Reviews
Reading this book is a pure joy. A breath of fresh air, Cultural Apologetics is one of the best books I've read in years. Paul Gould was meant to write it. His ideas having marinated, his prodigious teaching skills honed, his reading wide and deep, he was able to write with the fertile mind of a philosopher, capacious heart of a poet, vivid imagination of an artist, and the nimble hands of a passionate practitioner. This is essential reading for every actual or budding apologist; in fact, the book deserves a very wide readership among believers and skeptics alike. It is not a book to be read quickly but digested and savored. Read, relish, and reread it; use it in class; give it away as a gift. Culturally informed and sensitive, embodying what it extolls, eclectic in numerous respects, and punctuated with clever and telling illustrations--both verbal and visual--this remarkable book makes a powerful case for an expansive apologetic faithful to a true anthropology. It's just the corrective to reawaken the imagination of a disenchanted age. Every page crackles with insight and erudition. At moments it's veritably sublime and enchanting and as inspiring, persuasive, and moving as it is eminently practical. I simply can't recommend it enough.
Table of Content
Chapter 1. What Is Cultural Apologetics?The cultural apologist seeks to have missionary encounters by having a holistic understanding of the way nonbelievers perceive, think, and live in modern Western culture. This requires paying attention to the collective mind, conscience, and imagination of the culture, building bridges from culture to the gospel, and addressing barriers to the gospel along the way. In this chapter the what, why, and how of cultural apologetics will be explored. A model of cultural engagement, patterned after the apostle Paul_s speech in Athens, will be described. This model will be further unpacked in the remaining chapters.Chapter 2. DisenchantmentThe first task of the cultural apologist is to understand the surrounding culture. In this chapter I will explore the collective mindset, conscience, and imagination of Western culture and argue that it is best described as disenchanted. The world is no longer seen in its proper light. Instead of seeing reality as sacred and beautiful, it is often viewed as mundane, ordinary, and familiar. As a culture, we are _under a spell,_ taking for granted life, beauty, goodness, and the holy instead of seeing them as gifts from their Creator. In this chapter I shall describe culture as primarily disenchanted, and within that understanding, I will describe its sensate and hedonistic characteristics as well.Chapter 3. Re-enchantmentThe world deadens desires by channeling them in a very limited direction, primarily the stream of sensual experience and (momentary) personal fulfillment. Many people don_t know they are missing anything. The second task of the cultural apologist, then, is to awaken desire. The world needs re-enchantment. The _otherness_ and _giftedness_ of reality needs to be seen afresh so that creation may be seen in relation to its divine source. An important starting point in this process of re-enchantment is to pay attention to universal human longings for truth, goodness, and beauty. We_ll explore how our longings point to something that we_ve lost, awaken our soul, and, if properly followed, lead us to God.Chapter 4. ImaginationHuman imagination will be our first guide to be explored, the first plank in the bridge from the culture---our _Athens_---to the gospel and Jesus. It is, as C. S. Lewis puts it, _the organ of meaning._ Imagination provides, along with physical sensation, the raw materials for reason to judge as true or false. Imagination longs for a beauty that captivates. It seeks---in literature, music, art, and nature---tantalizing glimpses of Heaven, of a world made right, where everything is seen in its proper light, charged with grandeur, and imbued with a childlike, fresh wonder. In this chapter we_ll look at the role of imagination in the process of awakening desire, reenchanting the world, and pointing others to Christ.Chapter 5. ReasonHuman reason is our next guide or plank in the bridge between culture and the gospel.Christianity is true, and it can be shown as such. In this chapter I shall look at reason byexamining and defending the so-called Argument from Reason (defended recently by C. S.Lewis, Victor Reppert, and Alvin Plantinga), and then look along reason by showing how the deliverances of philosophy, science, and history support the truth of Christianity. The look at/look along distinction is from C. S. Lewis_s essay _Meditation in a Tool Shed,_ found in Walter Hooper ed., God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970).Chapter 6. ConscienceThe human conscience is our final guide or plank in our model of cultural engagement. As C. S. Lewis famously noted, all human beings acknowledge some kind of morality. We realize there is a moral law and that we stand condemned under it. In this chapter I shall explore the Argument from Morality and trace our longing for justice and wholeness to its fount in Christ.Chapter 7. HomeIn this final chapter I shall consider barriers to the gospel and then the gos
