Who Gets to Narrate the World?: Contending for the Christian Story in an Age of Rivals

by Robert E. Webber

Who gets to narrate the world?

The late Robert Webber believed this question to be the most pressing issue of our time. Christianity in America, he preached, will not survive if Christians are not rooted in and informed by the uniquely Christian story that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is the burden of Webber's final book, Who Gets to Narrate the World?: Contending for the Christian Story in an Age of Rivals. Convinced that American evangelicals are facing the demise of their entire way of life and faith, Webber challenges his readers to rise up and engage both the external and internal challenges confronting them today. This means that Christians must repent of their cultural accommodation and reclaim the unique story--the Christian story--that God has given them both to proclaim and to live.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction, Religion, Christian

127 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 24, 2008

Reviews

[Adam Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am generally a fan of the late Robert Webber's books, but this time he dropped the ball. This was his last book before his death, and I had high hopes for it (after his great work restoring liturgical worship to a place of respectable use in evangelical churches). When I got the book, I was thinking this would be a book exploring the importance of the biblical narrative and its contrast to surrounding narratives - and to some extent this is what Webber does, but he does so as a thinly veiled veneer to discuss his fear of the collapse of western Christendom and additional fears about Islam (Webber has extensively followed feverish fearmongers like Mark Steyn and Robert Spencer here, it would seem, alas). All of the insights about the similarity of the cultural experience of the early Church with our own time are themselves settled in the wider narrative of a lament for the fall of Christendom and the hope for its restoration. While he and I both agree that something has collapsed in the west and that Christendom will rise again, we would differ sharply, it would seem, on how that will look in the future. Hopefully the Church has learned her lesson about uniting too closely with any culture in which she finds herself ministering, even a culture she helped to build.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the last book written by Robert Webber before he passed away. I've been a fan of Webber's so I was hopeful on his final message.

For me, the emphasis on what narrative we live by is an important question, and one we usually take for granted. I can't help but wonder at the subconscious messages we consume through media and movies. That said, Webber has some deep fears on the increased population of Muslims globally, which I believe distorted his message. Also, Webber holds much tighter to Christendom and a Western dominated planet than I do. Or to put it another way, I'm convinced of a Anabaptist view of power that Webber would disagree with.

I felt Douglas Hall's The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity provided more insight on the future of Christianity.

[Charissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Suuuhuuhuuper shamelessly conservative. Some good points scattered in, but overall, not terribly helpful for my research, other than an example of how to avoid sounding totally biased.

[Clark Watson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not helpful.

[Maggie Boyd · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is so much wrong with this book that I'm at a loss for where to begin. Primarily, the author wants to move us from a belief in personal salvation, which he acknowledges as part of what Christ set out to accomplish, toward a more corporate embodiment of faith. His somewhat confusing theology seemed to be that God redeemed the whole world through Christ. This isn't universalism as it is typically understood, with Christ saving all of humanity through His death on the cross, no saving faith needed. Instead, Webber lurches about discussing how Jesus rescued creation and God's plan for the world through His death and resurrection. This then means that Jesus came not just to save us from our sins, but through us to turn this world Christian. We are not just meant to create a church made up of saved individuals but a world that reflects the story of God.

Webber's arguments stem from the idea that God created the world to be a habitation for himself (p. 29), which is flatly wrong. John 14:2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. Earth was always man's home, and God gave us dominion over it. (Gen 1:26) That's fundamental theology. He also argues that Jesus demonstrated "what life looks like for a human being who is in full communion with God." (p.33) But Jesus as Messiah did not demonstrate that. Some who are not in full communion did the same miracles as Christ (John, Peter, and Paul, to name three) but were married and were sinful. The early church was messy, the apostles fought amongst themselves, and yet we are here now thanks to them. Jesus gave us the teaching and the Spirit necessary to bring those who would accept Him into the church. Christ demonstrated to us what it meant to be wholly God and wholly man, but none of the rest of us will ever achieve that because we aren't that. This was, at best, sloppy theologizing.

Speaking of the early church, Webber argued that "Christians protected the sanctity of life, affirming the unborn child.(p.61) In fact, Former Southern Baptist Convention President W.A. Criswell (1969–1970) welcomed Roe v. Wade, saying that ""I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person," the redoubtable fundamentalist declared, "and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed." This was a common attitude among evangelicals at the time. Webber also states that "Christian females married at a later age than pagans, had more choices, and enjoyed more security in marriage" (p. 61). One needs only look at the history of Christian Europe to know this was unilaterally untrue. Women married young (12-13), had few legal rights (unless one counts the right to be beaten), and had little security in marriage. Divorce was a right enjoyed by men, not women, and when men requested it, women were often left impoverished.

