, drawing from our respective traditions and backgrounds as well as the many other horizons that interface with our interpretation (ch. 6). I will return to Westphal’s review of Gadamer shortly. From Reformed philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff’s reading of J. Austin’s speech-act theory, we learn that language is a performance subjected to moral and legal norms operating under certain circumstances, so while we may arrive at a fixed authorial meaning, we cannot necessarily conclude towards an authorial intent.

Jens Zimmermann, Incarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World, Strategic Initiatives in Evangelical Theology(Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 357 pages, ISBN 9780830839032.

Trinity Western University (Langley, British Columbia) Canadian research chair of Interpretation, Religion and Culture, Jens Zimmermann, argues that mainstream discourses on humanism are grounded in the religious reality of Christianity. He further proposes to read Christian humanism as the root of the western cultural heritage. With sources from the Greco-Roman antecedents, patristic, medieval, renaissance, and post-renaissance thinkers (chapters two and three) he corrects the dominant reading of humanism as an anti-Christian project of secularism in western intellectual history, especially found in the works of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Levinas, and Gianni Vattimo. These later thinkers were the focus of chapters four and five, even as Zimmermann also re-reads Marion’s phenomenology in light of Thomist and Barthian ontological emphasis, and with insights also to correct the works of contemporary philosophical hermeneuticians such as Richard Kearney and John Caputo in chapter five. Significant personalities mentioned in chapters two and three include Jesus Christ, Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Vico, Dilthey, and Gadamer. Chapter one provides an overlay of the current malaise of secularized western culture and its recent continental proposal about the return of religion, and argues that the exhaustion of secularism is because western civilization has cast aside its Christian roots. Theologians of culture would want to pay attention to the final chapter whereby he explains how transcendence and immanence meet as God’s presence in the world and in the church, with the Eucharist and the Sacrament of the Word understood as the heart of the Church and of incarnational humanism. Apologists and church leaders will find this publication a helpful reference, if they are not familiar with the primary canvass of secular humanism in western philosophy. Students in the philosophy of culture, cultural theological anthropology, or the ideological engagement of gospel and culture may find the introduction a good preliminary review. I suspect that scholars of religious interdisciplinarity would find the publication too concise, unless they read it with its companion-volume, Humanism and Religion (Oxford University Pres, 2012).

In Let the Bones Dance, ordained theologian-in-residence at University Presbyterian Church (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) Marcia Shoop produces a constructive theology (revised from her dissertation submitted to Emory University under the supervision of Professor Wendy Farley). The project is constructive in several respects. First, Shoop recovers the Schleiermacherian paradigm mostly ignored in conservative circles since Barth’s devastating critique of Schleiermacher’s use of feelings in theology. In Shoop’s recovery, she combines the mapping of feelings with subjectivity, physicality (of the body) and consciousness for the purposes of articulating a theology of the redemption of bodies. Second, Shoop reflects on how she dealt with her personal experiences of sexual trauma, pregnancy and motherhood. Her goal is twofold: to explore the relationship of the feminine body and theology, and to show where existing theological models of conceiving post-traumatic disorder, pregnancy and motherhood in the church fall short of what these experiences can potentially become – a witness for the healing of bodies and for reconceiving a theology of redemption and a theology of the church. Third, Shoop’s project cuts an interdisciplinary edge when she brings her feelings and experience of tragic bodies, relational bodies and ambiguous bodies to bear in proposing a theology of embodied redemption, ecclesiology and worship.

Reflecting on her experience as a woman who has survived trauma, lived through pregnancy and overcame the ambiguities of motherhood, Shoop proposes to see feelings as “a grammar of our body language” (p.11). Through feelings, one understands one’s body. Feelings are not limited to emotions and sensations. Rather, feelings as a mode of experience are the ground of all primal and embodied experiences. Feelings define, shape and condition us in ways that also beyond the realms of consciousness. Shoop’s notion of feelings differs from Schleiermacher’s gefühl (of God-consciousness) and Whitehead’s conception (as universe’s structure/function) in that she conceives of feeling as the mechanism for the redemption of the bodies. The redemption of the body entails attending to feelings and bodily functions and responding to the body. The redemption of the body occurs also by paying attention to how relationships build up through simple feelings and consciousness.

Shoop reminds her readers how impossible it is to retell one’s story fully; a narrative is by its nature an activity that both conceals and reveals. The limits of language, thought, memory, analysis, listening and speaking all point to this reality that no narrative can ever be exhaustive.

