Unmasking Biblical Faiths

Unmasking Biblical Faiths aims to address many of the challenges to traditional Christian faith in the modern world. Since the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment, human reason, formerly tethered by the constraints of organized religion, has been set free to explore the universe relatively unchallenged. The influence of the Bible, on the other hand, weakened due to the successes of modern historical criticism, is found to be inadequate for the task of enabling the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3), in that it cannot adequately respond to the many questions about religious faith that human reasoning raises for modern human beings. In a series of short but tightly reasoned essays, Charles Hedrick explores the confrontation between traditional Christian faith and aggressive human reason, a conflict that is facilitated by Western secular education. Charles Hedrick's Unmasking Biblical Faiths is a refreshingly sustained journey into the interior . . . He patiently presents what many would assume to be 'God's truth' coming from the pages of scripture and then discloses that there are other ways of reading that very material. Adept in rigors of biblical criticism, Hedrick demonstrates that reason, science, and modern experience must share in the interpretive discussion. Otherwise, the bible reader lapses into a mindless acceptance of traditions that may well end in isolation from and violence towards the world. --Arthur J. Dewey, Xavier University The irony of writing with no axes to grind and nothing at stake, but on topics with many axes to grind and everything at stake, can be accomplished only by a retired academic of religion with the articulation, wisdom, and probity of Charlie Hedrick. --Glenna S. Jackson, Professor of Religious Studies, Otterbein University Charles W. Hedrick is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. He is the author of numerous books and articles relating to the study of Christian origins. His most recent books are The Wisdom of Jesus (Cascade) and Parabolic Figures or Narrative Fictions? (Cascade).