Webber believes that God "becomes creation. He takes into himself all the effects of fallen humanity spread throughout his creation. He assumes all of creation in the womb of Mary in order to reverse the effects of sin. . . The death and resurrection of God in Christ is then a second act of creation, a redemption of the whole created order. " (p. 75-76) This is, of course, utterly ridiculous unless one assumes universalism. The reason Christians emphasize personal salvation is that John 3:16 and a host of other verses like it contend that one must believe to be saved.

All of Webber's radical theology is bent towards the idea that Christians no longer have control of the Western world. Per him, we are losing ground to Muslims, whose birth rates are higher, giving them an advantage of growth (that is, in fact, true), and to secularism, which pulls the faithful towards a sinful, idolatrous belief system. Mainly, though, he believes we are losing the narrative of the world. It seemed unclear PRECISELY what he meant, but from what I could deduce, he was talking about the glories of a world permeated by Christianity and dominated by white, Western men. He strives to wrestle history back from those who have pointed out the horrors and injustices of imperialism.

The author pulls piecemeal Bible verses to defend his stance, but when he bothers with the Bible at all, they rarely support his arguments. He speaks as if the Christian faith and not God Himself is what "guards the gates of hell". And I think that is what bothered me the most about the book. Not only are many of Webber's arguments scripturally unsound, but they dismiss altogether the power of God, prayer, the universal church, and trivialize Christianity's long-standing message of salvation through faith.

[Patrick Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a decent book. I'm reading it along with Ravi Zacharias' "Why Jesus?" and it seems to be a good, smaller, companion read. While at times it was a little tough to follow and mentally process, I do appreciate the overall movement of the book, as it's an effort to call the church to remember and restore her place and position from WITHIN God's narrative, rather than standing on the outside, looking in. Webber argues that to do the latter forces one to succumb to the culture's terms in 'defending' God via reason rather than via His truth. It's certainly a thought-provoking read and worth checking out if you have nothing better to read right now and are interested in how today's church is engaging with today's world. I'll keep it on my shelf for reference, but I'm not sure it's one that I'll put in my "definitely re-read" pile.

[Luke Schmeltzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book seeks to address the rising contenders that seek to redefine how we narrate the world, focusing on radical Islam and secularism as opposed to orthodox Christianity. The book was easy to follow and addresses an important issue in our day: the church in the West is losing sight of the biblical meta narrative. The problem is that I don’t think Webber properly articulated the solution. He paints a not-so-accurate picture of the Early Fathers and the Reformers and champions an ecumenical approach. He also paints Islam with a broad brush that few Muslims would see as totally accurate.
The intent of the book is valiant but it’s execution is lacking, in my opinion.

[Dominick D. Hankle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless treasure

