Interesting. I haven’t read the book, but it sounds interesting.
Here’s the issue though. Christianity is meant to be culturally flexible and embodied in thousands of cultural ways. This is the very human beauty of Christ’s mission and teaching – and it’s power as the central human story.
As long as the book does not disembody Christianity from historical process and culture, all is well. If it demonizes the fact that human beings change along the way, experiment, entrench, and need course correction, then I can’t go with it.
God is not afraid of our history, our minglings with culture, nor our struggles to free ourselves from historical sins. He is present in the process.
i.e. Beauty can be found in “pagan” roots – because they are cultural roots. Pagan means “country dweller” – the people on the outside fringes of the empire.
There is a baptism for broken beauty in culture, and it can be reclaimed by this redemptive faith.
