My next book
Last week I began working on my next book. I’m sharing a bit about it in this post mainly to hold myself accountable to keep working on it. Feel free to ask me about it if/when you see me next.
Like my first book, All the Way Down, the idea for this project came from my experience pastoring real people. In other words, I think what I’m aspiring to write will be really helpful.
More specifically, I think it will be helpful for people laboring through the process of faith reconstruction.
Our church has become something of a haven for people in this space. There are historic reasons for that, but how we got here is largely unimportant. It’s simply who we are now. As we say on our website, “When the old answers stop working, you don’t have to give up on faith.”
And we’re discovering it’s a much-needed space. There are lots of people for whom the old answers have stopped working and very few churches positioned to help them. The result is a lot of people giving up on faith, or at least organized religion.
What makes faith reconstruction so daunting and difficult is that everything connects to everything else. You can never just rethink one topic. Like water spilling over from one bilge bay to the next until eventually the boat sinks, when you begin rethinking one belief it isn’t long before you sense the need to rethink another, and then another, and then another until your entire faith system is “sunk.” That is understandably scary and for that reason many people stop engaging the process. I understand and appreciate that.
But for those willing and able to push through the anxiety, it’s still just a difficult process. If you being rethinking atonement,[1] for instance, you’ll have to rethink sin, humanity, the incarnation, and even what it means to have eternal life. That’s just a lot of connections to make.
What I’m trying to say here is that what makes faith reconstruction so difficult is that you set out to rethink one topic and soon realize you have to reconstruct an entire faith system. Everything is connected to everything else in a system that makes it all makes sense. Rethink one piece and it no longer makes sense in the old system.
This is why we have the theological discipline known as systematics. Systematics is a way of doing theology that presents all the relevant topics within a coherent framework so that everything can be understood with reference to everything else. Here’s what we believe about sin because here’s what we believe about God, or here’s what we believe about Jesus and atonement because here’s what we believe about creation, humanity, and sin. Many systematics assume these topics exist in some logical, self-evident, almost linear order but that’s typically because they tend to move through each topic from left to right as it appears in the Bible. We start with God and creation including our understanding of humanity, then discuss the problem of sin, God’s response plan, and so forth and so on. In truth, however, these topics are connected more like a web or mind map and “where to begin” is theologically subjective.
When people enter the world of faith reconstruction because they felt compelled to rethink one topic, they can become easily overwhelmed realizing they may need to replace their entire systematic.
But I’ve also found there’s hope in this. Without realizing that this is what is going on, what often compels a person to begin the process of faith reconstruction is that he’s been handed a systematic that launched from a fundamentally flawed starting point and, like someone polluting a river upstream, it’s contaminated everything downstream, which he eventually begins to notice.
Deal with the upstream mistake and cleaning up the downstream consequences becomes much easier.
That’s what I’m hoping to do with my new book.
I’m aspiring to write an accessible systematics for the average layperson, a replacement framework that “explains” all of the relevant theological topics in a more coherent way.
I’ll argue that our starting point must be Jesus. Not God or the Bible, but Jesus. In fact, I’ll argue that our starting point already is Jesus, we just don’t acknowledge it. Even when Christian theologians profess to begin their systematic with the God of Genesis, they’re interpreting that God’s words and actions through the lens of Jesus. They have no choice. They’re Christians! Their understanding of everything has been informed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, including their understanding of the Bible and everything written in it.[2]
I then imagine each chapter (which I hope will be no more than 10-12 pages so the reader can work through it in one sitting) having an “eat this not that” structure to it. There were a series of books published a while back under that name. The idea was to get healthy by focusing on micro-wins each day. At each meal, for instance, replace an unhealthy choice with a healthy one. Instead of ordering the fried chicken, get the grilled chicken instead. If you’re going to each potato chips, try the baked version. Over time, you’ll see a significant increase in your healthy and well-being.
I want to do something similar with theology. I’ll start each chapter with a popular take on a specific topic. Take atonement, for instance, which I’ve already mentioned. You’ve heard it said that Jesus died on the cross to pay the death penalty for your sins. Then, I’ll lay out a few reasons why that understanding is “unhealthy.” Then I’ll replace it within my Christ-centered framework with something “healthier.”
By the end of the book the reader will have a new web that makes sense of all the relevant topics in one location. And since the goal of the project is to make the book short, simple, and easily accessible, it can function as a resource. I’ve found that even after spending considerable time rethinking things, old ways of thinking hang around and you can find yourself asking, “Wait, I know this isn’t right. How should I be thinking about this again?” That’s when I usually get a phone call or email from someone. But if you have this book on your shelf, you can simply return to that chapter and refresh your memory.
It’s an ambitious project. Most systematics are thousands of pages and multi-volume. This will not be that. But condensing material and making it accessible for people who may not have formal theological training is equally if not more difficult.
My experience, however, tells me something like this is needed. So, I’m going to take a shot at it. Be praying for me. Ask me how it’s going. Share with me content or perspectives you believe need to be addressed. I’ll even take title suggestions.
Many people, both Christians and non-Christians, have been handed a bad story. I’m going to write a book that attempts to give them a better one.
[1] Atonement is the doctrine that seeks to explain how Jesus’ life, death and resurrection function to reconcile us to God. In my experience, this is one of the most common inroads to faith reconstruction. The most common view in evangelical circles is what is popularly known as Penal Substitutionary Atonement, the belief that Jesus died to pay the death penalty for your sin so that you could be forgive and have access to eternal life. This doctrine sells well in a culture obsessed with violent, retributive notions of justice but it is fraught with theological problems, which many people eventually come to sense.
