Wednesday April 8, 2009 ~
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Christian George has written two books that are connecting with a growing number of people - especially younger generations. Sex, Sushi and Salvation, and his newest, Godology: Because Knowing God Changes Everything, both push a biblical concept of God while using very non-traditional language and imagery. Christian lives in St. Andrews, Scotland with his wife Rebecca. He holds a Master of Divinity Degree from Beeson Divinity School and is working on a PhD in theology.
Christian will be on the blog today interacting with your questions about the book, theology, the Christian life, or the younger generations in the church.
So Christian, why "Godology"?
Godology is the idea of theology up close and personal. I wrote Godology because I sense within my generation a real hunger for authentic Christianity. This is a book for those who want to dig deeper in their faith--to trade rakes for shovels. In each chapter I explore an attribute of God, a spiritual discipline that helps us know him better, and a practical way to express that truth in the world. It's my hope that this upward, inward, and outward approach will foster intimacy with Christ and community with others.
How is this book different from other books about God and spiritual disciplines?
One thing I try to do is use fresh language to talk about ancient truths. There's so much in the past that evangelicals can draw on that will aid us in the future. What I'm saying in this book isn't new - it's orthodox Christian evangelicalism through and through. But I love to look at the Bible through lenses that help us think about our faith in new ways. You won't find some of the spiritual disciplines I talk about on typical "top 10 spiritual discipline lists" (art, labyrinth walking, and vow making, for example), but they're practices that have benefited Christians throughout the centuries and can invigorate our spiritual lives.
You have some pretty creative chapter titles. In "Jesus Ninja," you talk about God's power and say things like, "Sin bows before Christ its sensei." How did you decided to use these kinds of images in Godology?
I always try to view life holistically. Christianity isn't compartmentalized to one part of life. It touches everything. I try to see Christ at work in everyday activities - as a [wannabe] martial artist, as a student, and as a musician, whatever. What I'm trying to do is incarnate theology for people who might not pick up an academic theological textbook, and to show people that theology is exciting. Jesus used word pictures to talk about eternal truths. He connected with people through images they could relate to. So when I say that "holiness is the lone Kit Kat bar in a bucket of Butterfingers," or "journals are blogs for the soul," I'm trying to paint the Christian life in a way that a new generation can resonate with.
In Godology, you challenge some of the ways we live life and do church. Talk about some of these.
I'm very hopeful for my generation. I believe God is brewing a revival in our youth groups and on our college campuses. It's not boiling yet, but it's brewing. We're taking our faith outside of the walls of the church and showing the world that Christianity is a call to serve and love in radical ways. In other words, we're tired of a kiddie-pool Christianity; we want to go deeper. In Godology, I encourage believers to take seriously practices that fuel our faith and draw us closer to God and each other. These disciplines are a call to a counter-cultural way of life.
Silence is a forgotten element that can play a significant role in our worship services. Fasting teaches us how to really feast on Christ. Virtual prayer walking can open our eyes to what God is doing in other parts of the globe. God uses practices like these to wipe off our spiritual milk mustaches and exchange earthly habits for holy ones.
In Godology, you talk about God's attributes. Is there one that you have struggled with the most?
Definitely God's holiness. I actually wrote that chapter barefoot - kind of a Moses-before-the-burning-bush approach. Trying to condense God's holiness into twelve pages was an impossible (and probably dangerous) thing to do. I think a more solid understanding of God's holiness is one thing we're starting to recover in our churches - the high voltage glory of God. We're getting glimpses of a God who is bigger and brighter than we thought, and it's reminding us of how God got down and dirty on earth so we can be holy too. That's the beauty of Christianity. Christ came down to lift us up. When we recognize this - when we understand that a holy God intersected with a broken world - we can offer the world something truly worth living for.
Hit Christian with your questions in the comments section below. He'll be on the blog throughout the day.
Posted on April 8, 2009 at 8:00 AM ~ 7 Comments
Tagged with: george, godology, theology
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Best new release I've read this year.
My copy is in the mail, and I look forward to reading it. I seem to have run across several 18-22 year olds lately who feel like they've heard all the feltboard Bible stories from Sunday School, but don't GET the Bible or Christianity.
So I'm hopeful that your book might be an excellent backbone to a book club / small group.
