THEOLOGY
INTERPRETING YOUR WORLD Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture Justin Ariel Bailey Foreword by Kevin J. Vanhoozer
This accessible introduction to the conversation between theology and culture offers a patient, thoughtful, and theologically attuned approach to cultural discernment that is governed by the gospel virtues of faith, hope, and love. It helps us understand how culture forms us as political actors, moves us aesthetically, shapes the rhythms of our lives, and connects (or disconnects) us from God and neighbors we are called to love. The goal is to be equipped to engage culture with greater fluency and fidelity in response to the triune God. Interpreting Your World explores five dimensions of culture— meaning, power, morality, religion, and aesthetic—and shows how each needs the others and all need theology. Each chapter includes distinctive practices for spiritual formation and practical application. “ Interpreting Your World offers a lens for cultural good- ness and for the sanctification of our imaginations; it is an invitation into new creation.” —MAKOTO FUJIMURA, artist and author of Art and Faith: A Theology of Making “Bailey’s treatment of faith and culture is penetrating, nuanced, and sane.” —CORNELIUS PLANTINGA, author of Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin “Rejecting simplistic and reductionistic Christian under- standings, this book introduces us to the complex field of human action and divine grace that we call ‘culture.’” —MATTHEW KAEMINGK, Richard John Mouw Institute of Faith and Public Life, Fuller Theological Seminary “Provides an accessible path for navigating the broad contours of the theology-culture conversation and diver- sifies our ways of understanding and imagining Christian life in the world today.” —JENNIFER ALLEN CRAFT, Point University, West Point, Georgia “Equal parts innovative, surprising, and enlightening, this book sings. It should be required reading for any person of faith who is asking how to engage culture in more robust and life-giving ways. I cannot recommend it highly enough.” —KUTTER CALLAWAY, Fuller Theological Seminary; coauthor of Theology for Psychology and Counseling
SEPTEMBER 2022 • 192 pp. • paper • $21.99 • 9781540965066
Justin Ariel Bailey (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is associate professor of theology at Dordt University. He is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church and has served as a pastor in diverse settings, including Filipino American, Korean American, and white American. Bailey hosts the In All Things podcast and is the author of Reimagining Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age .
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