A brief review by Doug King of

A Brief History of God

by Paul E. Capetz

(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. List price $9.00)

"Theology matters" became a slogan in the Presbyterian Church just a few years ago, and was quickly seized by conservatives as a banner to lead their parade. But in fact theology does matter. If progressives are to hold up their end of any serious conversation in our church, they need some theological material to work with. I hear from many lay people a wish that they "knew enough theology" to engage in serious conversation with their evangelical friends. Here's one way you might help people meet that need.

Paul Capetz, a Presbyterian teaching at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, has joined an impressive list of authors of the "Facets" series being published by Fortress, aimed at lay people who want to venture into some serious theological study, either personally or in groups. (That list includes Walter Wink, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosemary Radford Ruether, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Karl Barth. For starters.)

If you or people in your congregation are interested in venturing into some serious theological thinking, and want to cover some 3000 years' worth in some 130 small pages, this is for you!

Each chapter traces theological thinking about God through one major period of history, beginning with "Judaism and the development of monotheism" up to the twentieth century. Because so much is covered, of course the exposition of Jewish and Christian thought is condensed and very selective. But one advantage of this is that many points are simply mentioned without much exposition, which (especially with a skilled leader) could leave space for a study group to explore all sorts of interesting questions.

So, for example, in chapter 3 Capetz gives a quick tour of the development of early Christian doctrine, including the formation of the canon and the Apostles' Creed. He interprets that process as a response to the early challenges of dualism - Marcionism and Gnosticism - within the Christian community. To me this suggests all sorts of possible discussions of the dualisms of our own time: our "culture wars" about sexuality; America's "war against evil" and drive toward empire; efforts to evangelize the Jews - and lots more.

Even a well-trained theologian (or seminarian) might find this book a helpful way to see the forest, without getting tangled up in too many trees. One interesting feature of the survey is that each chapter deals with just one or two major developments in our understanding of God, which are always seen as emerging in response to stimuli from the surrounding culture, or from changing conditions within the faith community. Clearly this is an organic understanding of the Christian understanding of God; theology is portrayed here as in process, dynamic, always changing in conversation with its environment. It offers a helpful alternative to those who see Christian belief as established once and for all, containing all truth, eternal and immutable. Theology here stands revealed as a very human work, and it gains interest and meaning in that perspective.

Capetz offers some creative approaches to what might seem obvious theological subjects. To lead us into the Protestant Reformation he begins not with Martin Luther, but with Julian of Norwich. He suggests that Julian, a mystic of the 14^th century, points us to the shift that the Reformers confirmed. People were suffering a growing despair caused by an endless need to prove their own righteousness, to earn salvation. Julian responded to this need by seeing faith not as some kind of new knowledge, but as a shift in perspective. Luther and Calvin followed her path, offering new ways of looking at the reality of God and the realities of human life.

Chapter 8 covers a mere one century - the 20^th - with quick looks at Karl Barth's Christocentrism, Paul Tillich's focus on "ultimate concern," and H. Richard Niebuhr's exploration of "radical monotheism." Then a couple pages are devoted to each of a number of more recent developments in our understandings of God: Process theology (the one point at which the exposition and vocabulary become fairly opaque - but hey, it's process theology!); liberation, black, and feminist theologies ... and a few more.

In a brief concluding chapter, Capetz ties to together his main themes in a way that invites further reflection: This historical look at our changing understandings of God is shaped inevitably by our present situation, and aims to help us think about God in our present time. It has shown us that dynamic nature of our understandings of God, and the complexity of the many different strands. It should give us an appreciation of the diversity of views, which reflect not only changing situations but also the "diversity of theologies in the Bible." Thus, he says, "it doesn't make sense to ask, 'Which of these traditions has correctly interpreted the Bible?' since the Bible itself is not a simple, univocal source containing a single systematic theology."