Coffeehouse Theology—Reflecting on God in Every Day Life

I feel honored to review a book that brings the dusty concept of theology down into the every day sounds and smells of real life.  That’s where the study-of-God (which is what theology means) belongs, after all, for the follower of Christ.   We are the ones (the crazy ones?  the happy ones?) who worship a “high and lofty” Theos who chose to enter our broken battered world through the bloody thighs of a poor Jewish virgin.  (How exactly we’ve managed to wrest the study of this kind of God off the grimy streets and into the sacred halls of aristocracy is a science unto itself). 

Author and blogger, Ed Cyzewski, has done the church a favor by writing a book about theology that smacks of life and light, not dead bones and weighty burdens.  An excerpt and an example, emphasis mine,

“When I married Julie, I wanted the best for her.  Being a reasonable man, I thought the best meant making her like me.  That’s right, she needed to learn the joy and freedom of being very practical, organized, and neat.  In my view, you most enjoy life when you find what you like and then just stick to it, not getting wrapped up in new, challenging projects that make a mess of the living room or result in unidentifiable food projects in the refridgerator.

As you might expect, things turned out quite differently than I imagined, with dead flowers hung up to dry in various places, massive canning projects begun, elaborate Indian and Thai meals conjured up from scratch, and the house’s not looking so hot.  Knowing I wasn’t thrilled about the state of our home, Julie tried to keep the place up to my standards but ended up frustrated and miserable.

After a lot of conversation and prayer, we divided the household duties in the following way: I do household maintenance, Julie handles all food purchasing, planning, and preparation, and we both do the laundry.  With some of my expectations removed, a fascinating thing happened!  The dried out flowers I would throw out were now artistically arranged around candles.  We eat some of the best marmalade and applesauce around.  Thai food has become one of my favorites, and I find Indian food more appealing than I ever imagined.  We now do canning projects together and give jam and marmalade as Christmas presents.  The lesson I gleaned: Let go of my expectations for Julie so I can enjoy her as she is.  Once I stopped trying to make her into my own image, she had the freedom to blossom as an experimenter, artist, and cook. 

We all face similar temptations today to re-create the Bible according to our own tastes and according to the demands of our culture.  Modern Christians fell to the temptations of interpreting the Bible from one limited perspective that they mistakenly considered universal and binding to all cultures.  Now in the postmodern age, Christians run the risk of…”  

[This excerpt taken from Chapter 8 of Coffeehouse Theology.  Stop wondering what comes next and pick up a copy of the book for yourself]. 

There are many other pages I’ve dog-eared with the intention of sharing quotes, but I realize a blogger can only quote so much before, er, one has typed out half of a copywrited book.  So instead, I will say that I found this book a warm and engaging walk with a friend, musing over what theology is and why we don’t have to be afraid of it.  The recommended reading lists at the end of each chapter are excellent, and the content of each chapter is good solid food for the soul of the reader.  You don’t have to take my word for it, though, because I’m just one of many other blog reviewers.  You can read other opinions here, check out the book’s Intro here, and meet the author here.        

Okay.  One last quote.  I absolutely LOVED how Ed handled culture and its relationship to our theology.  This quote provides one small taste of that (emphasis mine).

“…Our culture—who we are and our values—becomes both our greatest strength and largest obstacle in theology.  Culture can be a strength because it serves as a tool when we use our understanding of culture to study God.  Think back to the Beatitudes example: Christians in the U.S. tend to spiritualize the message of Jesus because we understand the pride so prevalent in today’s culture.  Yet every culture has weaknesses.  God is so much more than what we can see by ourselves.  So while addressing the pride of our culture in the Beatitudes, we can easily miss out on God’s concern for the poor and the blessings He sets aside for them.

…You might…be asking, “Can’t we just study the Bible and leave culture out of this?  In fact, don’t we just mess up the Bible by considering culture as part of theology?”  The truth is, whether we acknowledge it or not, we constantly deal with the influences of culture on theology. 

Whatever philosophy dominates our culture, we can’t afford to simply ignore it as we form our theology.  If we do, we risk allowing the dominant philosophy to covertly influence our thinking about God.  This is not to say that Christians should embrace a culture or a philosophy.  Instead, we should see our culture as a setting that we need to understand…  …If we truly want to study God, we must first understand the cultural lens that we view God through.”  –Excerpted from the Intro to Coffeehouse Theology, by Ed Cyzewski