The Rebirth of Orthodoxy : Signs of New Life in Christianity

Rating:
Summary: "Pop Theology" unmasked
Review: "Everything old is new again" reflects the realities explored by this noted theologian in an outstanding work that will challenge and inspire the serious seeker. As one who has traveled through the vast seas of quest for the corpus of faith, I continue to find Oden a clear beacon in what is often stormy waters.

This is a wonderful and inspiring book giving hope to those who feel something is missing.

Rating:
Summary: "Pop Theology" unmasked
Review: "Everything old is new again" reflects the realities explored by this noted theologian in an outstanding work that will challenge and inspire the serious seeker. As one who has traveled through the vast seas of quest for the corpus of faith, I continue to find Oden a clear beacon in what is often stormy waters.

This is a wonderful and inspiring book giving hope to those who feel something is missing.

Rating:
Summary: "Pop Theology" unmasked
Review: "Everything old is new again" reflects the realities explored by this noted theologian in an outstanding work that will challenge and inspire the serious seeker. As one who has traveled through the vast seas of quest for the corpus of faith, I continue to find Oden a clear beacon in what is often stormy waters.

This is a wonderful and inspiring book giving hope to those who feel something is missing.

Rating:
Summary: This will only convince people who are already orthodox
Review: I was required to read this book for work, and I found it to be highly disturbing.

Firstly, I found much of the book both insulting to non-orthodox Christians and hypocritical. Oden claims that modern idealogues or "modern chauvanists" are incapable of being open to orthodox thinking, and, in fact, automatically dismiss any thoughts that originate before 1789. However, it becomes obvious during the retelling of Oden's own spiritual journey from leftist liberal to extreme orthodoxy that he is equally incapable of accepting any influence from modern thought. It is even suggested that anyone open to such ideas may also be risking apostacy. He uses harsh and insulting terminology and erroneous assertions, even claiming that the scientific community is rapidly turning away from Darwinism. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Secondly, the book contains quite a lot of religious metaphor and analogy, not clearly putting forth the ideas he wants to communicate. While this may be easy to understand or at least interpret for those with frequent exposure to religious babble-speak, it completely loses anyone else, and thus loses some of Oden's potential converts.

If person were to pick up this book to reaffirm his/her decision to become more religiously orthodox, it serves its purpose. As for the rest of the population, the book is good for a laugh.

Rating:
Summary: Read this book
Review: Oden argues in the beginning pages of this book that the theological quest for orthodoxy is well underway within the Christian and Jewish traditions who both are seeking their founding roots through the reading and contextualizing of their most ancient and authoritative writings and commentators into this century. This search, Oden argues, is a sign of new life within Christianity as it earnestly desires to recover its theological, liturgical, and pastoral roots. In taking up this quest is to also relearn the skill once possessed and then discarded that was once able to distinguish faithful witnesses from heresy and to learn how each heresy overcome has strengthened orthodoxy and taught the body of Christ enabling it to take on greater challenges.

Oden builds a case for orthodoxy throughout this latest effort that seeks to show orthodoxy's patience, strength and flexibility within clearly distinguished boundaries. In so doing, Oden shows orthodoxy doesn't lead to oppression; but rather, freedom. Oden's presentation in distinguishing the authority invested in the written word of God from that of oral traditions and why the written Word of God is normative and authoritative over all other voices is noteworthy. Of greater interest is his unpacking of the Vincentian rule of faith that says orthodoxy is that which has been believed by everyone, everywhere, and at all times. Thus to be trustworthy, Oden writes, Christian truth claims must: (1) Be the same faith that the church confesses the world over. (2) Be the same faith confessed by the apostles. (3) Survive testing by cross-cultural generations of lay consent through a trustworthy process of conciliar agreement. (Conciliar agreement: Has the teaching been confirmed by an ecumenical council or by the broad consensus of the ancient Christian writers?) What this means in practice: (1) If some isolated contemporary members abandon the historical, universally received worldwide faith, you prefer the universal to the particular. (2) Even if the whole community of believers for a certain period of time seems to go astray in a new culture with a new idea unfamiliar to the apostles, you appeal to antiquity above innovation. (3) If the reliability to apostolic testimony itself is questioned, you appeal to ecumenical conciliar precedent by looking at conciliar decisions and canons, where almost everything important has been already debated. Hence, there are four filtersÑor strata of references, if you willÑthrough which to sift Christian truth claims: (1) The universal truth prevails over the particular (the whole is preferred to the part). (2) The older apostolic witness prevails over newer alleged general consent. (3) Conciliar actions and decisions prevail over faith-claims as yet untested by conciliar acts. (4) Where no conciliar rule avails, the most reliable consensual ancient authorities prevail over those less consensual over the generations. (As a general rule eight great doctors of the church are most referenced to chart ancient ecumenical consensual Christianity. From the east: Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom. From the west: Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great.)

This book is important if you wish to travel with Oden on his theological and pastoral quest for orthodoxy. Oden presents the hallmarks of this quest so that the reader may greater appreciate where forces within Christianity are heading in this new century. In addition Oden reveals much of his own theological method so that the reader may avoid pitfalls and theological dead ends long settled as well as gain a firmer understanding of the goals of orthodoxy.

Rating:
Summary: A worthy, persuasive, and scholarly study
Review: The Rebirth Of Orthodoxy: Signs Of New Life in Christianity by theologian and post-denominational ecumenical scholar Thomas C. Oden (Chairman of The Institute on Religion and Democracy) is an informed and informative examination of the new trend of revitalized traditional faith, a close study of scripture and daily prayer, a treatise on moral accountability, and a combining of hopes and dreams across doctrinal lines. Individual chapters address the renewal of orthodoxy within the Christian community, observe why orthodoxy survives in the modern era, how the multicultural aspect of orthodoxy can be strengthened, classical ecumenical methods, and a great deal more. A worthy, persuasive, and scholarly study of a noteworthy trend in contemporary religious thought, The Rebirth Of Orthodoxy is a welcome and highly recommended contribution to Religious Studies reading lists and library collections.

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: This is a good book. Not a great one, but good. Oden correctly identifies the ecumenical orthodox phenomenon, but tends to be a little repetitive, and tends to skip over the differing Protestant/Anglican/Orhtodox/RC understandings of the term.

Rating:
Summary: New Voices in the Mainline
Review: This is a great book, the product of Tom Oden's own journey in faith. That journey of nearly three decades has taken him a long way from the east coast to the west coast of the Christian landscape of our times. If you are from a liberal, mainline denomination - you're going to hate this book. All the more reason to read it with a mind open to be challenged. If you are a conservative Christian, you may like what he says - but chances are you'll be very mistrustful of the source. Read it. Its high time for God's-eye view on the world. The book is as fresh and as timely as this week's TIME.