I saw a tweet from earlier today for the discounted pre-order of a book and then saw this and then saw a later tweet by its author:
Caesar is an amazing man. I really glad people are getting his book. I had the pleasure of learning from him in person and speaking with him last May at a conference. His new book is called Transformed: A New Way of Being Christian. You can buy it here.
What!?! A new way! That's awesome! How exciting! Not.
I'm sure he would agree with me that this is a novel title. A plug. And if you don't already know, it is the publisher who gets final say on the title and artwork. However, marketing Christian living gets pretty tiring to me. It is not an new way of living. It is a very old way of living. In Christian faith new or novel ideas are seldom a good thing. Expressing the faith in fresh ways, renewing focus, bringing clarity, and contextualizing...yes. New? No.
Our faith is old. Really old. As an evangelical I am often embarrassed at my own ignorance, not to mention the ignorance of this designation as a whole, regarding the history of our faith; its beliefs and practices. This is the regular criticism of Protestantism as a whole by Catholics and Orthodox, yet we who are not mainline denominations are now even criticized by Anglicans, Lutherans, etc.
Perhaps it is more accurate to say that this is a 'new' way in the sense that it is 'new' to this generation of evangelicals.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments. What have you had to learn that should have been obvious from the start? What have your interactions with other Christian traditions been?
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