Customer Reviews

By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine

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Dr. Ellen Charry understands the writings of early patristic fathers and mothers to be more than just apolgetics. Dr. Charry gets to the core of their writings by discovering that the authors are calling for excellence (aretology) in each and every Christian. This book brings clarity and flavor to the classical Theologians of early Christian history.

Readers of this volume will be taken on a crash course ride through some of the major names of pre-modern theology. By putting these foundational theologians back into the pre-modern context in which they wrote, Charry succeeds in giving both the Pastor and the layperson the space to reclaim the aretological power of these works.

However, I feel that the real center of gravity of Charry's work is the theoretical and theological framework that she sets up for this exploration. By engaging in an essentially post-modern critique of the limitations of the thinking of modernity while not claiming the (problematic) label of "post-modernity," Charry gives the readers the tools s/he needs to reclaim the aretological power of not just these texts, but other pre-modern texts and in fact the Faith itself.

Not intended to be a works of apologetics, this framework can serve as a strong apologetic critique the twin fundamentalisms of the religious right and the insurgent "new atheism."

Strongly recommended to all theologians, laypeople, and pastors interested in freeing themselves from tyranny of modernity that is found in its rigid dualism.

I am reading this book for a theological discussion class in divinity school. Charry has great overviews of some of the major theologians in church history. The first chapter is a little difficult to get through (lots of theological terminology), but Charry is brilliant and has much to offer. This is a great book for theological studies for a lay person who wishes to delve deep in study or for a student.