WHEN FAITH TURNS UGLY
Understanding Toxic Faith and How to Avoid It
By Brian Harris
Paternoster. 200 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 842 278 574
This book aims to help Christians prevent faith turning ‘toxic’ – which is defined as overly narrow and fundamentalist.
The early chapters helpfully counter the claims that faith is escapism (Marx), an illusion (Freud) or poisonous (Hitchens). Yet examples are also given where such claims sadly do hold water and damage the reputation of the gospel. The author describes his own experiences in a narrow ‘fundamentalist Baptist church’ and cites other people and their experiences of abusive leadership or superficial exegesis. Sadly some churches do breed a ‘toxic faith’. I know, as I grew up amongst some of them!
Should we be unpopular?
But, of course, what is narrow to one person is broad to another! So just how do we separate what is toxic from what is biblical yet unpopular? In regard to this central question I found the book unhelpful. The author states that his approach comes from Stanley Grenz’s ‘postfundamentalist evangelical theology’. He calls us to allow the Holy Spirit to give a fresh illumination of Scripture today by also listening to the voices of tradition and culture. Thus he claims that a position on exclusive male leadership in the church is overly narrow and fundamentalist. Instead, cultural voices engaged with gender and gender discrimination should be allowed a stronger voice. A similar approach is encouraged with sexuality.
Too narrow is toxic, but so is too broad! Do we incorporate the cultural voices calling for many ways to God? Yes, we should be aware of tradition and culture, but we must strive to interpret them from Scripture not the reverse. We need to grapple to stay grounded on the timeless truth of Scripture even if that is culturally unpopular. Sadly, I do not believe this book helps us do this.
