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The following review appeared in the November 2014 issue of CHOICE. The review is for your internal use only. Please review our Permission and Reprints Guidelines or email permissions@ala-choice.org.
Humanities
Religion
Relativism is rarely viewed as a conceptual resource for Christian belief, practice, and identity. Indeed, for many, relativism amounts to some variety of skepticism, nihilism, or immoralism. Yet Smith (Calvin College) suggests that such dismissive attitudes ignore the important insights that relativism offers for understanding the implications of the Christian doctrine of "creaturehood." Drawing specifically on the tradition of pragmatism, as exemplified by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Richard Rorty, and Robert Brandom, Smith argues that relativism is not the problem that it is often made out to be. Indeed, a far greater danger might be the "absolutism" (frequently presented as a version of "moral realism") that so often defines Christian approaches to knowledge, morality, and theological identity. Suggesting that relativism does not mean that "nothing matters," but simply that "everything depends" on some context, Smith claims that Christianity is fundamentally about such dependence--on God and the community of faith. As always, Smith's writing is clear and compelling. This book deserves a wide readership. Whether or not one is convinced by the specifics of Smith's account, the argument is important and worth serious consideration.
--J. A. Simmons, Furman University