Books That Changed My Life: (1) Gospel And Culture

I am an avid reader. There have been many times when reading
a book has transformed my outlook on life and faith. Sometimes it has been
near-instant. Other times I only look back and see the influence. With this in
mind I thought I might highlight from time to time some of those books. Are you
sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Foolishness
To The Greeks by Lesslie Newbigin
was required reading in my undergraduate course on Church Growth And Decline.
It introduced me to the way we are unaware of the effects of the culture we
live in – as a goldfish doesn’t think about the water, Newbigin says. He shows
how the post-Enlightenment sacred/secular split led to the language of ‘my
rights’, which made the individual human being sovereign, instead of God.
Ultimately it was the book that started me thinking about the need to relate
the Gospel to our culture.

That links to a book that on the surface was very different.
Elegantly written with flowing prose (why were the church historians always the
best writers?), Evangelicalism
In Modern Britain by David
Bebbington was the book that made me understand my spiritual heritage
better than any. The link with Newbigin? Bebbington consistently and
controversially demonstrated in every era the effects of the prevailing culture
on the shape of evangelical Christianity – from John Locke’s philosophical
impact on John Wesley to Romanticism in Victorian times, and on into the
twentieth century. Implicitly, Bebbington and Newbigin (without either of them
being biblical scholars) helped me see that even in the New Testament there is
no single expression of the Gospel. It is shaped differently in various
cultural contexts.

More specifically in recent years, this concern with Gospel
and culture has led me to explore the connections and contrasts between that
Gospel and postmodern culture. I have read extensively in this area, and of the
making of books about postmodernism there is no end. The one that got me going
was Truth
Is Stranger Than It Used To Be by Richard
Middleton and Brian
Walsh. They helped me understand the ‘totalising’ nature of metanarrative
and the way a Cross-shaped Christian metanarrative could be ‘anti-totalising’.
And besides, any people who liberally quote Bruce Cockburn have to be all right by
me!

Of course, the theory can be one thing, and the practice
another. Then perhaps about five years ago I read an interview with Brian McLaren in a British evangelical
magazine. He just seemed to make sense. It saddened me in following months when
other readers wrote in, questioning his orthodoxy. So I jumped into his work,
initially with The
Church On The Other Side (previously entitled Reinventing Your Church). Apart
from where he seemed to wobble over the place of evangelism in mission, I found
myself saying, ‘Yes! Yes!’ in every chapter. Sometimes McLaren’s concerns don’t
match British ones, but that isn’t his fault. British evangelicals have less
trouble arguing for a social dimension to mission and ministry, for example.
But he is always a welcome voice –and (unlike many of his strident critics)
consistently eirenic and humble in tone, however passionate he is.

I think that will do for starters. In coming days I’ll post
about some books that have influenced my understanding of church, mission and
ministry.

Technorati Tags: LesslieNewbigin, DavidBebbington, RichardMiddleton, BrianWalsh, BruceCockburn, BrianMcLaren