For All It's Worth

This summer has been a great time to read some books that I had on my list of possible good reads during the year. The problem arises when I try to read too many books at one time and begin to lose focus on the content of my reading. However, I just picked up a book this past week that I have wanted to read for many months. The book that I checked out from the library was Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends. It is a work in the Cultural Exegesis series (Baker Academic) edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, Charles A. Anderson, and Michael Sleasman. The purpose of the book is "to teach Christians to get the theological lay of the cultural land" (7). Vanhoozer begins the book by building a foundation for how and why Christians should understand culture. Too many times, Christians have either been swallowed up in the morass of culture, leaving little left that resembles vibrant faith in Christianity or have militantly made a retreat out of culture which leads...

Recently I have been reading a new book by James Davison Hunter entitled To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Hunter, a professor at U of Virginia is a professor of religion, culture, and social theory who has written a number of books, including a few on the decline of morals in America. In this book, he traces the history of the way religious groups have shaped culture and how culture has pushed back on these groups to influence them (religious right, religious left, anabaptists). In Essay III of his book, he moves toward answering the question how Christians are to live faithfully amidst a culture that bears its weight upon them/against them in every sphere of life. To do this, he wisely states that we must understand the character of our times to know how to be faithful (197). In doing so, he gets into the discussion that we all come up sooner or later regarding the nature of pluarlism in America. What is plurali...