Book of the Year in Christianity Today's 2024 Book Awards + Winner in the Public Theology & Current Events category of The Gospel Coalition's 2022 Book Awards
A bold vision for Christians who want to engage the world in a way that is biblically faithful and culturally sensitive.
In Biblical Critical Theory, Christopher Watkin shows how the Bible and its unfolding story help us make sense of modern life and culture.
Critical theories exist to critique what we think we know about reality and the social, political, and cultural structures in which we live. In doing so, they make visible the values and beliefs of a culture in order to scrutinize and change them.
Biblical Critical Theory exposes and evaluates the often-hidden assumptions and concepts that shape late-modern society, examining them through the lens of the biblical story running from Genesis to Revelation, and asking urgent questions like:
- How does the Bible's storyline help us understand our society, our culture, and ourselves?
- How do specific doctrines help us engage thoughtfully in the philosophical, political, and social questions of our day?
- How can we analyze and critique culture and its alternative critical theories through Scripture?
Informed by the biblical-theological structure of Saint Augustine's magisterial work The City of God (and with extensive diagrams and practical tools), Biblical Critical Theory shows how the patterns of the Bible's storyline can provide incisive, fresh, and nuanced ways of intervening in today's debates on everything from science, the arts, and politics to dignity, multiculturalism, and equality. You'll learn the moves to make and the tools to use in analyzing and engaging with all sorts of cultural artifacts and events in a way that is both biblically faithful and culturally relevant.
It is not enough for Christians to explain the Bible to the culture or cultures in which we live. We must also explain the culture in which we live within the framework and categories of the Bible, revealing how the whole of the Bible sheds light on the whole of life.
If Christians want to speak with a fresh, engaging, and dynamic voice in the marketplace of ideas today, we need to mine the unique treasures of the distinctive biblical storyline.
672 pages.
Reviews
“Watkin turns and overturns the tables of today’s culture-changers by examining various criticaltheories through biblical lenses rather than vice versa. Biblical Critical Theory is an important update of Augustine’s City of God, a proposal for making biblical sense of what is happening incontemporary culture. This is the ultimate how-to book for disciples looking to beat ideological swords and other weapons in the popular culture wars into gospel plowshares, tools for making sense of, and reconciling, the contradictions of our present moment.”
KEVIN J. VANHOOZER, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
'Biblical Critical Theory doesn't just give us answers; it helps us to come up with better questions . . . An innovative and immensely fruitful paradigm.'
MICHAEL HORTON, Westminster Seminary California
'This is the best yet most accessible exploration of the intersection between Christianity, culture, and philosophy I've read in recent years.'
NATHANIEL GRAY SUTANTO, Reformed Theological Seminary, Washington, DC
“This book is a feast. Chris Watkin accomplishes what few have. He combines wide-ranging knowledge of resources with a lucid and accessible style. More important, he digs deep into critical thinking that is so necessary if we are to make sense of our times and speak the gospel into them. He avoids two pitfalls: (1) rejecting critical theory altogether, dubbing it Marxist and therefore offensive, and (2) accepting its insights without endorsing all its presuppositions. Refreshingly, Watkin opts for a third way, a more biblical one: criticism with hope. To substantiate this, he walks the reader through all the episodes of redemptive history, showing how at every point the Bible is “subversive” of the world’s ways, but always with faith. Though there is a good deal here, deep calls forth unto to deep, and I would urge readers to wrestle with the depth and develop their own applications of healthy criticism. The gospel is in this.”
William Edgar, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
“I am so thankful to God that this long-awaited book has finally arrived at this particular moment in our late modern world. For those of us who have been advocating the imperative of biblically faithful cultural critique and construction, Chris Watkin has taken away our blunt machete and given us a scalpel; indeed, he’s given us a whole set of diagnostic and surgical tools. Biblical Critical Theory will become a seminal text for us: part manifesto, part Bible overview (the most maximal one imaginable), part blueprint for civilization. It’s a revelation about the implications and applications of God’s revelation and how Jesus Christ is the subversive fulfillment of all and every culture. In terms of Christian doctrine, Watkin admits that he is saying nothing new, but the arrangement of the material is menthol fresh, his interlocutors are the heavyweights, and his writing is a model of elegance, engagement, and empathy. From first steps in Christian discipleship, through catechesis and seminary, and to the highest level of academic research, Watkin’s work in Biblical Critical Theory will be a foundation and frame for years to come. Absolutely essential reading”
Dan Strange, Crosslands Forum
'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.'
TIMOTHY KELLER, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York
“A wonderful book bringing the Scriptures— every part of them— into a deep and illuminating conversation with the concerns of culture. I learnt new things about both the Bible and the modern world in each of these twenty-eight fascinating chapters. I will be referencing this work (which is evangelist-speak for “ripping it off ”) for many years to come.”
Glen Scrivener, Speak Life
“Biblical Critical Theory is an ambitious, comprehensive, and thrilling work of Christian apologetics. Written by a scholar of French thought who has built his career not in the seminary but in secular institutions, this book moves well beyond a run-of-the-mill account of the West’s seminal thinkers. Rather, the intellectual architects of modernity are expounded by someone with a subtle, first-hand grasp of their power. The result is a rich, sympathetic, and critical engagement with the gospel’s most powerful rivals. Refusing to abstract a “biblical worldview” from the actual phenomenon of Scripture, Watkin tethers his material to the storyline of the Bible, engaging with Scripture’s own language and thought-forms. Armed with this dual-attentiveness to Scripture and contemporary thought, the result is a vast and breathtaking work of Christian cultural engagement. The book’s structural coherence and biblical-narrative approach makes a cover-to-cover read a rich experience. But having read it, it ought to stay on a shelf with other often-used reference books, within reach for anyone who wants to understand the Bible, contemporary culture, or the relation between the two. It is probably, in my opinion, the most significant work of its kind to appear in a decade.”
Rory Shiner, Providence City Church, Perth
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Trinity
2. Creation
3. Humanity
4. Sin and Society
5. Sin and Autonomy
6. Sin, Anthropology, and Asymmetry
7. From Lamech to Noah
8. Babel
9. Abraham and Promise
10. Abraham and Covenant
11. Moses, the Exodus, and the Torah
12. Prophecy and Power
13. Prophecy and Cultural Critique
14. Wisdom Literature
15. Incarnation, Space, and Time
16. Incarnation, Materiality, and Personality
17. The Ministry of Jesus, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor
18. The Cross, Subversion, and Grace
19. The Cross, Asymmetry, and Paradox
20. The Resurrection, Transformation, and Power
21. The Last Days, Church, and Society
22. The Last Days and Parallax Living
23. The Last Days and Giving to Caesar What Is Caesar’s
24. The Last Days and Modernity
25. Eschatology and Apocalyptic
26. Eschatology and Time
27. Eschatology and Identity
28. Eschatology and Culture
Conclusion
Biblical Critical Theory is in the following collections: