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“Many of our traditions have for a long time feared nothing quite so much as dead orthodoxy, lifeless spirituality, and ineffective religion. We’ve been convinced that what matters most is for our churches and ministries to get as many people as possible to believe as quickly as possible, and for individual believers to take responsibility for their “personal relationship with God” (rarely if ever stopping to consider what such language actually means). We’ve acted as if slow, deep catechesis is not terribly important, much less essential, in the discipleship process. And insofar as we give any attention to doctrine and theological formation at all, we’ve tended to focus on the distinctive teachings of our movement or denomination. Now, due as much to our successes as our failures, we are threatened not by nominal Christianities but by false ones. This comes particularly clear in what we say and think, explicitly and implicitly, directly and indirectly, about God. David Bentley Hart’s diagnosis is right on point: our very concept of God has become “thoroughly impoverished, thoroughly mythical.” —Chris E. W. Green (Surprised by God: How and Why What We Think about the Divine Matters)
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