Renewing Christian Worldview
A Holistic Approach for Spirit-Filled Christians
About
This brief but comprehensive introduction to Christian worldview helps readers understand the Christian faith as the substance of Spirit-filled living and as a knowledge tradition stemming from the global Pentecostal movement.
Using beauty, truth, and goodness as organizing principles, the authors delineate a Christian worldview by tracing each category historically, comparing and contrasting each with alternative Christian expressions, and constructing fresh takes on each as read through the lived Pentecostal experience. Unlike other worldview books, the authors' approach emphasizes beauty (relating to experience) rather than truth (involving knowledge acquisition); that difference in emphasis flows naturally from the Pentecostal perspective, which has traditionally centered the experience of the Spirit.
Pentecostal Christians will find this volume indispensable for thinking lucidly about their worldview from a renewal perspective.
Introduction: Seeking Renewal amid Competing Worldviews
Part 1: Renewing Beauty
1. Aesthetic Formation: How Perceptions Shape Us
2. A Historical Survey of Beauty and Aesthetics
3. Contemporary Christian Aesthetics: Begbie, Balthasar, and Hart
4. A Renewal Perspective on Beauty, Aesthetics, and Embodied Spirituality
Part 2: Renewing Goodness
5. Civic Engagement: How to Be Salt and Light in the World
6. A Historical Survey of Goodness and Ethics
7. Contemporary Christian Ethics: Niebuhr, MacIntyre, and Hauerwas
8. A Renewal Perspective on Goodness, Ethics, and Civic Engagement
Part 3: Renewing Truth
9. Cultural Apologetics: How to Speak Truth to Culture
10. A Historical Survey of Truth and Knowledge
11. Contemporary Christian Epistemologies: Plantinga, Zagzebski, and Lindbeck
12. A Renewal Perspective on Truth, Epistemology, and Holistic Knowledge
Epilogue: Living Renewed in a Pluralistic World
Index
Endorsements
"Steven Félix-Jäger and Yoon Shin have laid out the renewal worldview in simple, succinct, and sagacious terms. This book arises from simple ideas, rises to the heights of concise scholarship, and provokes theological imaginations. The book not only brilliantly treats the beauty, goodness, and truth in and of Pentecostal theology, it also transports the reader into the perichoretic beauty, goodness, and truth of a scholarship touched by grace."
Nimi Wariboko, author of Transcripts of the Sacred in Nigeria: Beautiful, Monstrous, Ridiculous
"Renewing Christian Worldview offers a bold and refreshing approach to a topic that can at times become a well-worn and tired subject. Félix-Jäger and Shin take seriously the differences a pneumatological perspective brings to the construction of a Christian worldview. The result is a provocative proposal that is both helpful for understanding one of the largest demographics among global Christianity (Pentecostals) and prescribing a way forward for anyone interested in an alternative to a traditional propositional approach. This timely work is sure to become a landmark in the field."
Lisa P. Stephenson, professor of systematic theology, Lee University
"Renewing Christian Worldview does just that: it reinvigorates the worldview discussion, albeit from a Pentecostal perspective. Félix-Jäger and Shin here provide a frame for engaging voices and perspectives from the global South as part of the necessary next steps both in the ongoing maturation of the Pentecostal academy and for further considerations of the transcendentals by theologians across world Christianity."
Amos Yong, professor of theology and mission, Fuller Theological Seminary
"This book is an achievement on many different levels. It represents a 'coming of age' of renewal traditions in the authors' ability to offer a form of sophisticated, world-regarding catechesis. It would have been a game-changer for me as a young person, when I had critical questions about life that neither my public school nor my church youth group was helping me answer. I felt lost so many times, openly wondering if my church tradition could keep up with the longings I had to make sense of the world and my place within it. This book could have helped me then, and I am convinced it will significantly help many people today. If read widely, this book could be part of a generational turning point."
Daniel Castelo, associate dean for academic formation, William Kellon Quick Professor of Theology and Methodist Studies, Duke Divinity School
"Félix-Jäger and Shin have given us a constructive account of renewal theology, engaging a deep bench of philosophical and theological scholars. The authors' Spirit-filled worldview creates new vistas into truth, beauty, and goodness with deference to the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions. Though some will find points of friction here, the holistic approach appears to be the view with which all Pentecostal/charismatic theologies will have to contend. An invigorating read!"
Dru Johnson, professor of biblical and theological studies, The King's College, New York City
"One of the greatest threats to the God-given fullness of human life is reductionism. When we attempt to make the unknowable known using reason and intellect alone, we unintentionally reduce the Infinite to the finite mind. Félix-Jäger and Shin have invited us to a renewed worldview through the integration of experience, emotion, and mind with beauty, goodness, and truth. This is a must-read for our time!"
Tammy Dunahoo, executive dean, Portland Seminary of George Fox University
"A fresh and innovative look at the nature and power of beauty, goodness, and truth--centered in the Spirit's work in and through creation--for personal and cultural renewal. Félix-Jäger and Shin expertly argue that a richer vision of reality, rooted in the Pentecostal imagination, can lead to a fresh movement of the Spirit in education, apologetics, and church ministry. This book is jam-packed with wisdom and insight and is a must-read for anyone interested in worldview, apologetics, culture, and theology."
Paul M. Gould, associate professor of philosophy of religion and director of the Master of Arts in Philosophy of Religion Program, Palm Beach Atlantic University
"Steven Félix-Jäger and Yoon Shin are two of the brightest emerging philosophical minds in the Pentecostal world. In Renewing Christian Worldview, they guide and form their readers in the beautiful, the good, and the true. This is the book we have needed for some time, full of the riches of the Christian tradition. In itself, this text is a philosophical education with and for the nearly one-fifth of the world's Christians in the charismatic-pentecostal tradition--and for many beyond."
L. William Oliverio Jr., associate professor of public theology and chair of Graduate Studies, Northwest University College of Ministry; co-editor-in-chief of Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies
"Félix-Jäger and Shin deliver a thoroughgoing, renewalist Christian worldview, which flows from the central narrative and experience of Pentecost and is rooted in the affections and practices of Spirit-filled believers. In the process, the authors provide a robust philosophical and theological exploration of beauty, goodness, and truth as a resource for thinking about the Christian worldview in the Spirit. This will make an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for Christian worldview courses in need of Pentecostal/charismatic perspectives."
Sammy Alfaro, Grand Canyon University
The Authors
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Lorraine Felix Steven Félix-Jäger
Steven Félix-Jäger (PhD, University of Wales) is associate professor of theology and worship, chair of the Worship and Media Department, and director of academic research at Life Pacific University in San Dimas, California. He is also an ordained...
Continue reading about Steven Félix-Jäger
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Elena Espinoza Yoon Shin
Yoon Shin (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is coleader of the Philosophy Interest Group in the Society for Pentecostal Studies and is an ordained deacon with Missio Mosaic/Anglican Mission International. He is the author of Pentecostalism, Postmodernism, and...
Continue reading about Yoon Shin