There’s hardly a week that goes by here at Englewood Christian Church that I’m not thinking about, re-reading or talking about Willie Jennings’ book The Christian Imagination (which was our theology book of the year in 2010).
[Read my review ].
The challenge is that the book is pretty intense, and probably not one that everyone would pick up. So, I was delighted to stumble across the above video from Luther Seminary yesterday. The video is almost two hours long, but it is worth every single second and is a superb introduction to Jennings’ work… Included in the longer video is a 30 minute overview of the book (see the start and end times below), as well as a compelling Q/A session that helps to flesh out the basic themes of the book.
If you don’t have time to watch the whole video right now, at least get a taste for it by watching this 5 minute segment on “How to Be the Church in a Place” (Starting at 1:24:08 through 1:29:37).
Then, if you want to get the overview of The Christian Imagination, it runs from 24:35 through 52:15.
I hope that you find Willie Jennings’ work as compelling and mindblowing as I do!
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
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I had Dr. Jennings for an intro theology course at Duke and it was a mind-blowing experience just about every morning. In the course of that semester he basically took all my “intelligent” and “enlightened” ideas about Christianity that I’d gleaned from undergraduate Religious Studies, stood them on their head, shook them around until they all fell out and there was nothing left, and then filled me head back up with a whole lot of Truth. A man to be listened to.