J. P. Moreland’s Kingdom Triangle is a manifesto to the evangelical Protestant community:
…in the pages to follow I want to shed light on the crisis of our age and the way out. I hope to provide an understanding of the times that will give you the courage to believe that a return to Jesus and life in his Kingdom is the only solution to this crisis. I also want to give you eyes to see the worldview issues that underlie the news, the entertainment industry, and the chaos and confusion all around us. Finally, I hope to envision for you and your church what I call the Kingdom Triangle – the essential ingredients for the maturation of the Evangelical community and the profundity of its presence in the general culture (p. 13).
Moreland ably combines the clear thinking of a philosopher, the tender sensibilities of a pastor, and the fiery passion of a prophet as he offers his “deepest reflections on the crisis of our age and the way forward” (p. 14). The way forward is through transformation in the Kingdom of God.
Moreland begins by introducing several concepts (sensate vs. ideational cultures, the empty self, thick vs. thin possible worlds, the denigration of truth) before explaining Paul’s description of spiritual warfare (2 Corinthians 10:3-5) as “a struggle of ideas, a conflict of worldviews” (p. 32).
According to Moreland, a worldview includes “the set of beliefs the person accepts, especially those about important matters such as reality, God, value, knowledge, and so on” and includes “the rational structure that occurs among the set of beliefs that constitute it. Some beliefs are central and basic, while others are relatively peripheral” (p. 33). Thus, any worldview should provide answers to the following set of questions:
What is real?
What are the nature and limits of knowledge?
Who is well-off? What is the good life?
Who is a really good person?
How does one become a really good person? (p. 34)
Moreland evaluates the worldviews of naturalism (chapter 2) and postmodernism (chapter 3) against these questions and finds them woefully inadequate for the flourishing of human beings. In both, the theories of knowledge determine the resulting views of reality and lead to deadness of soul:
The secularized perspective is constituted by two worldviews-naturalism and postmodernism-which agree with each other over against ethical monotheism (of which Christianity is the main version) about one important point: There is no nonempirical knowledge and no objective immaterial world. This is the continental divide at the root of current public debate… (p. 91).
In chapter 4, Moreland notes five paradigm shifts: 1) from knowledge to faith; 2) from human flourishing to satisfaction of desire; 3) from duty and virtue to minimalist ethics; 4) from classic freedom to contemporary freedom; and 5) from classic tolerance to contemporary tolerance.
In Part 2, Moreland offers a strategy for meeting the crisis of our age: recover the Christian mind (chapter 5); renovate the soul (chapter 6); and restore the Spirit’s power (chapter 7). The chapter on recovering the Christian mind is the most difficult yet the most important in the entire book. In the Foreword, Dallas Willard writes:
If you will carefully work your way into what Moreland has to say about knowledge, you will be prepared to profit from his discussions of “spiritual formation into Christlikeness” and of “the life of Kingdom empowerment,” the other two points in his “Kingdom Triangle.” The knowledge issue comes first, for otherwise practicing Kingdom living will look weird and unapproachable. You have to understand that you are in a domain of reality and trustworthy knowledge, tested by multiplied thousands of pilgrims before you. Otherwise you will not be able sensibly and experimentally to begin to learn simple Kingdom life under the personal direction of Jesus. It is by stepping experientially into the practices of spiritual transformation and into the “with God” life of power beyond yourself that all the truths about God and his Kingdom become truths about your actual existence. This is how you seek and find the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. (p. 9-10):
“Renovation of the Soul” (chapter 6) will be familiar territory for those who’ve read books by Richard Foster (Celebration of Discipline, Freedom of Simplicity, and Money, Sex and Power) and Dallas Willard (Hearing God, The Spirit of the Disciplines, and The Divine Conspiracy). Moreland calls for returning to classic spiritual disciplines and spiritual direction as the means to experience spiritual authenticity and intimacy with God and negate the effects of the empty self.
“Restoration of the Kingdom’s Miraculous Power” (chapter 7) will be new territory for Western evangelicals who lack familiarity with Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Third Wave movements. After giving several examples how the Kingdom of God is rapidly and supernaturally expanding in the Third World, Moreland lays out the New Testament evidence for miraculous ministry.
When it comes to experiencing the Kingdom’s supernatural power today, Moreland “began as a cessationist, lived for years as an open but cautious Evangelical, and would now be considered a Third Wave Evangelical” (p. 182). Knowing that his readers are located somewhere on the same continuum, Moreland makes several suggestions for learning to become “naturally supernatural.”
After his “reflections on the crisis of our age and the way forward,” he concludes (p. 196):
In this book I have been at pains to show that this Triangle-namely,
* the development of the life of the mind…
* the cultivation of an inner life…,
* learning to live in and use the Spirit’s power and the authority of the Kingdom of God...
is central to Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels, in Acts, and in the first four centuries of the church. I refuse to believe it has to be an either/or. Why can’t one be intellectually careful, emotionally together, and comfortable with a life of intimacy with God and a vibrant inner life, and one who is learning to be naturally supernatural? This threefold cord is the way forward, and I pray for a revolution in which an increasing number of individuals and Christian communities and churches corporately will be aggressive in developing all three aspects of holistic discipleship.
Moreland adds a couple of nice touches to his book to assist in bringing about that revolution. First, each chapter has 9-10 “questions for personal reflection or group discussion.” Second, Moreland offers “a selectively annotated bibliography” for each chapter pitched at different levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) that takes the reader deeper into each topic.
The Christian academic needs to engage seriously with the issues in this important book.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Dallas Willard
Assessing the Crisis of Our Age
1. The Hunger for Drama in a Thin World
2. The Naturalist Story
3. The Postmodern Story
4. From Drama to Deadness in Five Steps
Charting a Way Out: The Kingdom Triangle
5. The Recovery of Knowledge
6. Renovation of the Soul
7. Restoration of the Kingdom’s Miraculous Power
Conclusion: Confronting the Crisis of Our Age
Postscript: Making New Friends
A Selectively Annotated Bibliography
Endnotes
Reviewed by: Steve Faivre
