Faith Thinking: The Best Book You’re Never Heard Of

When John Franke (author of Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context and prof at Biblical Seminary) had to make a special order of Faith Thinking for his Theology I class, I was surprised. It had been one of the best books I had ever read on theology, and yet it was out of print. John was suprised as well, but was fortunately able to secure enough books for his class. At the time he ordered them, Half.com had copies going for $25.

I was in my second year of seminary and was in John Franke’s Theology I class in 2002 when I came across Trevor Hart’s book. Due to family squabbles, we had to really work hard on finding a date for our wedding, but we eventually settled on September 7th (it didn’t work too well for us, but it mostly pacified some of my family, not that they thanked me for trying or anything . . .). That meant that I would miss my first week of classes while on the honey moon.

While we had a wonderful week at Lake George, reality bit very quickly. We came home to our apartment filled with boxes and chaos. I was not able to get the place together very well at all. To make things worse, I had to read 70 pages that night from Faith Thinking, while my bride of but a few days was left to sort through the mess that was our home.

Agonizing as this time was, and all of the odds were soundly stacked against my enjoying Trevor, reading this book on theology and thinking as a Christian was a true joy. I had a hard time putting it down in fact.

Hart Challenges the overreliance of Christianity on scientific methods in theology and the never-ending quest for certainty. He carefully points to the relativism and uncertainty in the discipline of science and works his way back to Christianity. 

The material resonated with my experiences and concerns. It was a relief to read that I’m not the only crazy one out there (HT: Spencer Burke, who is one crazy guy!). Hart broke my restless mind into the discussion of postmodernism very easily, just as Franke probably had intended, and prepared me for confrontation with Beyond Foundationalism and other heavy reads in the Theology I course.