Friday, September 06, 2019

A Brief Review: Daniel Strange, Plugged In


From The Rectory



I don’t manage to read as many books as I’d like. And I have a dreadful memory. But I think my stand out Christian book of the year so far is by Dr Daniel Strange, the Director of Oak Hill Theological College in London, where I trained. Dan’s Plugged In: Connecting your faith with what you watch, read and play (The Good Book Company, 2019) is a really great read which is born out of years of teaching this stuff to would-be vicars and others. This is a book from which every Christian could benefit.

Plugged In

Even if you’re not interested in the question of Christ and culture, you ought to be. It’s one of the old chestnuts of theology.



Culture is how we do stuff. It’s our art and books and music. But also, our way of life, our habits, whether we bow or shake hands or do a high five.



Theologians have asked to what extent Christ is interested in culture. Is there a Christian culture or many? Does Jesus judge culture? Or abolish culture? Or save culture? Or transform culture or what? What cultures will there be in heaven and the New Creation?



One of the best things in the book are the worked examples of Christians engaging with culture by Dan’s students which he included at the end. Extraordinarily, Dan shows us how we can think Christianly about Zombie movies and even Japanese domestic toilets. Those are just examples, but we can see from them that Christ has something to say to and about every area of human activity.



Anyway, you should read the book. It’s only 160 pages long. And it costs less than £7. And it’s remarkably engaging and readable. I like to scribble in the margin of my books and I was tempted to underline something on almost every page.



One big idea of the book is what Dan calls subversive fulfilment. The subversive bit is to do with judgement on culture. Nothing in our world is perfect. And everything has the potential to be a kind of false god whom we worship, who offers us some version of salvation. So, Jesus always says some kind of NO to culture. For example, Jesus would say to Celebrity Master Chef that there is more to life than fame or food.



But there is also fulfilment of culture. Everything comes from God and rightly understood points to God. He is the source and goal of all that is good in culture. So, all the deepest longings which we often express in inordinate or misguided ways can be satisfied in God. Celebrity Master Chef should point us to true glory and to the heavenly banquet of the New Creation when there will be no unhealthy competition or elimination of losers or food that is horrid or poisoning or….






The Revd Marc Lloyd


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