review: Re-enchanting Christianity

Re-enchanting Christianity: faith in an emerging culture
Dave Tomlinson

I love this book.  So much of the serious thinking about emerging things has come from a USA context.  Most of the UK contribution has been around the alt.worship perspective, rather than creative thinking about understanding the faith itself in the 21st century (I over-generalize, of course).  However, Tomlinson is decidedly British, and writes a very engaging account - in a popular theology sort of way - of a constructive but genuinely up-to-date way to understand following Christ today.

If I carry on my generalized sweeping statements, his book  The Post-Evangelical was about things that were going wrong with the evangelical church; this book is the counterpart describing where we might go instead.   The writing is approachable: theological, but grounded on Tomlinson's own experience, and showing the wisdom which comes from his own pastoral ministry.  Of course, this isn't a work of deep theology - I struggle with those - but here you will find lots of references to Moltman, Crossan, Borg, Ward, Wink, and others.  Tomlinson has done his homework.

I quoted previously two stand-out quotes from the book.  They do give quite a good sense of the kind of narrative you should expect.  That seems to have been a long time ago: I needed to revisit the book after the first read, before reflecting on it.

This is not a book for the faint-hearted.  Those who are new to asking difficult questions about Evangelical faith will either dismiss it as liberal nonsense or will find their minds well and truly blown.  As for me, I believed in the historicity of the Virgin Birth when I started the book, and now, meh, I rather doubt it.  It just kind-of evaporated, as I read Tomlinson's discussion of how we might hold on to the mystery through metaphor rather than through historical interpretation.

And the key is that here we are not presented with some nihilist deconstruction of all that we have held dear, but rather something which is overwhelmingly constructive - as the title suggests.  Tomlinson is looking for ways that historical texts - and the Spirit of God - can speak to our present era, remaining true to both.  His final paragraph is this:

Christian mission in the twenty-first century requires kingdom-oriented communities, places of radical inclusion and empowerment, which say: You are welcome - whatever your ethnic or cultural background, however you look or dress, whether you are a man or a woman, gay or straight, whether you earn a pittance or you're worth a fortune, whether you have kids, can't have kids, don't want to have kids, whether you are full of faith or riddled with doubts, whether you feel hopeful or fearful.  Gregarious or withdrawn - YOU ARE WELCOME.

That's as good a summary as any of the church - the kingdom values - he's been describing in the book.  It's all rather wonderful.