1. For instance, the experience of trauma makes it difficult for the victim to synthesize and articulate the event clearly. Sexual assault carries a sense of loss, of harm and of grief, which are impossible to report objectively. As a result of tragic events, the body instinctively produces mechanisms for the rejuvenation of bodily health: feelings become the body’s mechanism for surviving the tragedy and for the redemption of the body especially in the aftermath of trauma.
2. In another instance, pregnancy becomes the ground for connecting God’s promises of life with the reality of our bodily finitude within the relational web of “contorted subjectivity” and “entangled subjectivity” (p.79). Feelings connect the woman with God (and God’s creativity) and with others in the midst of labor pains, thereby demonstrating the capacity of pregnancy to function as an icon for connectivity (p.90). During the course of pregnancy, the woman responds to bodily changes even as she discovers her entangled relations with the baby in her womb.
3. And in the third instance of motherhood, a woman encounters ambiguity with promises and perils lurking at its door. Motherhood is not just about nurture and self-sacrifice (roles commonly associated with good mothers) but motherhood entails also the prospect of negotiating open spaces and possibilities for cultivating hope amidst ambiguity, indeterminacy and multiple other roles mothers play in a relational web. The “intense rhythm of mothering” (p.103) includes sensitivity to the layers of meanings behind frenetic activities dealing with the “everydayness of human life” (p.103) – the fusion of the sacred with the mundane in the embodied functions of motherhood.

Stanley Hauerwas, Working with Words: On Learning to Speak Christian (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2011), 322 pages, ISBN 9781608999682.

I recommend this book to all Christians, and especially to those in pastoral and the theological vocations. Like his other publications, the Duke Divinity School professor of ethics and theology asks poignant hermeneutical and theological questions pertaining to Christian discipleship and witness. In Working With Words, Hauerwas shares his vision, approach, and experience as a pastor-theologian writing for the Christian public. His goal is to paint a vision of God with discipleship and witness in mind. And because he addresses life’s puzzling complexities honestly, this volume will be a good companion to his Hannah’s Child, a memoir of his theological autobiography.

The book has three parts, and Hauerwas writes seven essays for each section. Most of the essays are either public lectures or church sermons that he had shared in recent years. A few other essays fill the gaps for this compilation. Part 1 addresses disciplines for those learning to speak about God. These disciplines include reading, hearing, seeing and naming God amidst evil. Part 2 explains the Christian language of love for a) dealing with greed, b) discerning the Christian body, c) engaging the reality of “finite care[s] in a world of infinite need” (154) and d) explaining what it means for the church to be on a mission. In Part 3, Hauerwas co-writes (with a few theologians) on the lessons he had learned from some of his teachers. These teachers are political philosopher Charles Taylor, political activist-theologian Richard Niebuhr, and philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. He also include a chapter examining the friendship between political pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge, and a few chapters explaining some of the virtues that underwrites medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas’s writing of Summa Theologicae, contemporary Catholic Social Teaching, and contemporary Methodist theological ethics.

Thomas H. McCall, Forsaken: The Trinity and the Cross, and Why It Matters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 170 pages, ISBN 9780830839582. Thomas McCall writes this book primarily for pastors, students, and a general audience, unlike his previous sophisticated academic study on the Trinity. In Forsaken, the professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School focuses on Jesus’ cry of dereliction and felt abandonment by God the Father on the cross. Typically, we would hear this message in conservative and evangelical-type churches: on the cross, the Son was totally abandoned by God the Father, so that God the Father (in rejecting the Son having borne the weight of our sins on his shoulder and having paid the atonement for our sins as our substitute on the cross) would accept sinners as God’s beloved. Although the Bible seems to say that Christ was indeed abandoned by God the Father, McCall calls this trajectory the pitching of God the Father against God the Son. McCall addresses some of the most thorny questions about the trinitarian faith: a) whether Jesus was ever abandoned by God the Father on the cross, b) what is the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and c) how this trinitarian account (especially Jesus’ death and cry of dereliction) relates to the Christian life?

To be sure, Jesus’ cry of dereliction raises some of the most challenging problems for Christians who accepts the authority of the Bible. Simply put, if God the Father did indeed forsake the Son on the cross, then if God is Trinitarian, the Son’s divinity is in question. This is because at that point, the Son loses the intimacy and contact with the other persons of the Trinity, and if so, based on the logic of the inseparability of the Godhead, the Son can no longer be divine when he was forsaken. Furthermore, to hold that the Trinity was rent asunder at Jesus’ cry of being forsaken contradicts an ancient trinitarian formulation that the Trinity operates indivisibly, at every moment, and thus runs the risk of embracing a heretical conception of the Trinity. Consequently, if the Son is not divine, but only merely human, the efficacy of the Son’s promise to save and redeem his disciples is in doubt. More importantly, if God is love (steadfast and not subjected to fluctuation), why did the wrath of God come upon Christ? Was Christ’s death and forsakenness necessary for God to accept sinful humanity? And if so, does that not reveal a God whose love is only passable and whose justice is rather inexact (or laughable, using McCall’s language)? And if Scripture tells us that Jesus must die for our redemption, would we have to recourse to embrace divine determinism—the divine necessity of a predetermined plan of God to accomplish his will and purposes? And if not, was the death of Jesus a meaningless tragedy?

Those interested in the answers to these questions ought to read Forsaken, even if they possess only an elementary understanding of Christology (i.e., the doctrine of the nature, person, and works of Christ). Written in simple, non-technical manner, McCall draws from a range of biblical, historical, and theological materials. And when technical jargon is used (e.g., social trinitarianism, divine impassability, divine simplicity, divine determinism, and primary and secondary concepts of justice), these are plainly explained. Overall, the Evangelical theologian McCall defends the classical view, with some modifications.