★ 2024 Christianity Today Book of the Year ★
★ 2023 Australian Christian Book of the Year ★

“How can we be the questions God poses to the world?”

A must-read for our time that fundamentally interprets the world from a biblical perspective!

“The ultimate guide for disciples of our time!”
“The most biblical, contemporary, and comprehensive analysis of modern culture!”

-Recommended by Kang Young-an, Son Hwa-cheol, Song Yong-won, Shin Guk-won, Lee Jeong-gyu, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Horton, and more!

An unparalleled guide introducing 'biblical critical theory' and guiding readers on how to interpret the world through it.
Critical theory, which aims to make visible the deep structures of the society and culture in which we live in order to reveal and change them, is an important axis of modern social theory.
The author, a scholar specializing in modern European thought and language, illuminates that the Bible holds a more fundamental critical theory than these theories that attempt to explain the world, and uses this as a basis for insightful interpretations of modern society and culture.
This is a must-read, essential reference book for Christians who wish to understand the world in a biblically faithful and culturally relevant way.

For the past several years I have been arguing that there should be some kind of 'Christian High Theory'.
What Chris Watkin is doing in this book is exactly what I had in mind.
He thought it better to call it “biblical critical theory,” and I am convinced that I would do well to adopt that name.
The reasons he gives are sufficient.
That is, (1) we must build our critical theory not only on theology in general but also through direct contact with Scripture, and (2) our stance on culture must take into account all the major "turning points" in the biblical history of redemption, rather than focusing on just one aspect, as many denominations and Christian traditions tend to do.
Using the term “biblical” helps us keep this goal in mind.
--- From the Introduction (Tim Keller)

We learn about 'what?' and 'why?' but not so much about 'so?'
Likewise, we don't learn much about the "so what?" questions about sin, judgment, promise, covenant, law, prophecy, exile, incarnation, cross, resurrection, ascension, end times, and the end times.
So what about humanity? So what about society, our hopes, fears, and deepest values? So what about art, justice, history, and the environment? These biblical truths, and many others, have far-reaching consequences across all spheres.
Moreover, these results often provide fresh and constructive perspectives on the persistent social and cultural problems of our time.
--- From "Introduction: How Can We Become the Questions God Asks the World?"

There is a sad irony in the attempts of many Christians today to constructively engage in intellectual and social debate.
The very biblical truths and passages that Christians tend to avoid and find perplexing are often the ones that can most decisively and innovatively shape new thinking in key areas.
Few doctrines cause as much confusion and embarrassment among Christians today as the Trinity.
But in this chapter, I hope to show that the doctrine of the Trinity, far from hindering sophisticated debate and creative social and cultural insights, provides a platform for thoughtful Christians to constructively engage with the most important philosophical, political, and social questions of our time.
--- 「Chapter 1.
From "Trinity"

This paradigm of gifts puts us in the position of recipients.
We are given existence, given meaning, and loved.
As we will see clearly in the following chapters, we are creative recipients.
Being given the gift of the world does not make us passive.
But still, the fact remains that we are the recipients.
One thing we should not do with a gift is pretend that we bought or made it.
Since the giver is usually the one who receives the gratitude, our fundamental orientation toward existence in the paradigm of the gift is praise and gratitude.
--- Chapter 2.
From "Creation"

To put it simply, the more we talk about sin, the better for society.
In fact, it's good for democracy, it's good for equality, it's good for defeating despotism and imperialism, and it's good for finding meaning in life.
Sin itself is not good.
There is no problem in saying that we would be better off if there were no sin.
But approaching society without turning a blind eye to the Bible's robust doctrine of sin and judgment can present a far fresher, truer, and more positive vision than failing to see what the Bible blatantly conceals.
--- Chapter 4.
From “Sin and Society”

Ultimately, the phrase “God himself will provide the lamb” does not support the culture of human sacrifice, but actively and irreversibly overturns it.
This replaces the N-shaped paradigm of offering sacrifices—“You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours”—with a U-shaped dynamic in which God freely initiates a relationship with humanity and humanity responds with an attitude of gratitude.
--- Chapter 10.
From “Abraham and the Covenant”

The Bible has no ground zero genre, no neutral narrative style from which all other genres deviate or are transformed.
Each genre has its own conventions and assumptions, revealing a set of characteristics, orientations, and perspectives that cannot be perfectly reproduced in any other literary form.
If this radical genre diversity is not unusual among major religious and philosophical texts, it certainly must be unusual.
Moreover, the Bible's multiplicity of genres entangles much of modern Western thought, diagonalizing the superficial dichotomy between reason and imagination, exemplified in the conflict between Enlightenment rationalism and Romantic imagination.
The biblical texts engage our reason, our imagination, and our will, and are not considered secondary or unimportant to any of them.
The tea party of Hegel and Kierkegaard was joined by the fiery-hearted Byron and the perfectly rational Kant.
--- Chapter 14.
From “Wisdom Literature”

Our materialism and immaterialism are not two unrelated tendencies.
This is the inevitable dichotomous result of losing the perfect union of the material and the spiritual in the incarnate Christ.
When we abandon the incarnation, we find ourselves in a deadlock, caught between two extremes.
In other words, they endow material goods with inappropriate immaterial value, while at the same time avoiding material things and pursuing a utopian immateriality.
An anonymous Ugandan missionary diagnoses this dichotomous movement as a return to an alien form of life.
In other words, “we are drifting back to the polytheism of old, when the prophets of God waged great wars and fought.
“The true core of pagan thought is the division of the various concerns of human life into several compartments.”
--- 「Chapter 16.
From “Incarnation, Materiality, and Person”

Resurrection is a biblical figure that enables a new way of being in the world.
It diagonalizes some of the fundamental existential dichotomies that frustrate our experience of life in this life and force this world to conform to alien and inhuman ideologies.
It also diagonalizes the inappropriate attitudes that view death as simply good, simply evil, or simply insensitive.
It breaks open the logic of necessity and determinism that plagues the closed universe.
--- 「Chapter 20.
From “Resurrection, Change, Power”

Christian cultural theory is an agape theory, which is in contrast to the hermeneutics of violence.
The hermeneutics of violence systematically denies each of the four points that characterize the hermeneutics of love.
It views cultural communication in terms of power rather than relationships.
It interprets not to understand, but to assert and dominate.
It simplifies, distorts, or deliberately misrepresents the meaning of a cultural product, either to achieve one's own ends, to impose one's own interpretation, or to discredit or denigrate the creator.
It interprets itself to justify itself, even to the point of condemning others.
This is the hermeneutics of malice.
--- 「Chapter 23.
From "The Last Day and the Emperor's Things to the Emperor"

As we consider how the reality of God's judgment will impact the lives of Christians in the last days, I would like to add one more thought.
There is no need to think that reading the Bible faithfully requires that passages like Revelation 14 resonate completely with you.
Discomfort and confusion can be just as productive as understanding and mastery, and in some cases, they can even be more genuine responses.
There is precedent for such a response in the Bible.
There is little evidence that the reality of God's overwhelming judgment was comfortably accepted by the prophets.
There is much more evidence to the contrary.
By providing the genre of lament, the Bible offers an honest approach to facing such overwhelming realities.

--- 「Chapter 25.
From “Eschatology and Apocalypse”