Tiana and I just got back from a two-week trip to the States. This was our first trip home since we moved to Nottingham in August 2008. We visited Cincinnati, OH and while in California, San Diego, Merced, and Concord. While in San Diego I visited the new Theology building on the Point Loma Nazarene University Campus. I was able to see a good handful of my old MA professors, and before leaving, I managed to catch Dr. Michael Lodahl, my professor for my History of Christian Thought I & II classes.
Glancing around his bookshelf, I noticed that he had several copies of the new edition of his The Story of God: A Narrative Theology book. The first one came out in 1994 (with the different subtitle “Wesleyan Theology & Biblical Narrative”) and has been assigned in many undergraduate Nazarene theology departments. However, being a computer science undergrad, I was never assigned the book, nor did I ever get around to reading it in between my forray into theology since then. What immediately struck me was how incredibly, vastly improved the new cover of the book was. Here it is below:
And here is a link to a picture of the old one. As you can see, ridiculously improved. Not only that, but it’s about one of the coolest book covers I’ve ever seen.
There is a brief but interesting write-up of the process of this cover’s creation over on the Face Out Books website.
[If I ever got into Jules Verne, this would definitely be the set to get (with covers designed by the same place), don't you think?]
that’s a great looking cover, so much better than the old one! I’m liking the recent trend in book covers to be fairly minimalist, and relying on few, if any, colors. In a weird way that cover reminds me of the ‘feel’ of the logics of worlds cover, which I also really like.
It is a very technologico-matrix looking cover. Is it a revised edition of the text?
From the back of the book: “Updated and revised to include current language and ideologies, this
new edition provides readers with an even more engaging and accessible
introduction to Christian theology.” And the preface to this new edition mentions a more Christological focus in the revised sections throughout.
I agree. The new version looks sooo much better. I’m interested to see what he changed as well. I actually gave a (4 hour!) lecture in Kenya, using the chapters on Christology from Lodahl’s book, as my guide. The lecture went really well, and I very much enjoyed re-reading it. It was the primary text being used in the Christian Beliefs class I spoke in and so I borrowed it in preparation (I only found out about the lecture after arriving in Kenya, about 4 days before I gave it!!!) Anyway, it was the old version, and I couldn’t help thinking of the difference in covers and wondering about the difference in content as well.