John B. Cobb

"Postmodernism and Public Policy shows how a postmodern Christianity can contribute positively to thinking about religious and cultural pluralism, and how this can give direction to the educational enterprise. It proposes ways of understanding sex, gender, and race that take diversity seriously without lapsing into a debilitating relativism that inhibits political action. Arguing for a shift from individualism to thinking of persons-in-community, it proposes that the world be organized from the bottom up in communities of communities, and spells out what this implies for the political and economic orders and the relationship between them. Cobb shows that formulations on all these topics can be coherently interconnected and he develops the implications of such thinking for some specific ethical and political issues that now trouble the United States, such as abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and homosexuality."--BOOK JACKET.

It is interesting to read this analysis, written in 1975, which provides good insights into the post-modern movement in American culture and its affect on thought and faith. Cobb takes a Process Philosophy approach to analyze ways to interpret the concept of Christ as incarnation of the Logos in Jesus, the historical person. He determines how this concept may be communicated in concepts of the contemporary worldview, and deals with the challenges to western thought in the post-enlightenment sciences, the role of reason and the post-modernist challenge of relativism of values. Cobb specifically discusses how the concept of Christ, in the traditional faith of the Christian church, can be related to the otherfaith expression in the world's religions, as these come face to face in our present world. It is good to see how these views fit with the world 30 years later.^ He goes into some detail in comparing Christian faith and Buddhist faiths to illustrates how Christians might inte ractwith other religions they now face in our pluralistic world. I am impressed with the grasp Cobb has on the problem, and the formulations he presents which attempt to overcome the static concepts of Aristotelian "orthodoxy" which has been rejected in modern western culture. Aristotle's (pre-Christian) philosophy, adopted by Thomas Acquinas for his Christian theology in the Middle Ages, focused on essence, or substance, in the discussion of the relation of Christ in Jesus, as God incarnate, Cobb formulates ways to see the reality of Christ in everyday realities and faith relationships in terms other than the static concepts of substance that so tangled the pre-medieval and medieval mind. Rather than explaining this in the classic Greek terms of substance, he focuses on relationships and our continuing consciousness of experiences as "selves" in our personal identity.^ A very helpful and impressive chapter ("The Christ of the Creeds") covers the discussions that led to formulations explaining how God was in Jesus in the incarnation. The unusual contribution he makes is to explain the line of argument and discussion that led to the formulations, helping us understand the steps involved over 5 centuries in getting to the final formal statements now on record from the various early Church Councils.This background illustrates how important current worldview and the questions it raises are in the statement of our formal propositions representing Christ, the Trinity and other respective aspects of the Christian faith.

As the world is possibly heading for yet another catastrophe and the West is flexing its muscles, antagonising every single country that stands in its way to the total domination of the planet, one country - one of the oldest cultures of earth, China, stood up and said "No! There are different ways to go forward. We could all benefit from the progress, without cannibalizing and fully destroying our planet." -- back cover.

"What has happened to the mainline church, once a bastion of faith, power, and commitment? John Cobb argues that the very term "mainline" is now a misnomer and that "oldline" more aptly describes this formerly robust body. Should this church opt to survive at the margin? If it attempts to do so, Cobb contends, what has been valuable and relevant for generations will disappear." "Decrying the professionalization of theological education, Cobb calls for the church to resume its own theological vocation so that its members can in turn resume their passionate commitment to their faith."--BOOK JACKET.