The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition

RATING: 4.5 STARS Introduction: Professor Smith presents an expository introduction to Christianity from a philosophical, biblical, and historical perspective. The writing style is highly suitable for any one who is agnostic, atheist, and also anyone who can ruminate through well-thought out philosophical, logical, theological, and historical evidence. The catch-phrase of this book is "absence-of-evidence does not constitute evidence-of-absence." In other words, "the fact that science cannot get its hands on anything except nature is no proof that nature is all that exists." Also, Dr. Smith argues for a restorating of the "Great Tradition," meaning the Christianity of the universal Christian church of the 1st millenium. Good stuff to ruminate on. Author: In his own words, professor Smith is a Universalist (he sees common things in all religions - a field he spent his life studying and examining up close) and thus he "refuse to prioritize any one of the eight great religious traditions over the others." Nevertheless, his parent's sincerity, depth, and sincerity as Methodist missionaries in China has been influential in his view that religion matters. In fact he believes that secular modernists, agnostics, and atheist are "living in a truncated world" because of their denial of the trasncendent world. The author initially meant to name the title of his book "The Heart of Christianity" until he found out that Marcus Borg had taken the title already. Smith feels tha Borg gave "too much to secular modernity." This paperback edition contains an insightful interview into the thinking of Dr. Smith. Content: The 165 page book is basically three entities that flow in a sequential logic: "The Christian Worldview," "The Christian Story," and "The Three Main Branches of Christianity Today." PART I. "The Christian Worldview" is a well developed and very PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT for anyone who doubts that "beyong the edge of today's universe lies the infinite unknown we will step into tomorrow." PART II. "The Christian Story" is a well writen and very BIBLICAL PRESENTATION of what makes Christianity stand out. PART III. "The Three Branches of Christianity Today" is a well researched and very HISTORICAL concised COMMENTARY on Orthodoxy, Roman-Catholicism, and Protestantism. While none of the three branches will feel mis-represented, one may be left with questions wanting to know more. To keep the book under a limited number of pages, Smith discusses two important aspects of each branch. The most important topics for Catholics, Smith explains, are the Church as teaching authority, and the Church as sacramental agent. For the Orthodox, the corporate view of the Church and the mystical emphasis are distinctive. Protestantism stresses justification by faith and what he calls "the Protestant principle." Conclusion: As an evangelical Protestant, I was surprised by the novel way that Huston Smith presents the heart and soul of mere Christianity.

The Soul of Christianity, Restoring the Great Tradition is renowned author, scholar, and teacher of world religions Huston Smith's distillation of the Christian message as the source of Truth from which all meaning in life is derived. He begins the argument by describing the relationship between science and faith and presents a fact that should be obvious but is not: the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Smith says this is the essential truth that has triggered the second great revolution in the human spirit because it is bringing God back into the picture. The first revolution--in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--replaced God with a scientistic view, which is to say our human ability to reason. In the first revolution, humanity was high on the Scientific Method and came to believe all truths could be discovered and mapped through experimentation. Built on the real world of the five senses, Science kicked Mystery to the curb. With scientific advances came a new set of values. The values of the early church--the Great Tradition--got lost under Sunday sales flyers. In came secular materialism and the lust for money. The Gold Standard replaced the Golden Rule. Secular materialism now shapes all our institutions--science, technology, business, education, religion, media, art, government. And the rich got richer.... Despite the great portfolios, the impeccable report cards, the trophy houses, and the like that put a big distance between the winners and the losers, a problem remains that unites all of us: the "longing for release from mundane existence with its confining walls of finitude and mortality." Smith says "the Good News of authentic religion--in this book, Christianity--is that the longing can be fulfilled." As the argument of The Soul unfolds, Smith describes a conversation between science and the Christian world view in which science comes to realize its own false premises and limitations. Understanding science in the context of the Great Tradition of Christianity--the beliefs established in the first millennium, when the church was united--brings us back to Mystery. As scientists come to realize that they can't explain everything, that one inquiry into the nature of the universe leads to more questions and more answers, they realize the questions are infinite and that the fundamental feature of the universe is not matter but information. Basically, scientists don't know why things happened. The why is what gets them. It gets them because it takes them out of the physical world. Somehow--why?--the whole is invariably greater than the sum of its parts. The scientistic view of the world as we know it as growing more complex from the bottom up--simple little things evolve into complex big things--whereas the Christian world view asserts that the Infinite becomes the many. The parts of the whole are virtues, Smith says, "for they retain in lesser degree the signature of the One's perfection. "The

