Border Crossings

by Rodney Clapp

The usual modern assumption is that Christians are supposed to leave explicitly Christian convictions and practices behind when they engage public affairs and popular culture. In this fascinating book, Rodney Clapp rejects that assumption and trespasses onto secular territory--from global corporations to Winnie-the-Pooh, from family values to The X-Files , from consumerism to Hank Williams and John Coltrane.

Genres: Cultural, Theology

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

Reviews

[Longfellow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found every one of these essays to be worth my time. There are short ones, long ones, and medium-length ones, and topics range from money to music and a variety of things in between, but regardless of the depth of each individual essay, Clapp consistently provides information worth knowing and thoughts worth pondering.

The publisher categorized this collection as “Theology/Philosophy & Ethics/Social Issues,” and these labels are well-applied to Clapp’s content. I actually read this book because I was searching my shelves for a book of theology that discusses how a Christian should live within a capitalist society, and one of the chapters in Clapp’s book provided the best match, an essay titled “The Theology of Consumption and the Consumption of Theology.” As a bonus, the collection also includes an essay titled “The Intersection of Capital and Eucharist.” Not all my questions have been answered, but he does address some of my general concerns, for example the problematic ethics of the stock market. He doesn’t spend much time on this, but these two essays did offer many other insights I was not looking for, such as a brief history of consumerism and how this cultural value is problematic for those of Christian faith.

Since I was searching for a particular topic, I didn’t read this collection of essays in order, and I was pleased to discover Clapp actually created two prologues with this very idea in mind (a “linear” and a “non-linear” reading guide); thus I bounced around in my reading, following Clapp’s suggestions for essays to read based on topic.

Throughout this collection, I find two philosophical and ethical concerns most prominent: the trouble with the cultural values of individualism and consumerism when it comes to living the Christian faith. Clapp writes with insistence and depth on these two concerns, and while I found his thoughts on consumerism to be mostly an improved articulation of my own thoughts, he offered many insights on the problem of individualism that built my own perspective and which I hope I’ll be able to remember. Mentioning these consistent themes brings to mind the only criticism I have of this collection, which is that numerous times I noted word-for-word commentary and identical quotes from sources in different essays. One could accuse Clapp of recycling thoughts, but my assumption is that many of these essays were published independently in various periodicals before they were collected in this book, so I didn’t get too caught up in judging the repetition.

Clapp’s collection deserves the classification of “theology,” though I don’t think his primary intent was to write a book of theology in the traditional sense. Rather, because he is so well read in theology, he’s able to relay the ideas that influential theologians have spent entire books expounding upon and to distill these main ideas for the sake of his readers, who hopefully are a variety of laywomen and laymen. As with other Clapp books I’ve read, I particularly appreciate this ability of his.

Though Border Crossings was published in 2000 and thus is unavoidably dated in some aspects, this does nothing to affect its relevance in my opinion. In fact, some of Clapp’s observations ring even more true in 2017, even as the specific references become “old.” Some of my favorite essays, in addition to the two mentioned above, are “The Truth Is Out There: Why the X-Files Is Really about Epistemology,” “From Family Values to Family Virtues,” and “That Glorious Mongrel: How Jazz Can Correct the Heresy of White Christianity.”

[marcus miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I write this during the time of the coronavirus, during the time of quarantine and self-isolation. I needed something to read. I’ve read everything on my shelves, the library and the bookstores are closed, and I don’t like reading ebooks, so I picked through some of the books my preacher wife had sitting in piles in her office and found this gem. When I scanned the introduction where Clapp talks about common sense it brought back memories, not many of them pleasant, of when we moved to a small farm before my sophomore year in high school. Never mind that most of our equipment belonged in either a junkyard, a ditch, or at best a living history farm museum, it was a question I often heard, “what were you thinking?” The next question was often, “Don’t you have any common sense?”
Some of the chapters were more interesting and helpful than others as Clapp suggests they might be in his introduction. It was interesting to read this twenty years after it was published and to see how many of his observations have played out given the 2008 recession the current economic downturns resulting from the corona quarantine, and the election of a racist blowhard of a President, lovingly embraced and supported by many evangelicals.
In part 3 titled Trespassing Secular Borders: Politics and Economics Clapp issues a “call to the Religious Right to better itself” and to turn “family values to family virtues.” In hindsight this was a wonderful idea, yet it obviously didn’t take. The battles over family values are still with us, and if anyone dares criticize the religious right, one risks being accused of infringing on their religious liberty, or perhaps of discriminating against them because of religious beliefs.
The most prescient chapter was the one where Clapp discusses the “theology of consumption’ and the Christian response to (embrace) of consumerism. Given the quarantine and the economic downturn we are seeing the results of the embrace of consumerism and our skewed economy.
To sum up, as I understand it, Clapp was calling the church to embrace the teachings of Jesus and to encourage Christians to live out those teachings as best we are able. Instead, we’ve too often traded our birthright for a bowl of stew, a craft beer, the latest trendy fad, political power, and some perceived sense of relevance.

[kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the chapters are impossible to get through and very hard to understand. Some of his main points are open to argument--he writes as a scholar who sees the world in black and white. However there are a few jewels if you can work your way to them. He has a huge heart to engage the world as a Christian first and foremost.

[Jt]

challenging read