Publishers Weekly
10/17/2022
This ambitious effort by Watkin (Thinking Through Creation), a senior lecturer in French studies at Monash University, Australia, positions the Bible as a cultural critique. He posits that Christianity’s capacity to produce “recognizable and repeatable patterns and rhythms of behavior, of thought, of language” means that the faith can be used as a tool of social analysis. The author suggests that God speaking the world into existence renders moot discussions about whether language produces or merely describes reality because while language can shape reality, only God’s language has such power. Tackling posthumanist thinkers’ concern with augmenting the human body, Watkin posits that the Bible “endorses the use of technologies and practices... to improve human life,” but adds that humans should only undertake major changes if they glorify God. Jesus, the author asserts, provides an alternative to Marxist and Hegelian conceptions of authority because his status as “sovereign servant” suggests that authority can come from deference to a higher power. Watkin’s discourses with such thinkers as Nietzsche, Kant, and Derrida on the incarnation, apologetics, prophecy, and eschatology impress with their depth and complexity, though readers unfamiliar with these secular critical theorists may struggle to follow along. Still, Watkin largely pulls off this daring feat of scholarship. (Nov.)
Oklahoma Baptist University ALAN NOBLE
'A fresh way of seeing the world, life, culture, and the Bible . . . I highly recommend this book.'
Centre for Public Christianity NATASHA MOORE
'[Chris Watkin] maps a path out of some of the most fundamental impasses of our time . . . Urgent and weighty, Biblical Critical Theory is . . . simply, a tremendously exciting read.'
City Bible Forum SAM CHAN
'This book is a must-read for all serious thinkers.'
NATHANIEL GRAY SUTANTO
'This is the best yet most accessible exploration of the intersection between Christianity, culture, and philosophy I've read in recent years.'
Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship RICHARD CUNNINGHAM
'This is truly the book I have long wanted to read, and I believe it deserves to become a standard text for all Christian leaders, teachers, evangelists, and any serious-minded believer.'
RORY SHINER
' . . . An ambitious, comprehensive, and thrilling work of Christian apologetics . . . The most significant work of its kind to appear in a decade.'
Speak Life GLEN SCRIVENER
'A wonderful book bringing the Scriptures—every part of them—into a deep and illuminating conversation with the concerns of culture.'
Center for Public Christianity JOSHUA CHATRAW
'A brilliant and unique book . . . It is the most biblical, up-to-date, and comprehensive analysis of contemporary Western culture that I know of.'
American Bar Foundation TERENCE HALLIDAY
'Every careful reader will be rewarded from repeated immersions in this profound and potentially transformative work.'
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School KEVIN J. VANHOOZER
'An important update of Augustine's City of God, a proposal for making biblical sense of what is happening in contemporary culture.'
Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology BRUCE RILEY ASHFORD
'An effervescently brilliant book, that rare volume that excels both in biblical and cultural exegesis.'
WILLIAM EDGAR
'This book is a feast. Chris Watkin accomplishes what few have.'
Crosslands Forum DAN STRANGE
'A seminal text for us . . . A foundation and frame for years to come. Absolutely essential reading'
Geneva College ESTHER LIGHTCAP MEEK
'Christopher Watkin's expert, timely compendium of Christian Scripture's subversive engagement of dominating themes of our modern age brings welcome healing to our world.'
University of South Florida DOLORES G. MORRIS
'Incisive, accessible, and astonishing in scope . . . '
author and historian JOHN DICKSON
'This is a magnificent achievement. It is a must-read . . . Here is a total defence and commendation of Christianity like no other. Buy it. Read it. Ponder it. Pass it on.'
founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in TIMOTHY KELLER
'A book that I have been eagerly anticipating for years. ... My prayers are that this book will bear much intellectual and spiritual fruit in many lives over the decades ahead.'
Westminster Seminary California MICHAEL HORTON
'Biblical Critical Theory doesn't just give us answers; it helps us to come up with better questions . . . An innovative and immensely fruitful paradigm.'