[2] This is one of the primary arguments I make in my first book All the Way Down: Rebuilding Christian Faith from the Rubble of Evangelicalism.
Like my first book, All the Way Down, the idea for this project came from my experience pastoring real people. In other words, I think what I’m aspiring to write will be really helpful.
More specifically, I think it will be helpful for people laboring through the process of faith reconstruction.
Our church has become something of a haven for people in this space. There are historic reasons for that, but how we got here is largely unimportant. It’s simply who we are now. As we say on our website, “When the old answers stop working, you don’t have to give up on faith.”
And we’re discovering it’s a much-needed space. There are lots of people for whom the old answers have stopped working and very few churches positioned to help them. The result is a lot of people giving up on faith, or at least organized religion.
What makes faith reconstruction so daunting and difficult is that everything connects to everything else. You can never just rethink one topic. Like water spilling over from one bilge bay to the next until eventually the boat sinks, when you begin rethinking one belief it isn’t long before you sense the need to rethink another, and then another, and then another until your entire faith system is “sunk.” That is understandably scary and for that reason many people stop engaging the process. I understand and appreciate that.
But for those willing and able to push through the anxiety, it’s still just a difficult process. If you being rethinking atonement,[1] for instance, you’ll have to rethink sin, humanity, the incarnation, and even what it means to have eternal life. That’s just a lot of connections to make.
What I’m trying to say here is that what makes faith reconstruction so difficult is that you set out to rethink one topic and soon realize you have to reconstruct an entire faith system. Everything is connected to everything else in a system that makes it all makes sense. Rethink one piece and it no longer makes sense in the old system.
This is why we have the theological discipline known as systematics. Systematics is a way of doing theology that presents all the relevant topics within a coherent framework so that everything can be understood with reference to everything else. Here’s what we believe about sin because here’s what we believe about God, or here’s what we believe about Jesus and atonement because here’s what we believe about creation, humanity, and sin. Many systematics assume these topics exist in some logical, self-evident, almost linear order but that’s typically because they tend to move through each topic from left to right as it appears in the Bible. We start with God and creation including our understanding of humanity, then discuss the problem of sin, God’s response plan, and so forth and so on. In truth, however, these topics are connected more like a web or mind map and “where to begin” is theologically subjective.
When people enter the world of faith reconstruction because they felt compelled to rethink one topic, they can become easily overwhelmed realizing they may need to replace their entire systematic.
But I’ve also found there’s hope in this. Without realizing that this is what is going on, what often compels a person to begin the process of faith reconstruction is that he’s been handed a systematic that launched from a fundamentally flawed starting point and, like someone polluting a river upstream, it’s contaminated everything downstream, which he eventually begins to notice.
Deal with the upstream mistake and cleaning up the downstream consequences becomes much easier.
That’s what I’m hoping to do with my new book.
I’m aspiring to write an accessible systematics for the average layperson, a replacement framework that “explains” all of the relevant theological topics in a more coherent way.
I’ll argue that our starting point must be Jesus. Not God or the Bible, but Jesus. In fact, I’ll argue that our starting point already is Jesus, we just don’t acknowledge it. Even when Christian theologians profess to begin their systematic with the God of Genesis, they’re interpreting that God’s words and actions through the lens of Jesus. They have no choice. They’re Christians! Their understanding of everything has been informed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, including their understanding of the Bible and everything written in it.[2]
I then imagine each chapter (which I hope will be no more than 10-12 pages so the reader can work through it in one sitting) having an “eat this not that” structure to it. There were a series of books published a while back under that name. The idea was to get healthy by focusing on micro-wins each day. At each meal, for instance, replace an unhealthy choice with a healthy one. Instead of ordering the fried chicken, get the grilled chicken instead. If you’re going to each potato chips, try the baked version. Over time, you’ll see a significant increase in your healthy and well-being.
I want to do something similar with theology. I’ll start each chapter with a popular take on a specific topic. Take atonement, for instance, which I’ve already mentioned. You’ve heard it said that Jesus died on the cross to pay the death penalty for your sins. Then, I’ll lay out a few reasons why that understanding is “unhealthy.” Then I’ll replace it within my Christ-centered framework with something “healthier.”
By the end of the book the reader will have a new web that makes sense of all the relevant topics in one location. And since the goal of the project is to make the book short, simple, and easily accessible, it can function as a resource. I’ve found that even after spending considerable time rethinking things, old ways of thinking hang around and you can find yourself asking, “Wait, I know this isn’t right. How should I be thinking about this again?” That’s when I usually get a phone call or email from someone. But if you have this book on your shelf, you can simply return to that chapter and refresh your memory.
It’s an ambitious project. Most systematics are thousands of pages and multi-volume. This will not be that. But condensing material and making it accessible for people who may not have formal theological training is equally if not more difficult.
My experience, however, tells me something like this is needed. So, I’m going to take a shot at it. Be praying for me. Ask me how it’s going. Share with me content or perspectives you believe need to be addressed. I’ll even take title suggestions.
Many people, both Christians and non-Christians, have been handed a bad story. I’m going to write a book that attempts to give them a better one.
[1] Atonement is the doctrine that seeks to explain how Jesus’ life, death and resurrection function to reconcile us to God. In my experience, this is one of the most common inroads to faith reconstruction. The most common view in evangelical circles is what is popularly known as Penal Substitutionary Atonement, the belief that Jesus died to pay the death penalty for your sin so that you could be forgive and have access to eternal life. This doctrine sells well in a culture obsessed with violent, retributive notions of justice but it is fraught with theological problems, which many people eventually come to sense.
[2] This is one of the primary arguments I make in my first book All the Way Down: Rebuilding Christian Faith from the Rubble of Evangelicalism.
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