Links on Faith, Culture & Politics

A couple of must-reads for those interested in the public implications of faith:

  • Christ and Culture and Church and Creation – James K.A. Smith reviews D.A. Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited, and finds it lacking. A gem of a quote:

    One gets the sense that Carson’s eternity lacks cultural institutions —an eternity without commerce or politics, art, or athletics… All that will remain is “the church” (though it’s not clear just what the church will be doing since, according to Carson, “the church lives and dies by the Great Commission”).

  • Between Sojourners and the Simple Way? Rethinking Radical, Evangelical Politics in ’08 with John Howard Yoder – If you’ve read Jim Wallis and/or Shane Claiborne, this is absolutely crucial reading for understanding how both fall somewhat short of the potent work of John Howard Yoder. I just about could have written this myself:

    Much of my thinking in these past two years has been about trying… to figure out why I’m uncomfortable, finally, with both Wallis’s Anabaptist ethics mediated through public reason and Claiborne’s personalist Christian anarchism. The person who has helped me to live most creatively in the tensions between Claiborne and Wallis is the late Mennonite theologian and ethicist John Howard Yoder.

EDIT: Smith has posted some remarks regarding his CT review of Carson on his blog, saying that “They asked me to be charitable and constructive; this was the best I could do I’m afraid. The book, to be honest, reads like sloppily connected lecture notes, meandering here and there… for anyone who is even remotely familiar with current discussions of “Christ and culture,” this book feels very, very provincial.”

One response to “Links on Faith, Culture & Politics”

  1. Both articles are good. I actually met Tim Kumfer (the author of the second) this summer at a BBQ. He’s dating a friend of a friend. It was kind of strange to see his name pop up on the other journal.

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