In The Soul of Christianity, Dr. Huston Smith gives us a distillation of Christianity, it's history, current state and it's place among other faiths. He makes does not debate the points here with others who will invariably disagree, but rather to clearly presents his ownunderstanding of the Faith. The book is presented in 3 sections. The first part, "The Christian Worldview", contains 15 points regarding humanity's ability to comprehend God and the infinite. The section is so rich with historical, religious and literary references that I had to slow down to savor it, looking up the unfamiliar references. (Something I recommend to everyone.) This is the deepest material of the text and will take the most time to digest. Some readers will not agree with his belief that Christianity is but one of many paths to God. The second part is easier to read and it is very straightforward with a narrative of the history of the Faith's foundations. A brief summary of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ and Paul are covered. It addresses the popularity, distinctives and acceptance of Jesus and His message. This expanded chapter from Smith's book The World's Religions the covers all the basics. Believers who take a more literal view of the scriptures may feel that several doctrines of Christianity have been left out or re-interpreted. The third part is a brief but interesting comparison and contract of the three main branches of Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism. The chapter isn't critical of either branch and point out interesting facets about each. It would be folly to expect universal agreement with Dr. Smith's thoughts and he knows it. He presents these as his own and the reader is encouraged to take it as that. Learn from this book and if you disagree with parts of it, use it as motivation to study and learn more about your own faith.

In 1996 Bill Moyers devoted a five-part PBS special to the work of now-Syracuse professor Huston Smith, the child of missionaries, author of THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS, and a PBS television producer and filmmaker. In THE SOUL OF CHRISTIANITY: Restoring the Great Tradition, Smith turns his pen to a defense of the essentials of the Christian faith. Weaving together thoughtful deductions, history, personal anecdotes, insights from others, poetry and pertinent hymn lyrics, Smith looks at the Christian worldview, the foundational points of Christian theology, and the three branches of the church today. In writing, he says he rarely had to reach for his Bible to check its quotations, for they were "in my head and in my life." This is accessible --- but by no means light --- reading. In Part One, Smith enumerates the fixed points of the Christian world, including its infiniteness (which includes the finite) and its order. There are two distinct ways of knowing, according to the Christian worldview: the rational and the intuitive. "After we have done our best to understand the world, it remains mysterious but through the shrouds of mystery, we can dimly discern that it is perfect." In Part Two, Smith engagingly recaps the foundational points of Christian theology: the incarnation, the atonement, the trinity, eternal life, bodily resurrection, hell and the virgin birth. On the incarnation, "Christ was the bridge that joined humanity to God." He offers a beautiful interpretation of the atonement ("the most powerful demonstration of the sender's love is to let its receiver know that the sender suffers the pain the recipient suffers") and a moving look at the symbolism of the cross. His thoughts about the trinity are compelling. On Christians believing in the trinity and yet being monotheistic, he reminds us, "H20 can be ice, water, or steam without losing its chemical identity." He later adds, "If then, love is not just one of God's attributes, but his very essence --- and it may be Christianity's distinctive mission in history to claim just that --- at no point could God have been truly God without being involved in relationship." In Part Three, Smith examines three divisions of Christianity today: Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism (over 900 denominations in the United States). He briefly illumines each. In Catholicism, he touches on the roles of Mary and the Pope, the Church's defense of human life, and the importance of the sacraments. Smith shows how the Eastern Orthodox Church differs from the Catholic Church in both the extent of its authority and the means by which it reaches its dogma. Smith looks at two aspects of the Protestant Church: justification by faith (faith as a response of the entire self) and the Protestant Principle (warning against idolatry, or "absolutizing the relative"). Smith admits, "Christianity is such a complex phenomenon that it is difficult to say anything significant about it that will carry the assent

Huston Smith is not one to take on small tasks, as evidenced by his universe-sized purpose statement, "I have tried to describe a Christianity which is fully compatible with everything we now know, and to indicate why Christians feel privileged to give their lives to it." If anyone has earned the right to try, Smith would be that person given his life-long scholarly, passionate pursuit of the history of world religion. "The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition" arrives just in the nick of time to perhaps halt something of the great Christian capitulation to post-modern thinking. When so many other Christian authors are hyping the latest trend and hoping on the latest bandwagon, Smith calls a halt to the march. He does so not as a naïve, head-in-the-sand cultural rejecter, but as a world-aware, Word-wise scholar who is well aware of the multiplicity of competing narratives. Smith expertly presents Christianity as THE meta-narrative that explain all the other mini-narratives. Further, he concisely and precisely sifts through the myriad of competing Christian narratives to restore the great tradition-the grand essentials of core Christian belief. Granted, not everyone, including this reviewer, will name and claim the identical doctrines nor define them identically. However, it is difficult to refute the grand movement in the symphony that Smith composes. Personally, one of the most helpful apologetical (reasoned, logical defense of Christianity in light of apparent contradictions) premises is Smith's pithily worded insight that modern (and post-modern) culture has not been able to "distinguish absence-of-evidence from evidence-of-absence." That is, we may not always be able to scientifically prove the active presence of God, however, nor can we prove the absence of God scientifically, and we certain can discern His affectionate, sovereign presence spiritually. Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of "Soul Physicians" and "Spiritual Friends."