The Shaking of the Foundations (Shaking of Foundations SL 30)

Rating:
Summary: Forgotten Classic
Review: I picked up this book by the great Twentieth-Century philosophical theologian Paul Tillich and was pleasantly suprised. Being familiar with Tillich's rather dry systematic theology, I was expecting more of the same. However, I was greeted by an immensely readable collection of sermons which I found both inspirational, thought-provoking and masterful. If Tillich's dogmatic theology is now regarded as out-moded, this sample of his devotional literature marks him out as insightful and relevant: he speaks as much to our generation as to the one he was speaking to.

While the opening sermon 'The Shaking of the Foundations' is a little anachronistic in that it is couched in the terms of a by-gone debate (critiqueing mid-Twentieth-Century liberal theology)its message is an enduring one: that humanity must recognise its dependence on God and trust in him rather than in humanity's own inadequate ability. What follows this sermon is pure delight. The remainder of the collection testifies to Tillich's honesty and profound insight into the human heart and the tensions of human existence. 'You are accepted' is probably the best of the rest, expounding on the frustrations of life, and being unable to live up to your own expectations, let alone God's. Furthermore, it sounds a confident note of grace. It certainly stirred up a few emotions in me, I can tell you.

On the negative side, those of a more conservative Christian persuasion may be troubled by the implications of Tillich's Christology. The question I was left asking, however, concerned Tillich's eschatology (the 'last things'). It seemed to me that Tillich either didn't believe in an ultimate overcoming of evil, or he simply wanted to emphasise the present reality of God's victory over it. I suspect there is some truth in both alternatives: Tillich was a complicated man, with an ambiguous relationship to the Christian faith, almost, it seems, of a love-hate quality.

Nevertheless, don't let this, or anything else you might hear of Tillich, deter you from reading The Shaking of the Foundations. It truly deserves to be regarded as a modern classic of devotional literature.

Rating:
Summary: LIBERAL? NOT SO SURE.
Review: It really is a tragedy that this slender book is out of print. What we have here is not another volume of Tillich's dry and somewhat dated academic theology, but fine devotional writing that should challenge and inpire Christians of every and any persuasion.

I came to this as an evangelical conservative with my barriers firmly in place expecting it to be just more of the vague liberal wash of mid-20th century liberal theology. And indeed, Tillich does understress the unique atoning work of Christ and the reality of his resurrection and second coming.

However, that is not what this book is about, and to be fair to Tillich his sins are those of ommission rather than commission. In other words, he says little that a conservative theologian would take exception to; he simply doesn't go there.

Of course some conservatives from both evangelical and catholic backgrounds would regard this as an offence in itself, but I am not so sure they would be right. The more I go through life, the more convinced I am that we need to take and hold in creative tension the best insights that each Christian tradition can give us, while retaining the discretion to reject the unhelpful shibboleths and cultural baggage of all of them.

And what we ultimately have here is a collection of profound and relevant insights from a man who, however controversial some of his theories may have been, was not just another supercilious academic theologian. Indeed, he was one of the two or three greatest thinkers of his time, and a man who combined considerable literary gifts with the priestly and prophetic charismata of a true spirit-filled Christian.

In particular, this book includes the world-famous sermon, "You Are Accepted", which justifies the price all by itself.

Highly recommended (with a plea to publishers to re-print it).

Rating:
Summary: Accessible Tillich
Review: Tillich is by no means the most accessible of contemporary theologians. However, this collection of his sermons speaks immediately to everyman. He speaks perceptively of the dilemmas and anxieties of human existence, pointing emphatically to God as the source of salvation from human frustration and guilt. He delivers poignant critiques of modernistic attitudes, distancing himself firmly from the old liberal school of the 19th century and destroying the enlightenment illusion of progress, directing our hopes to God instead.

I must confess that it was against my better judgment that I allowed this little collection of sermons to affect me: I am an evangelical, whereas Tillich belongs to a decidedly more liberal stream of theology to say the least! This is not to say he does not speak like an evangelical, just that I couldn't escape the feeling of intellectual dishonesty as I enjoyed Tillich's writings with the nagging suspicion that he didn't mean anything like the same thing by his use of particular theological terms as I mean. A read of Tillich's far less digestable Systematic Theology will enlighten you as to his philosophy of symbolism in religious language. He clearly maintains that the Christian faith alone can exclusively lay claim to truth; yet the language of Christian doctrine, whilst irreplaceable, is only symbolic, participating in what it represents yet, nevertheless, incapable of objectively describing what it represents. The evangelical might well benefit from reading 'Shaking of the Foundations' if he can overlook this tension; the non-conservative will not need to.

Tillich was a bundle of contradictions, in a sense. He argues passionately for the truth of the Christian gospel, yet he was hardly ever known to go to church, except to preach, perhaps. He is also reputed to have had a string of affairs. I suppose the greatest comfort one can draw from that is that Tillich certainly knew what he was talking about when, along with St. Paul, he affirmed the pervading despair and tension that characterizes human existence.

The most impressing sermons contained in the book are: 'Shaking of the Foundations' in which the preacher lambasts the naive optimism of the enlightenment and prophetically challenges modernism with the warning of a 'shaking of the foundations' which will expose the bankruptcy of confidence in modern progress, leaving the (E)ternal standing; 'The Witness of the Spirit to the Spirit' on the subject of the Christian's assurance; and 'You Are Accepted', a life-giving exposition of Paul's thought on sin and grace in Romans 5:20: here also is Tillich at his most perceptive and penetrating.