Ancient & Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy in the 21st Century--Essays In Honor of Thomas C. Oden

Rating:
Summary: Great Essays on Bringing the Ancient Faith to Today's World
Review: I enjoyed this collection of essays, but I must admit I was dubious at first, since many collections such as this are so scholarly that even I, a scholar, get bored to tears. These essays are actually quite good, and written in honor of one of my favorite scholars and authors, Thomas Oden. Oden has written many books advocating a return to the ancient and historical faith when doing theology and ethics, instead of relying solely on modernist texts and values. This is what makes Oden ancient and Postmodern (i.e. beyond/after modernism) because he rejects many modernist assumptions and returns to ancient theology. However he does not return to a pre-modern worldview, but rather accepts much of modernism's science and progress. So it's not about "going back," but about bringing the ancient and catholic faith to one's own time period. The essays in this book generally all reflect such an outlook.

These essays do a good job of bringing the ancient faith to today's world. Christian postmodernism seems to be much different than cultural postmodernism. In some ways, Christian postmodernism is moving beyond the modernism of the Church with its individualism, hyper-rationalism, etc. In other words, now that modernism is effectively dead, many see a chance for the Church to return to its experience of the Jesus of Nicene orthodoxy and live its radical ethics without worrying about the latest secular scholarly paper on Jesus. Both conservative and liberal modernists will probably be equally outraged at many essays in this book, although the book has a more conservative bent, because the catholic faith consists of certain long-held beliefs.

My favorite essays are the ones about worship, including ones written by Robert Webber, Thomas Howard, and Joel Scandrett. Wolfhart Pannenberg's essay on the Resurrection is quite good, as is David Mills' essay on doctrine, although it sounds a bit too polemical at times for my tastes. Stanley Grenz and John Franke's essay on Tradition is quite enlightening, and is in some ways the most "postmodern" of all essays. Other essays are more scholarly, and while I have skimmed them, they have not intrigued me as much as the ones that relate more to how Christian doctrine affects Christian experience. The authors come from Anglican, Roman Catholic, United Methodist, and other traditions, making the views quite broad. Overall I enjoyed this book. As an Anglican, much of what I read makes sense, but for those in more traditionally evangelical churches the emphasis on Eucharist, sacraments, and Church authority might seem more revolutionary. Either way, this book does a good job of taking the ancient faith and applying it for today's world, although by the very nature of postmodernism, defining what "today's world" is will vary among readers.

Rating:
Summary: "Ancient" is NOT "Postmodern"
Review: I have begun to notice something of a trend among books on postmodernism by Evangelicals (with the exception of Stanley Grenz): they don't really engage postmodernism. Sure, they talk a little bit about relativism and how that is dangerous; they throw a few jabs at the Englightenment; they note the necessity of humility. However, they never really engage Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, or Nietzsche.

This is a shame, too, because after reading the essays in this volume, you can tell that the early Church Fathers - and, if this volume is reflective of current Evangelical engagements with early Christianity, the Greek Fathers in particular - have been thoroughly engaged. The Evangelicals in this book have paid a lot of attention to the work of the Greek Fathers, noting the details, the depth and profundity of their work.

The books greatest strength is its essays on the Greek Fathers. From St. Maximus the Confessor to St. John Chrysostom, Evagrius of Ponticus to St. Clement, there are some really deep engagements with the early Church. In addition, there are also several essays on ecumenism which are, in the heart and mind of this reviewer, worth reading.

But, I again find myself wondering what is up with the whole "postmodern" thing that the title proclaims this book is about. I think it is this: there are a few essays in this book that deal with some various aspects of a general cultural shift that is called - fairly or unfairly - "postmodern." So, there is an essay about the Church as a community, and another essay about the importance of Tradition (by Stanley Grenz, which has already appeared in his book Beyond Foundationalism).

Of course, anyone who has studied postmodernism knows that community and tradition are really not a part of the postmodern program; rather, they are attacked by postmodernity. What I am guessing is that these essays were written to help indicate a solution to the problems of fragmentation of hyper-individualism. This does seem to be typical of some trends within Evangelicalism: to see postmodernity as a way of bringing out elements in the faith that have been long forgotten. The essay on the Eucharist being a postmodern "possibility" for Evangelicals is an expression of this trend.

Yet, "possibility" leaves quite a bit to be desired. Do Evangelicals see themselves needing to reinvent their faith to follow the changing of the culture? Or, do they see themselves as having a really solid rock upon which they can engage the culture? The idea of a eucharistic celebration within an Evangelical church is certainly interesting, but in the end it would be a complete overhaul of the faith. Is this overhaul being advocated because it is a turn towards deeper Truth or because it "makes sense" in a postmodern context? The latter option, from a theological perspective, is disturbing if it is the reason for such a suggestion.

This book has some great essays about the Greek Fathers and ecumenism. However, its engagement with postmodernism is weak at best, and on a rather shaky ground at that. If you come to this book thinking that it is going to be about postmodernism, you will be disappointed (assuming you know a thing or two about postmodernism). But, if you want some insights into the Greek Fathers and ecumenism, this is a fine place to start. Indeed, it is almost a gem.