This book continues to speak to the dilemma of the church. Its a must read for those wanting to tell the story of God.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is my opinion that practical application of apologetic in the contemporary setting would benefit from a lot of use of illustrations and narratives alongside sharp analysis and reasoning, and that those on the fore-front of modeling this in apologetics should be Presuppositionalists. If the consistent presuppositionalists were to let the Scriptures dictate one’s apologetic methodology (among other things that gives Presuppositionalism it’s distinctive) and how to do apologetics practically, Jesus’ use of narratives in His apologetic is a compelling example for Christians to do so as well (a topic that became a chapter in my ThM. thesis). Furthermore, the apologist conscious of worldview would understand that the different components that make up a worldview is often tied together by the common folk in the form of an overarching story, or a meta-narrative. Here is where Robert E. Webber’s book, Who Gets to Narrate the World, is important, in which the author discusses the issue of contending for the Christian story in an age of rivals. I believe one gets the most out of this book if they were to operate from the vantage point of Presuppositional apologetics as advocated by Cornelius Van Til (and Greg Bahnsen and John Frame), which at times throughout the book I felt there was a presuppositionalist’s flavor in the mix. However, the book does not make any acknowledgement of Van Til. Webber does mention a “presuppositionalist” of sort, the famous Francis Schaeffer, seventy three pages into the book, in which the author revealed how Schaeffer has influenced the author’s intellectual thought life, particularly with intellectual history and being conscious of “paradigms” (worldviews). In seven chapters, Webber was able to summarize the Christian narrative, examine historically how the Christian meta-narrative was able to emerge in a pagan Roman world to such an extent as even influencing the foundation of the Western world, how that narrative was lost in the West, and the need to narrate the Christian story in today’s post-Christian world. I’ve enjoyed the summary of the intellectual history of the West found in this work. The author had an interesting way of understanding humanists and rationalists that I found particularly helpful, deeming them as artists and scientists respectfully, and seeing humanists as dreamers and rationalists as those who saw the fulfillment of humanist’s dreams (79). Of course, the realization of those dreams were not beautifully historically. The author does a good job discussing how the early centuries of Christianity is much like our post-Christian era, which gives Christians a lot of hope in confidence in God’s power to share the Christian narrative and live out the implications of that narrative before an unbelieving world. In his analysis, Webber sees the threat today as coming from Christians accommodating the Christian story to the contemporary culture, and the current secularism which has sunken to a quagmire of relativism, consumerism, materialism and decadence. On the other hand, there is the looming threat of Radical Islam with their tryannical absolutes. The issue of Radical Islam is a big theme from beginning to end in the book, as he sees that Secular Humanism’s story is self-imploding while radical Islam’s absolutes would seem initially more attractive (though it ends up being oppressive). This work is one that Europe should seriously read and consider. The solution for the author is not political nor military, but for Christians to share the Christian narrative. Webber does not stress so much of doing apologetics in the traditional sense of laying down evidences, proving God’s existence, etc., but find the importance of Christian narrative itself as an apologetic. Readers might want to read pages 86-87 carefully, and he sounds very much like a Presuppositionalist here. Despite the glowing review here I have of this work, there are some things Evangelical readers would be cautious about with what he has to say. Webber is a lot more liturgical than the average Evangelical. He’s also more ecumenical. On page 117, we do see that he’s willing to see Roman Catholics as part of a different tradition but still within the fold enough “that we come together.” On page 119 of the same book, the point was made again. In closing this review, I still appreciate what Webber has to say in this book. If I am correct, this book was the last work that the author published–shortly after it’s publication, he passed away after battling cancer. It seems that his message in this work was serious enough for him that he broke away from writing in his usual area of historical theology of worship, which is what he’s known for. I wonder if history will reveal that this book will be the work that will be his lasting legacy.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a challenging book, intellectually, theologically, and emotionally. Webber calls the reader to be aware of what he identifies as the two greatest worldview-rivals to Christianity: Radical Islam (he makes a distinction between Islam and Radical Islam that I am not qualified to make, but which seems legitimate) and the selfish, materialist culture which is creeping into Christianity. He argues that Christians need to reacquaint themselves with the Christian metanarrative which will allow us to remain uniquely Christian and engage with culture at the same time (he uses a lot of emergent language, but is-- I think-- very much a theological conservative). He advocates a functional ecumenical-ism between denominations and a greater emphasis on the church calender.
This book was challenging for me emotionally in that I'm conditioned to excoriate anything that smells remotely xenophobic, and this book challenges the entire Islamic worldview from page one. Yet I am hard-pressed to find anything in it which I can explicitly disagree with, except perhaps the seeming disregard for providence with which Webber writes... so, uh, there you have it.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent little book on Christian worldview (contrasted with Radical Islam). The author traces the christian "story" from the first century up to present day, discussing the various cultural and philosophical objections along the way. He concludes with a brief manifesto directed at the Church if she intends to regain the high ground in "narrating" reality as God has ordained it.

This was a great read. I plan to be rereading this book several times as it stimulates some deep thinking about current events and the content of one's personal evangelism. I highly recommend that interested readers get a copy for your personal library.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent read that does an admiral job of critiquing the interplay between Christianity and Wester Culture. It also addresses the specter of Islam and how the story of Christ is unique in the world of religions. The call to renew our attachment to God's narrative is pungent.

Each chapter has relevant reading recommendations and a bulleted summary that helps your retention of details. The writing style is easy to read yet contains a rich vocabulary. I fully recommend this book to those wanting to reflect on how faith fits into today's complex world.

[Rob Donaldson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author does a great job of using the Christian narrative revealed in Jesus Christ as the very meaning to life for the Christian. This is over and against other narratives competing for giving meaning to life.

[Daniel Alvers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book. I know some guys who are thinking on this issue and it may give them some insight. This book didn't light my world on fire though. It's an interesting read.