Christianity as a Way of Life: A Systematic Theology

Summary: Theological account of Christianity as a way of living, not simply as an intellectual system.

In an overly simplified sense, the point of the book is to move Christianity from a series of propositional belief statements (thin) to a “thick” belief system where those beliefs matter to not just how we see the world, but what we do in the world.

I appreciate academic books because they often interact well with not just the ideas being discussed but the alternatives to those ideas. A good academic book should grapple with the best arguments which disagree. What I don't always appreciate about academic books is that in general, academic books tend to have really long chapters because they are making a sustained argument that pays attention to not just their point, but everything around that point as well. Long chapters require a level of sustained attention that I do not always have.

I picked this up initially as an audiobook because it was cheater for me that way. But about half way through the book I broke down and bought the (very expensive) kindle edition. There are a number of really good quotes and I know I need to read the book again because there is nuance that I need to pay attention to. To try to keep the whole idea together, I tried to mostly listen to whole chapters while I was on a walk. Which meant that I was not taking notes, but it did mean that I was listening without a lot of distraction.

So much of theology is about framing. Not in the sense of there is nothing beneath the facade, but that the way you look at something matters. Hector's framing takes seriously Christianity as an ethical system that calls us to action. His thin/thick metaphor that is common in theological discussion, assumes that while there is not perfection within the church, that the church will be recognizable as doing church. Part of the problem with some of the discussion around Christian nationalism or cultural Christianity is that what is being held up as Christian doesn't look like Christianity any longer. The following quote I think does a great job at illustrating that there is some point where what we are doing ceases to accurately reflect Christ.

“On the other hand, if a group of people did not embody Christ's agency to some significant extent, it would no longer be recognizable as a church or even as trying to be a church. Think here of an anthropologist who is trying to understand the game of soccer by watching a couple of bad teams play. If the teams are so completely inept that the anthropologist cannot distinguish between intention and error, then the anthropologist will not be able to figure out what sort of game these teams mean to be playing just by watching them—the teams do not sufficiently embody the game, in other words. In the same way, there is an important difference between embodying Christ's agency imperfectly and failing to embody that agency; if a church is so bad at bearing witness to Christ that it can no longer be said to embody his agency (albeit imperfectly), then it is fair to say that it would no longer merit the title of church.” p219