About a month ago I finished reading this book, and have been waiting for a few spare minutes to review it. I heard about this book from Andy Rowell‘s blog and was immediately interested. Andy and his wife were visiting professors while I was a student at Taylor University (they are both alumni as well), and his recommendations have some weight with me.
Apart from having a general interest in doing/being theology in context, I was also drawn to this book because the author is another Taylor alum. The references he makes to his college experiences are very accessible to me. We shared some professors, which is cool.
The book itself is very well written and easy to follow, each chapter is worth the time it takes to read. The practical study tools and guides are beneficial and right on, which is a helpful to those who might want to go further in their study of the Bible/the Christian tradition and are quickly overwhelmed by the voices and resources available. I wish that this book would have replaced my required reading of “How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth” by Gordon Fee and Doug Stuart (although this is a very helpful book).
Greatly appreciated also is the careful attention that Cyzewski draws to minority voices within our family of believers. This is a much needed call for us to learn to listen, make room for, and respectfully engage the minds and lives of fellow Christian across the globe and those approaching God from a background different from our own.
The home run in this book for me is Ed’s explanation of that thing we call postmodernism. I struggled to understand what was happening the first time the term was introduced to me. I have posted before about wheteher or not I think it really matters, and I wrote a section about it in a Philosophy of Ministry about this time last year. As I was writing that paper, I did my homework on what postmodernism is and how the church relates to it. I read the best I could find, including: Oden, Dockery, Scott Smith, Long, Dunn, McKnight, Knight, McLaren, Mohler. I wish I had had the chapter from Ed’s book.
Not only does he make the terms modern and postmodern accessible, but he peaceful gives us a way to talk about where we fit into the game and the roles we should be playing. I really felt like someone was finally giving me a map and suggesting a direction and not just standing at a destination and calling me towards that one. This is the book I can give my dad and say, “This is what I mean by postmodern.”
I recommend it.
May the Lord’s Will be done,
CWillZ
Tags: bible study, biblical interpretation, book, book reviews, contextual theology, diversity, Ed Cyzweski, emerging, fundamentlist, minority, modern, postmodern, Taylor, Taylor University, the Bible, theology
Glad you found the book a helpful map. I credit my experience at Taylor in shaping that kind of approach to theology. A good friend of mine talked about simply sharing all that you know about scripture and offering it as a gift that others can use, not simply doling out conclusions to accept. I’m glad that spirit came through. Blessings to you and your ministry!
Well done. I’m putting you in my Google Reader.
andy