Renovating the Mind

20 books/40 days review

Many Christians are seeking a faith that makes sense in today’s world. Some find the church of the past 100 years satisfying, but for many younger Christians, they are seeking a faith that resembles the early followers of Jesus, not modern-day followers. In his book, the future of faith, Harvey Cox writes beautiful a brief history of the faith. The first phase he states as the Age of faith, then to the Age of belief, to what he calls this movement today the Age of the Spirit. Being around younger Christians I’ve heard the talk about Acts 29 churches or formation of house churches. To many, this represents a more pure version of what the earliest followers practiced. For Harvey, these movements do not go far enough. As he states, “We cannot and should not try to reinstall the first Age of Faith. We live in a different world”. This to me is the most striking point he makes. Movements and new expressions of faith do not go deep enough, if all we want is to emulate the faith of the earliest followers.

For those like me who find church history tedious this book does an excellent job of tracing the history of the church. Using the age of faith, belief and Spirit the author weaves the history of not only the Western church but the church universal. There’s lots of talk about the move of dominate Christian influence from the “north” to the “global south”. A movement away from the ivory towers of western ideals, the future of faith is growing fastest in Africa, South America and Asia.

One of the more powerful chapters in the future of faith is Chapter 9, Living in Haunted Houses: Beyond the Interfaith Dialogue. The author points that intrafaith dialogue is as vital or if even more vital than interfaith dialogue. As one who has given up trying to have a conversation with fundamentalists of my own faith this chapter hit home. As he correctly points out, if those of us who wish to see a more open and understanding Christianity do not reach within our own group then will nothing changes. Outsides can not change an insiders issue. Without intrafaith dialog, “We will end up with more and deeper divisions than we once had, only running along internal rather than external fault lines”.

For some this book will be a breath of fresh air but I suspect some will gawk at some of the author’s prose. I hope that people would suspend judgment until after they have finished the entire book. If anything, it is a great reminder of the history of the faith.