Contending for the Faith: The Church's Engagement with Culture

Baylor University Provost's Series

by Ralph C. Wood

In this book Ralph Wood calls for churches to offer a sustained an unapologetically Christian witness to a postmodern world. Wood carefully chronicles how the church is watching the complete destruction of post-Christian institutions and practices that once shaped human character toward fulfillment in goods larger than humanity's own self-interest - the chief of these being the worship and service of God. Wood contends that Christian existence can never be taken for granted, and so the church itself must seek to create a Christian culture that offers the world a drastic alternative to its own cultureless existence.

Genres: Cultural, Nonfiction

230 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2003

About the author

Ralph C. Wood is a scholar of theology and English literature whose work focuses on Christian writers, particularly J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, Gerard Manley Hopkins, George Herbert, and Dorothy Sayers. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from East Texas State College in 1965 and his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1975. After teaching English at North Park College in Chicago, he held academic posts in religion at Wake Forest University, Samford University, Regent College in Vancouver, and Providence College in Rhode Island. In 1998 he became University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University, where he continues to teach and write. Wood’s publications include The Gospel According to Tolkien and Tolkien among the Moderns. His awards include the Associated Church Press Award of Excellence (2010) and the Lionel Basney Award (2011). He is recognized as one of the most original Tolkien scholars on the religious dimensions of his work.

Reviews

[Abrahamus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ralph Wood, Baylor University Professor of Theology and Literature, has some very good things to say in this book, which serves as a call to the church and her institutions (educational institutions in particular) to recover a robust and potent witness to the surrounding culture. Some major points of emphasis include:

• A rejection of Modernity (Enlightenment Rationalism) as well as Postmodernity

• A high view of the church, in particular, the church in her role as the alternative and prototypical culture, society, metanarrative, etc.

• A call for the contemporary, protestant, evangelical church to regain an appreciation for the power of narrative and to re-establish a worship tradition with a sense of gravitas—which would include a high degree of respect for and emphasis upon liturgy and the sacraments

To be honest, most of Proff. Wood's insights cover ground that I was already pretty well familiar with, but it is refreshing to hear them offered, and with considerable intelligence and conviction, from someone well entrenched within the Baptist tradition, as opposed to coming from the usual "angluthyterian" chums I have been accustomed to reading and listening to. Be that as it may, I would still have to recommend Peter Leithart's Against Christianity over this one, as it rests upon many of the same premises and extends them farther and, I believe, with greater clarity and effectiveness, even while managing to be more succinct.

[John Lussier]

Wood attempts to reclaim a conservative approach to cultural engagement, without being an asshole. He largely succeeds.