Who Is a True Christian?
Contesting Religious Identity in American Culture
Who Is a True Christian? is an ambitious book. It draws together theology, politics, and culture to provide both a diagnosis of and a solution to our contemporary crisis. And while it may not always succeed in its ambitious aims, even its failures are interesting.
David Congdon, author of several previous books on the theology of Rudolf Bultmann, argues that modern Christianity is defined by an ongoing quest for the “true” meaning of the faith. Many such seekers have tried to articulate a rule of faith that will establish the right way to practice Christianity once and for all. Congdon condemns this search as exclusionary, even authoritarian. We should, he argues, call off the search for true Christianity and instead embrace a diversity of beliefs and practices.
To make this case, Congdon provides a history of what we might call Christian anti-liberalism in the latter part of the 20th century. He focuses on a loosely connected group of Protestant thinkers, many of them evangelical, who sought an alternative to liberal theology. Ironically, as Congdon notes, their rejection of liberalism was itself an outgrowth of the liberal impulse to redefine Christianity for the modern age. What does it mean to be a modern Christian? Liberals answered this question one way. Postliberals gave a very different answer: theologians like Hans Frei and George Lindbeck argue that Christianity is not a set of beliefs but is instead a self-contained culture that can only be understood from within. Claims that might seem outlandish to outsiders make perfect sense to participants in this culture.