Jonathan - Thanks, man! Really appreciate the kind words. I'm so glad you enjoyed the read.
Adrienne - What you've come across is becoming more and more typical, unfortunately, among college students and twentysomethings. So many students have strong church backgrounds, and they know the Bible, but it hasn't sunk in or changed their lives much. One of the reasons I wrote Godology (and Sex, Sushi, and Salvation) is to connect with people who know all the right answers but are still looking for something more. I've heard from several groups recently who've used Godology for book discussions and have had good results. Each chapter talks about God and a practical way to experience God in your life. I'd love to hear how yours goes.
Christian,
I will be that guy I hate: I am yet to read your stuff but have opinions and questions!
First, where do you see in the history of Christian Spirituality that we have lived this well rounded faith, where Christ touches everything? There have always been witnesses throughout history, but have there been communities beyond a generation we can learn from?
Second, how can we make worship about God again? I love crowds, I love the "expereince" and the music, but only as a tool to encounter Christ. What do you practice as a habit of the heart that has made corporate worship a God centered gathering?
And yes, I just ordered God-ology!
Thanks in advance!
Geoffrey - Thanks for your questions.
One of the first books I wrote is called Sacred Travels. For that book, I explored different Christian traditions to see what we can learn from each other's histories. What I discovered is what you're getting at - no community is complete within itself, and no one has gotten it perfectly right.
In Godology I explore a "kaleidoscopic Christianity" that recognizes the beauty of different traditions. While we can maintain our own denominational convictions - and I think we should - other traditions have a way of teaching us that God is multicultural and internationally involved. The Celts teach us how to live incarnationally and how art can be a form of worship (illuminated Gospels, etc.). Eastern Orthodox churches show us the beauty of mystery and remind us that we serve a God who is both seen and unseen. Baptists show us how to evangelize through meeting physical and spiritual needs. Presbyterians can teach us the importance of putting doctrine into practice. The Amish can show us how to live sacrifically, and in community. When the pieces of the stained-glass window are viewed as a whole, it's awesome to see the light of God splashed against a dark world. Every tradition has its own forte. Throughout history, we see that God uses each tradition's emphasis to inform and reform his church.
Your second question brings to mind two thoughts. First, I think it's important to pay attention to the substance of our songs. We've got a lot of miniskirt music out there - songs that barely cover the essentials. Music is a powerful medium through which theology is communicated. It's so encouraging to see people like Keith Getty and Stuart Townend (among others) writing God-centered music for a new generation.
The second thing is related to an experience I had in Taize, France. Taize is a community of monks who invite pilgrims and seekers to worship with them every week. In their worship, the monks do two things especially well. First, everybody's facing the same direction. There's a sense of participation, not performance. Second, before the service starts, there's an extended period of silence that allows the worshippers to be freed from distraction and focus on the object of their praise.
God used this experience to convict me about my own intolerance of silence. I find I'm much too often an amplifier instead of an antenna. While many of our worship services don't make time for silence, I try to cultivate a stillness before the service that prepares me to encounter God.
Thanks, again, for your questions. Hope you enjoy the book.
Christian,
You touched on this in your response about holiness...but how do you tackle the issue of going deep (know more of God) and wide (reaching out to others as a witness and a brother in Christ)?
JT - Great question.
This is how I see it. The more we know God - that is, the deeper we delve into his character - the more we see that in his nature he is outwardly and otherly focused. The more we know God, the more we know God's mission - to reconcile the world to himself. So in the Bible we have both an upward and outward mandate - to love God and to love others.
The incarnation is where we see this most clearly. God came down (depth) so that we can go out (breadth). This is where intimacy with God and community with others intersect.
If we have depth without breadth, we run the risk of an unbiblically warranted mysticism that fails to take into account our responsibility in the world and our connection to each other. However, if we have breadth without depth, we're likely to have a social gospel that's all social and no gospel. It's impossible to separate the upward from the outward. Like an architect's t-square, if the vertical is off, the horizontal will be also.
It all comes back to the nature of God. Within himself he's a perfect community, or as Jonathan Edwards said, a holy society - Father, Son, and Spirit. That community is the basis for our community, and the deeper we get to know that kind of God, the more we invest ourselves in others.