Re-Enchanting Christianity

Dave Tomlinson

Rating:

Dave Tomlinson was baptized in the Holy Spirit aged 17, later designated an Apostle in the Restorationist house church movement, and is now Vicar of St Luke’s Parish Church Holloway, an articulate ‘mover-beyond’ charismatic evangelicalism.  He calls his present belief position ‘progressive orthodoxy’.  In this book, he seeks to restore for modern people Christianity’s warm, attractive mystery, or ‘enchantment’.

He says that a lot of people are repelled (as he now is) by charismatic Christianity, and although many people find it spiritually attractive, there is a well-worn path from it to sacramental Catholicism and Orthodoxy.  He describes the power of ritual designed for release from real-life oppressions, such as that of a marriage dead and gone.

He subjects evangelical beliefs to searching critique, but he criticises beliefs chiefly because he doesn’t like those who hold them, and this shows.  He denounces penal substitution for, amongst other reasons, dividing the Unity of the Divine Trinity.  His alternatives also divide the Trinity, as well as distorting God in other ways.   Christian belief in penal substitution could not have arisen without presupposing the Divine Unity, and penal substitution in embryo was what made Trinitarian belief necessary.  The Bible, says Tomlinson, is a mess, but reading it still makes God seem close.  Praying doesn’t make sense but his life depends on it.  Eternal punishment is atrocious, therefore it doesn’t happen.  God is good because socially humane people like Tomlinson think He is, but nature red in tooth and claw says He isn't.  Other options?

Reviewer: Richard Wilkins, former General Secretary of ACT, Watford, Hertfordshire

Review posted on: 11 February 2009

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