Christopher Watkin, Thinking through Creation: Genesis 1 and 2 as Tools of Cultural Critique (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2017). This short book has an extended treatment on the need to study Scripture and culture with a posture of attentiveness. In contrast to both these errors, the Bible’s view of reality blossoms in a social and political hope that’s both intensely practical and outrageously radical: a sober delirium that leaves both CRT and liberalism in its expansive shadow.

Fourth, BCT will benefit scholars. The work will generate many interdisciplinary insights that will be easy to expand upon because of careful sourcing. While written in a popular style, BCT has a scholarly precision. In addition to a general subject index, there are specific indices for biblical figures, proper names, and Scripture references. Positively, there will be those who take up Watkin’s invitation to walk in this new way of figural apologetics: This is the best yet most accessible exploration of the intersection between Christianity, culture, and philosophy I’ve read in recent years.” Yes, absolutely. It’s a great way to put it, Chris, you capture another element with this book that is core to what we’re trying to accomplish together and what we’re pursuing together with the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics. And that’s where you say that your book is not trying to show that Christianity is true, but that you hope readers will reach a point where they want Christianity to be true. Explain what you mean by that? First, not everything that critical theory affirms is false. Like almost any discipline, there are areas in which Christians should agree with critical theory. For example, critical race theorists affirm that race—as it has been defined historically and legally—is a social construct and not a concept legitimately rooted in human nature or human biology.Watkin’s goal in BCT is to bring the world of the Bible into conversation with our world. The process by which this happens is disruptive and subversive. There are no neutral encounters. Borrowing from Ricoeur, Watkin wants the Bible to “refigure” our worlds: First, we should be careful and charitable in our language. On the one hand, Christians should be hesitant to throw around words like “ intersectionality” or “white privilege” without taking the time to understand the ideology in which these concepts are embedded. On the other hand, the bare fact that someone talks about “oppression” or “ social justice” isn’t remotely sufficient to conclude that they’ve embraced critical theory.

Dr. Keller summarizes Critical Theory’s understanding of the individual is these words: “neither individual rights nor individual identity are primary … it is an illusion to think that, as an individual, you can carve out an identity in any way different or independent of others in your race, ethnicity, gender, and so on. Group identity and rights are the only real ones.” That’s lovely. I’m going to end here with my favorite quote, from biblical critical theory. And just to say thank you, Chris, for writing such an amazing book. Here it is. The Christian should not tread some imaginary, safe manicured bourgeois path between pessimism and utopianism, taking care to fall for neither. In fact, she is both more pessimistic than the pessimist and more utopian than the utopian. She was more pessimistic than the pessimist because she recognized the Senate the heart of the human problem cannot be expanded and expanded by any education, social reform of cash injection, or medical intervention. She is more utopian than the utopian because she believes in the radical transformation of the human heart began in this life and completed in the next she has a dream. She believes in a reality without mourning, crying and pain. Yes, reality without death, where every tear will be wiped from the eyes of those who belong to Christ. Her multi lens biblical anthropology gives her a sober optimism, a realistic romanticism and a critical idealism. On that note, Chris, thank you. For Instructors and School Administrators Enhance your school’s traditional and online education programs by easily integrating online courses developed from the scholars and textbooks you trust.

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Very helpful. Let me ask you next next couple questions about Tim Keller. So again, we’re doing a special season on influences on on Tim Keller here. And my book is covering his spiritual intellectual formation. But he I know he’s influenced you. I’d love to know a little bit about that relationship and what you’ve learned from him.

Right? Well, I think you just covered in that answer as well, I was going to ask you about what you describe as the post Christian dichotomy, what you described as both too great and too humble, a vision of humanity at the same time, you just covered that right with, made in the image of God, but not God.

Augustine on Roman glory

First, there is prefiguration—what we bring to the encounter with another world. Second, there is configuration—what happens when the new figures we encounter affirm, challenge, or subvert the figures constituting our world. Finally, there is reconfiguration—what happens when we emerge from the encounter with a new world constituted by new figures. These processes are happening continually across all six figures domains in three contiguous movements. [20]

How do specific doctrines help us engage thoughtfully in the philosophical, political, and social questions of our day? And what your book does is it walks through using those two core concepts throughout the entire book. So there’s a narrative thread not only through the biblical theology, but also those kind of the diagonalization how the culture or cultures tend to split biblical truth and biblical truth cuts between them diagonalize them and then same thing of how the world our natural tendency in sin is the end shape, dynamic, and making religion in our own image. Whereas the tendency of God biblically, the pattern is always the U shape. It’s a wonderful concept is what part of what makes the book so, so coherent, despite all that it covers and its size. Okay, now the big question, looking for a smaller answer. Why do you describe secularization as a Christian heresy? This is fascinating. Second, the notion of hegemonic power is also legitimate. Christians have long recognized how various institutions can—intentionally or unintentionally—perpetuate ideas like secularism, naturalism, and relativism that create resistance to the gospel. Similarly, Christian parents have to fight against false standards of beauty and sexuality promulgated by the entertainment and advertising industries. These examples show hegemonic power in action, as the culture imbibes norms and values promoted by dominant institutions. Indeed, another remarkable feature of this work is that Watkin advances a novel thesis that scholars will have to consider while at the same time writing an accessible book for the Church. BCT crosses all the traditional boundaries—academic, pastoral, professional, and popular—and does so beautifully. Watkin models for other scholars how to cross these boundaries responsibly. The Church could use more literature like this from scholars that are accessible, designed for study, and sourced with scholarly precision for the academy. Given the target audience, Watkin’s arguments and assertions may leave scholars wanting more. They will not be left, however, feeling that he has been sloppy or careless.Bible: The Bible avoids CRT’s tragedy of perpetual conflict as well as liberalism’s incrementalism. Instead, it has an eschatological vision of radical, transformative reconciliation in which members of every tongue, tribe, and nation will sing praise to God with one voice (Rev. 7:9–10) and all injustice will be held to account (Rev. 20:12). This grand vision motivates practical efforts in the here and now (1 Cor. 15:58). And it also just one word on that calling, because I can imagine some listeners thinking, so you’re saying that the things happening now don’t matter, that we should just, you know, sort of lose ourselves in some people who dream world of creation and fall and sort of lose our elephants. And I think someone like Bonhoeffer is really, really helpful on this because he would say, No, it actually makes the present count more, he dignifies the present, to put it in this broader context. And he talks about a better worldliness. Now. It’s by having your your your mind and your disposition full of these big overarching storylines, that you can actually become more use in the present. And you can see the importance of the present in a sharper way doesn’t dole you to understanding what’s going on. A brilliant and unique book . . . It is the most biblical, up-to-date, and comprehensive analysis of contemporary Western culture that I know of.” Watkin believes that a close, attentive reading of Scripture reveals the significance of creation and redemption similarly. [14] While God can never be domesticated or mastered, we have in Scripture access to as much revealed divine truth as we can handle this side of glory. God is showing us in Scripture patterns in creation and redemption. Figures arise out of careful contemplation of Holy Scripture. Figures are at the center of Watkin’s theory. When all the types of figures combine, they form the world of meaning for an individual (more below). Again, this is a summary, and it’s even me selecting a summary from Keller’s summary. But I believe what Keller is referring to here is what critical theorists often refer to as “subjectivity.” And again, where Keller sees this aspect of critical theory as detracting from a theory of justice, I see it as a tool for helping us to see things we are blind to.