Bob’s Comments (group member since May 23, 2013)

Bob’s comments from the Baker Academic group.

I have more than one friend who grew up in an evangelical or mainline Protestant background who has converted to Roman Catholicism. For many, this has been a thoughtful decision carefully taken. One of the reasons some take this step is the focus of Protestants on personal interpretation of the scripture, the belief that each believer is capable of understanding the scriptures unmediated by the church, pastors, church doctrine and tradition, among other things. They see diverse interpretations in many cases and Christians justifying almost anything on the basis of their reading of scripture and unchallengeable because they claim “the Bible tells us so.”

Others in the stream of the churches of the Reformation appeal to Sola Scriptura, the authority of the Bible alone, and the distortions or even contradictions they observe in the traditions of the church. They join Martin Luther in appealing to the scriptures alone, saying “Here I stand.”

Matthew Levering, who currently teaches theology at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois was educated in a Protestant seminary (Duke) yet embraces and articulates a Catholic theology of the relation of scripture and church in how God has revealed the Christian message. What I found most helpful was his thoughtful engagement with a range of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox theologians in an exploration that argues both the inspiration and authority of the biblical text and while also contending for the crucial role of the church in clarifying and mediating our understanding of the Word of God we find in the scriptures. We encounter N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight, and Alexander Schememann, as well as von Balthasar and Ratzinger in the pages of this book.

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The very fact that I am writing these words and you are reading them suggests some kind of belief about the function of language. Exactly what that function is has been called into question by recent literary theory. At one time if I said I was writing about a book by Roger Lundin titled Beginning with the Word, you would think that my words had reference to the actual (or virtual) book. Recent literary theory has separated word and thing such that any use of words is simply representing what they signify in my mind, my own subjective experience, and not the actual book.

Certainly there is warrant for this idea. One of the daunting tasks of reviewing is to attempt to do justice to an author's ideas, whatever one's critique of them may be. Actually, this is something I felt I struggled with more than usual in reading this book, reading it twice, and even then, not being sure I am doing the author's ideas justice.

What Lundin seems to be doing in engaging 19th and 20th century writers like Emily Dickinson and William Faulkner as well as theologians like Karl Barth, as well as literary theorists like Ricoeur and Gadamer is to explore the skepticism of belief in both modern literature and literary theory that arises from this separation of word and thing. In so doing he explores the desire to believe in the midst of such skepticism, the desire for a storied existence in a literary culture suspicious of any metanarrative. He considers the power of words to awaken awareness using Frederick Douglass's autobiography of how reading gave him an awareness of his personhood and the desirability of freedom.

Lundin would propose that there is even yet ground for belief because of the Word who became Flesh, the One who incarnated a union (reunion?) between word and object. This is a central tenet of Barth's theology and provides a basis for a belief in the transcendent, in the possibility of grace, and for being part of a story that makes sense and gives meaning to life.

The author positions himself not as one proposing an "absolute" argument as a modernist writer might, but rather speaks as a "witness" weaving together a theology of the Word, his own experience, and themes in literature (story, making sense of time, a longing for home, and dreams of justice and deliverance) to affirm that it is possible to make statements of belief that aren't simply polite fictions, personal sentiments, or statements about what we know isn't so, but rather affirmations of ultimate, life-giving realities rooted in the One who brings Word and Thing together.

I confess that I struggled to follow the train of the author's thought at points, particularly where he delves into literary theory. The thematic approach reflects less a linear argument than coming at an idea from several perspectives. Yet I suspect that for some these elements along with the humble yet forthright "witness" that affirms while leaving room for others might in the end prove winsome and more persuasive than any absolute, linear argument. Certainly for any student in literary studies who wrestles with critical theory and questions of belief, this is an important resource.

[This review is based on a complimentary e-galley version of this book provided by the publisher through Netgalley. I have not been in any other way compensated for the review of this book.]

This review also appears at:

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"Our danger has not been too much thinking, but not enough."
--Nathan Hatch

The epigraph to Williams book gives us the purpose of this book in a sentence: to make the argument for the importance of thinking and the life of the mind. Williams originally did this in pamphlet form, which has now been expanded into this still concise little book that gives us the contours of an argument for thinking.

He begins by describing why those who like to think do so: to understand the way things are, to bring coherence to one's beliefs, to grow in self-understanding, to apply serious thought to public issues, and to make sense and meaning of one's life. He then proceeds to argue that thinking well is intrinsically important including this syllogism:

1. What God made is good.
2. It is intrinsically good to know about what is good.
3. Consequently, it is intrinsically good to know what God has made.

He then goes on to delineate positive effects of thinking in terms of enhancing human flourishing, supporting our faith and training in goodness.

His next chapter was perhaps both the most interesting and also the place where I felt the most additional work needed to be done. In it he explores the tensions between the life of the mind and Christian faith under the categories of inquisitiveness, imagination, arrogance, and the neglect of evangelism, compassion, justice, and devotion. While acknowledging the realities of these pitfalls, I felt he did not go far enough in identifying their roots in both hubris and neglect of our hearts. Equally, I would have valued more exploration, beyond the acknowledgement of these tensions and the possibility of living within them, of how one does so. This seems to be critical to the flourishing of thinking Christians in contexts that often challenge faith.

Subsequent chapters explore the tensions between the life of the (Christian) mind and the culture we find ourselves in, the value of thinking in community, and a concluding chapter that describes the life of the mind in terms of living in the tension between hermit and explorer (fascinating images!).

