The Best Books I Read in 2019
Every year Greg Enas, co-founder and leader of Citizen 7 right here in Indianapolis, circulates an end-of-year summary of the best books he’s read in the last twelve months. These works are diverse in their focus and perspectives. Here is a snippet that focuses on Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun’ s For the Life of the World: Theology That Makes a Difference. Greg writes:
“Human beings and the world come to fulfillment when they become in actuality what they have always been in intention: when God rules the world in such a way that God and the world are ‘at home’ with each other – more precisely, when God comes to dwell in the world and when the world has become and experiences itself as being God’s home.” This is the thesis of this short but interesting book. The confessions state that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever; these authors posit that the chief end of all of history is “by the entire creation flourishing in all its richness as it finds itself fully at home with itself by God dwelling in it.” Thus, they reorient the subject of theology not to be God himself as a singular narrow focus, “but God as the creator and consummator coming to indwell the world, and the world as God’s creation and God’s home. The purpose of theology is then to help human beings identify God’s home as their home and to help us journey toward it. While the key aspect of the journey is redemption from oppression and sin, it would be a mistake, however, to center the Christian faith and Christian theology on redemption or, even more narrowly, on justification. Redemption, or the repair of the human condition, is the Christian faith’s subsidiary theme, contingent on the reality of brokenness and sin in history. Its two primary themes are creation (garden of Eden) and consummation (new Jerusalem). The entire mission of Jesus can be summed up in John 1:14 (the Word became flesh and dwelt among us). The good news we are to share is the good news of “God’s coming to make the world into God’s home.”
You can read the rest of Greg’s “Best Books I Read in 2019” right here.
Greg Enas is a co-founder and leader of Citizen 7, and frequent ITS course auditor.