The Christian Future or the Modern Mind Outrun (Paperback)

by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Argo Books (November 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0912148101
• ISBN-13: 978-0912148106
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,729,825 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bracing and sober wisdom that anchors, June 20, 2000

By	Robert B. Newman (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews

I first heard of Eugen Rosenstock-Hussey through the tapes of a certain Christian minister. Interested I ordered The Christian Future through Amazon. Rosenstock-Hussey says that the current language used to convey Biblical spirituality is worn out and practically useless in capturing the imagination of modern populations. This quote from page 4 is typical...

"For the flow of vital speech is the sign of living Christians.....for the great languages of Church as well as State, of the Bible as well as of the Constitution, are losing their power in a daily process of advertising, commercialization and mechanization. People become indifferent to the hullabaloo of all verbiage."

The author refers to this as a "withering from within." One cannot read this book without sensing that the author is a man of great learning and passion and, most importantly, all of it geared toward bringing the reader into a better understanding of what is needed for life where the connection between faith and life is real and strong, not a nebulous wraith rooted in subjectivity. The author always seems to, at his core, be keenly aware of the relationship between words and reality, and all through the book he labors to open the eyes of the jaded modern reader to the vital nature of that relationship. Rosenstock-Hussey is one of those writers whose grasp of things goes deep yet without losing sight of how that depth is translated into every day life. One wonders if our superficial day and time can produce such men anymore.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Christian Future, December 2, 2003

By A Customer

In his review of "The Christian Future" for "The Christian Century" Martin E. Marty wrote:
"It has never been possible to pigeon-hole Rosenstock-Huessy... (His) juxtaposition of conventional genius and genial unconventionality, is both disconcerting and creative. In 1946 Rosenstock-Huessy was ahead of his time - and he still is today.
In this book he writes about secularization, hermeneutics, the gift of language, the meaning of personhood, and Christianity without old-line appeal to transcendence. A generation that pays some attention to McLuhan, Marcuse, Altizer, Fuller (Buckminster), Brown (Norman O.) ought at last to be ready to confront Rosenstock-Huessy, whose erudition and spirit outstrip theirs. Some of the contexts of this book may sound a little archaic; many of its prophecies have begun to come true; none of its spirit is obsolete."
Walter J. Ong writes that:
"The sweeping historical insights of Rosenstock-Huessy are some of the sharpest and freshest our age has known. His deep historical and religious penetration of the Old World past is joined to a rare understanding of the profundities of the American experience and of the human aspects of technology. Both a tirelessly critical spirit and an unquenchable hope suffuse his thought in 'The Christian Future' as elsewhere. He has had the foresight to be an ecumenicist even before the ecumenical age."
"The Christian Future" can also be ordered from Argo Books (www.argobooks.org), as can all the rest of Rosenstock-Huessy's English language works, including many of the lectures he gave on these topics. The lectures alone comprise more than 5000 pages of spontaneous comments he made to students from 1949 to 1968.