The Astonished Heart: Reclaiming the Good News from the Lost-and-Found of Church History - Softcover

Capon, Robert Farrar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802807917 ISBN 13: 9780802807915

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans-Lightning Source, 1996

Synopsis

Where has the church been, and what has it become? According to Robert Farrar Capon, the answers to these questions are in many ways dispiriting. Although the church has done much good, it has also made numerous blunders in its checkered history. Chief among them is that it has lost its astonishment over the Good News of the gospel - the gift of salvation we receive from Christ. By taking readers on an illuminating ramble through the history of the church, Capon shows how we have lost this sense of astonishment by making Christianity into a religion that focuses on requirements and restrictions rather than on the Good News, and by turning the church, which should be a body of believers, into an institution that emphasizes its corporate functions to the detriment of its gospel message. After exploring all the ways in which the church has mis-embodied itself over the centuries, Capon explains how the church today might re-create itself. The key, according to Capon, is recovering the gift of astonishment with which it began. Capon is fully alert to both the tragedy and the comedy of church history, and he covers this uneven ground with great heart and great humor - and genuine hope for the future of the church.

About this title

About the Author:

ROBERT FARRAR CAPON is the author of many works on theology, cooking, and family life. He lives on Shelter Island, New York.

From Booklist:

Capon describes himself as having had, for almost 50 years, a vacation to the priesthood. It is a vacation he has shared in an array of breezy, sometimes flippant, always dependably and engagingly playful writing. He is still on vacation, and readers who know him as well as those who don't will be grateful. Needless to say, there is nothing formal about this history; but it is packed with information gleaned from decades of pastoral experience and theological reflection. And it is a serious proposal for a transformation of Christianity thoroughly grounded in Christian tradition. Capon maintains that the heart of Christianity is a proclamation of the end of religion; that much of church history has been a denial of that heart in the construction of Christendom; and that the transformation of Christianity demands the death (not just the prolonged dying) of Christendom. Capon's message to Christendom is "drop dead" --an astonishing message from a priest, perhaps, but astonishment is what resurrection is all about. Steve Schroeder

About this edition

• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans-Lightning Source
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0802807917
• ISBN 13: 9780802807915
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 132