I’ve been browsing through some info about Doug Pagitt’s new book A Christianity Worth Believing. I’ve ordered a copy and will post a review once I’ve dug through it. In the meantime I wanted to post a brief comment about something found on the Amazon review, coming from Publisher’s Weekly:

“Conservative critics will no doubt consider this Christianity subtly twisted out of recognition, but postmodern readers struggling with current expressions of faith will see love and hope.”

Odd choice of words. On the one hand you have conservative critics and on the other you have postmodern readers. On the one hand are negative, stodgy, old fashioned people who want to condemn this book and on the other hand are relevant, timely readers who want to consider facts and experience the bliss of love and hope.

Pagitt has posted several YouTube videos about the book. Between the snippet above and the videos below, reading the book should be quite the ride for an old conservative critic like me. But the book isn’t here yet so we will all have to wait and see.

“Those Christianities” get in the way of the kind of Christianity we want today? He is pursuing a Christianity that fits into the world he lives in. I pray that I’m pursuing God who shapes the world we live in.

Evidently people used to say that God lives up in Heaven but now we should say that God lives within and among. Why not return to the omnis and recognize God is everywhere? Early church heretics often failed to properly consider the humanity of Christ. Today’s heretics tend to go the opposite direction, dragging God down to a human (or subhuman!) level.

Pagitt subtly ridicules those who tried to help him understand Christianity. He puts aside what others gave him to help him make sense of Christianity (don’t miss the negative slant he puts on “making sense of Christianity”) and takes up instead… what? We’ll see once I read the book. I have some suspicions.

Amy tells us about the constant childlike connection all people have with God. People are already aware of their sin and it’s that awareness which keeps them from God. She’s right that we are never in a place of no return (in this life) but she is tragically wrong that we should stop focusing on sin separates us from God. We are separated from God, fully and completely, by our sin. The amazing thing is that God did not leave us there. The reason there is never a point of no return is because of what Christ did because of our sin. A few other things worth mention in this vid but I’ll move on.

As far as blatant opposition to truth this is the worst of the videos. Just watch it. But be seated. And try not to yell at the computer, it isn’t its fault. And you might scare the kids.