While couched in Christian terms, many of the arguments Williams make for the life of the mind make sense for anyone who considers ideas and careful thinking important. At the same time the book is directed to a Christian college audience (under the imprint RenewedMinds, an imprint of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities). It seems that one of the things that might be helpful if this work is revised and expanded would be to address more explicitly what the life of the Christian mind has in common with the life of the mind more generally, and what distinguishes this mind. Mark Noll has done the latter quite helpfully in his Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind.

In its present form, Williams has given us a helpful articulation of the intrinsic value of developing the life of the mind and some preliminary considerations of how one goes about this process. I could see this being very helpful to an undergraduate student considering a life of scholarship and equally to someone at mid-life asking questions about how one might move from simply an activist life of doing to going deeper in thinking about faith and the context of one's life.

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In our current toxic political climate one might ask the question, "can anything good come of politics?" James W. Skillen would answer that affirmatively. His main contention is that to be created in the image of God means, among other things, that we are political creatures and that political life, along with things like work and family, is part of God's creation intention for us. It is not a consequence of the fall. Like other aspects of the human condition, political life certainly has been distorted by the fall but part of our call as the redeemed is to bring a redemptive influence into political life.

After laying out the biblical basis for this position in Part One, Skillen goes on in Part Two to survey how the church through history has addressed itself to this question. He covers Augustine's two cities, the ascendancy of the church over civil government, and the splintering of authority and the two kingdom approach of the Reformers, particularly Luther. Finally he moves to the contemporary scene and the influences of Hobbes and Locke on the American Experiment.

Along the way, he engages the Anabaptist alternative of Hauerwas and Yoder and others that advocates for the kingdom of God as its own political entity and that the church, which is called to peace, should abstain from political engagement which inevitably requires the use of force in restraining evil, including lethal force. He argues that while this may allow the church to maintain its purity, it raises questions about the character of a God who ordains government to restrain evil through the power of the sword. My difficulty with this contention is that these questions are unavoidable no matter whether you are Anabaptist or not and go back to the question of why God permits evil at all. However, like those who would ascribe to some form of just war theory and who take this seriously, he argues that many instances of warfare do not meet this test and should be opposed by Christians.

This last is covered significantly in the third part of the book where Skillen engages the questions of how Christians engage in politics. He explores hot button issues like marriage, family, economics, and the environment. Because this book is an "introduction" he covers a lot of ground. His most interesting sections to me were his discussions of citizenship and the responsibilities all of us have in a republic, and his thoughts on politics in a globalized setting--avoiding nationalism and one world government options while allowing for various regional and other international regimes to deal with the international issues that are inevitable. In this discussion he argues that our situation is not one of a clash of civilizations between country blocks but rather competing claims within many of our countries: secularism, Christianity, capitalism, Islam to name a few.

The one thing I found most impractical was his proposal for "proportional representation" in the House of Representatives of national parties based on voting percentages for each party in elections. What he is trying to do is create a context where parties address national concerns rather than simply being split into electoral base politics. What seems to have a better (though still a long shot to me) chance is redistricting reform that requires districts to make geographic sense and to be demographically representative of a state's population as far as that is geographically possible. The current gerrymandering of political districts means that one only need cater to one's base to get elected rather than representing all the people. At least both Skillen and I agree on the problem that makes the House so dysfunctional.

On balance, this is a helpful proposal for how Christians might think about political life and exercise redemptive influence in politics. The most important part of this book is his argument for politics as a result, not of the fall, but the creation. His survey of historical positions is also helpful. His exploration of contemporary issues seemed somewhat cursory, even though he is thoughtful and nuanced. Yet he shows some of the directions Christians might go in pursuing these issues in greater depth.

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This is a book that sparkles with clear thinking and a personal narrative that helped inform and shape that thinking. Wolterstorff continues in this book to elaborate thinking outlined in Justice: Rights and Wrongs. In short chapters he shares both his own ideas about justice and the personal encounters with victims of injustice in South Africa, Palestine, and the Honduras. And he contends that it was the personal encounters with those whose dignity was impaired and whose inherent rights were denied that informed his theory of justice centering around human dignity and inherent rights.

He distinguishes his approach from one of the leaders in the field, John Rawls. I've not read Rawls and so I don't feel I can adequately assess the distinctions between the two. Wolterstorff focuses on the idea of inherent rights as opposed to right order as central in his concept of justice. This arose, as I've noted from his experiences, particularly in South Africa, of seeing justice defined as right order and yet denying basic liberties to blacks that he would consider inherent rights. His theory also develops an understanding of justice in terms of 'primary' and 'reactive' justice (the latter being justice that responds to criminal acts against a person while the former dealing with structural injustices that impair personal liberties). He argues against those who claim that an "inherent rights" approach can be abused by those claiming extravagant rights beyond what he envisions. He contends that abuse does not support doing away with an inherent rights concept but rather calls for its proper use.

Along the way, he engages some of the biblical theology surrounding justice, particularly what he sees as a mistranslation of the New Testament dik stem words in many contexts as righteous or righteousness instead of just or justice. He also argues against the blind submission to authority that many read into Romans 13, arguing that this is to be understood not as rulers who are divinely appointed who must be submitted to no matter what (except where submission involves direct disobedience to God) but rather that rulers are appointed to exercise justice and the power of the sword against perpetrators of injustice, which warrants advocacy when the state fails to live up to its God-appointed role.

Wolterstorff's philosophical work has included work in the area of aesthetics and here he considers the role of artistic expression in justice movements. In a chapter on "Justice and Beauty" he argues for the intrinsic worth of art and that shalom, the kind of peace in which humans flourish, knits together the disparate elements of pursuing justice, scholarship, and beauty in the world.

My sense is that this book represents both a distillation, and, in some ways, an elaboration of his academic works on justice. It left me wanting more and served as a good introduction to his thinking about this important subject.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through Goodreads "First Reads" program.

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