Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire

Brian J Walsh and Sylvia C Keesmaat. Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004 233 pp $2200

This daring book offers a bold attempt to position Paul's Epistle to the Colossians as a body uniquely suited to postmodern readers. The authors, inspired by the agency of the "allergic reaction to Paul's kind of rhetoric" (p 116) that sometimes takes place among nation living in contemporary Western tillage engage their task in an aggressive and comprehensive manner. In their view the temple in the West is far down embedded in an empire of individualistic consumerism, combustible mattered by global capitalism, and rul by the agency of strict economic and militaristic rule This contemporary setting can be compared with the ancient Roman Empire, where centralized power one time in the hands of the Emperor now resides in the offices of the World Bank and the IMF. The volume is ultimately an "exercise in hermeneutics" (p 226) and the authors occupy a hermeneutic that stresses the ne to hear the NT with OT ears and to diocese the biblical story as living in the face of empire.

The work consists of two sections, fact Remixed and Praxis Remixed. The author's foray into the territory of "truth" may be uncomfortable for more conservative readers, still in an honest attempt at reconciling the dictates of Colossians with the be of importance tos of postmodern readers they recommend a "dialectical approach" to fact which contrasts the "binary opposition between 'truth' and 'suspicion'" (p 107) Rather than seeing these as irreconcilable, they are posited as conversation partners which function as necessary mechanisms for enlightenment. Further, the "truth" of Colossians is not fix in its rhetorical claims on the contrary in the fruit that it bears in the life of a community who embraces it.

In the section Praxis Remixed the authors argue for the ne for an alternative worldview and an ethic that challenges the prevailing mentality of corporate tillage They condemn the current cultural accommodation of the North American house of worship and stress an ethic of succession that leads Christians to diocese themselves as distinct, part of the living expression of God's story created to expres the riches of Christ to the world. The authors make a thorough and irresistible case for their reading of Colossians. At times they may be accused of stretching the true copy to make their point, flat admitting at one point that their argument may be slightly oblique, on the contrary is in the text if "you have ears to hear." This intimates that it demands a certain vantage point in order to diocese the text as they want the reader to diocese it (although this is genuine for most exegetical positions). Also, their hermeneutical approach relies heavily upon setting the Colossian teaching in its ancient words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following critiquing the legitimacy of ancient approaches, and reinterpreting them in light of more contemporary norms. The volume is a thoroughly engaging investigation of the biblical text. Various creative [i]modus operandi[/i]s such as story, Targum, and conversation help to effectively at hand the authors' commentary on the body

The idea of "remixing" is a musical bound used to give new life to an aged song. This book is a definite attempt to "remix" the Colossian treatise and give it a recent voice in today's North American temple Teachers and preachers interested in wrestling with in what way the gospel can radically join with emerging generations of churched and unchurched nation will find much to think about in the pages of Colossians Remixed. While the approach and conclusions of the authors may not make everyone perceive comfortable, their voice is worth listening to, not sole because it may well stimulate one's thinking, on the other hand because it represents a genuine attempt at postmodern biblical studies. To ignore it is to ignore an emerging voice of the time to come

Lee Beach

McMaster Divinity guild

Copyright Trinity International University Spring 2006

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