BOOK REVIEW:
Post Modern Christianity: Doing Theology in the Contemporary World. By John W. Riggs. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003. xi + 174 pp. ISBN 1563383640.

John W. Riggs, Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Eden Theological Seminary, has written an interesting little book that engages contemporary discussions about just what exactly is meant by a “postmodern” Christian theology. Riggs defines postmodernism as the characteristic philosophical mindset of our time that “makes appeal to context-bound situations and voices skepticism over claims about reality itself” (p. 5). His principal task is to sort out what is correct about postmodernism and what is often mistakenly assumed to be entailed by its guiding premises. In brief, the heart of the argument is that, on the one hand, postmodern approaches are right in affirming the historically-contextual character of all doctrinal statements as well as the “inherently interpretative and thus irreducibly pluralistic” character of theological reflection (p. 143); but, on the other hand, postmodern theologians draw the false conclusion from these important affirmations that it is impossible to make claims about the nature of reality itself. The dilemma from which Riggs seeks to deliver us is that a thoroughgoing appreciation of the insight into the contextual and pluralistic nature of theology threatens to dissolve into a complete relativism, while claims to possess a universal, objective truth are more often than not merely authoritarian appeals to the Bible, the creeds, or the pope. As a viable third alternative, Riggs proposes what he calls an “inclusive liberal” theology that is able to affirm what is true on both sides of the dilemma and leaves behind what is problematic about each position, so that we can embrace perspectival relativity without relativism and universal truth claims apart from authoritarianism. His chief mentors in this project are the process theologians who draw upon the philosophical resources of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne to argue that metaphysical claims about the nature of reality are not only possible but necessary since some metaphysical truisms can be denied only at the cost of self-contradiction. Moreover, process theology makes it possible to validate a theistic view of reality in which God is eminently personal, thereby being appropriate to Christianity’s decisive revelation in Jesus of Nazareth and adequate to contemporary standards of reason and human experience.

What marks this book as distinctive is the vast and ambitious scope of its undertaking. Riggs presents not only his central argument about postmodern theology but also gives readers a panoramic tour of the history of Christian theology, including the long story of its complicated relation to philosophy. Since the book is intended primarily for seminarians, pastors, and non-ordained persons interested in learning about Christianity and its theological interpretation, this breadth of scope is understandable and Riggs does an admirable job of compressing so much into so few pages. He is, moreover, to be commended for writing a book that presents difficult ideas in an accessible way; unfortunately, too many of our academic theologians never even bother to enrich theological discussions in the churches by writing for a non-specialist readership.  Nonetheless, I have to wonder whether this book could have been turned into two separate books, one intended to introduce non-academic readers to important issues in Christian theology, and another aimed to engage academic theologians directly with his thesis about what is right and wrong with our contemporary postmodern situation. I say this because the thesis he argues is important and receives little attention among those theologians who most self-consciously identify themselves as postmodernist. I, for one, hope that Riggs will take up this topic again in another publication, this time for the sake of taking on the very scholars he deems to be most in error about what is entailed by a postmodern stance.

Paul E. Capetz
Associate Professor of Historical Theology
United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities

PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED THEOLOGY, SPRING 2006, VOL. 6, #1.