About the Book

Crystal Downing brings the postmodern theory of semiotics within reach for today's evangelists. Following the idea of the sign through Scripture, church history and the academy, Downing shows you how signs work and how sensitivity to their dynamics can make or break an attempt to communicate truth.

Book Synopsis

What signals are you sending when you share the gospel?The importance of signs for communicating truth has been recognized throughout the ages. Crystal L. Downing traces this awareness from biblical texts, through figures from church history like John Wycliffe and William Tyndale, to more recent writers Samuel Taylor Coleridge and C. S. Lewis.In the nineteenth century, this legacy of interest in the activity of signs brought about a new field of academic study. In this book, Downing puts the discipline of semiotics within reach for beginners through analysis of the movement's key theorists, Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Peirce, Mikhail Bakhtin and others. She then draws out the implications for effective communication of the gospel of Jesus Christ within our shifting cultural landscape. Her fundamental thesis is that "Failure to understand how signs work--as effects of the cultures we seek to affect--inevitably undermines not just our political and moral agendas but, worse, the gospel of Jesus Christ."Writing with humor, clarity and flare, Downing lucidly explains the sophisticated thinking of leaders in semiotics for nonexperts. Of value to all those interested in communication in any context, this work will be of special interest to students majoring in communications or English or to students in evangelism and preaching courses at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Review Quotes

". . . a helpful introduction to a subject that demands serious attention . . ."

--Bruce Campbell Moyer, Seminary Studies, Spring 2012

"Changing Signs of Truth is intellectually stunning, with a rich vein of church history, literary exemplars and personal anecdotes illustrating and illuminating key concepts in the study of semiotics. The work introduces readers not only into a world of ideas about signs and communication, but to a real person. It thus practices what it preaches."

--Terrance Lindvall, C. S. Lewis Professor of Communication and Christian Thought, Virginia Wesleyan College, Norfolk, Virginia

"Downing's book, Changing Signs of Truth: A Christian Introduction to the Semiotics of Communication, is a lucid, accessible, and often downright enjoyable introduction to this sometimes esoteric field of study. . . . The publication of Changing Signs of Truth is excellent news for professors and students who grapple with how semiotic and postmodern theory fits into robust, orthodox Christian theology; it's also a boon to cultural commentators and laymen who intuit that there's something fundamentally off about the way Christians often discuss culture but can't quite find the language to describe it. . . . Downing has done the academy and the church at large a great service in a highly readable, often winsome argument."

--Alissa Wilkinson, Books Culture, January 2013

"Long story short: This is a helpful book, particularly for those students encountering these topics in their coursework. Through it all, Downing encourages Christians to 'influence the flow of culture by changing their signs of truth, ' but without compromising core doctrines."

--Steve Rabey, YouthWorker Journal, September/October 2012

"Semiotics is not a common concern for most Christians. . . . Yet Downing aims to not only make semiotics accessible for the everyday Christian reader, but pivotal to the '(re) signing of Christian truth' in the postmodern age.' . . . This book can be a valuable tool to those seeking to convey Christian doctrine in a fresh way in the 21st century."

--Publishers Weekly, April 2012

"True to her vocation, Downing demonstrates her affinity for linguistic signs and metaphors by coloring her writing with a plethora of puns and double entendre that delightfully intrigue and engage the reader, thereby making a complex scholarly area of study very understandable and enjoyable. It is a significant contribution to our understanding of the signs that govern our Christian lives, how to make them understandable to those embedded in today's culture, and how to live out the command to 'be one' in the midst of our plurality."

--Susan M. Haack, Ethics Medicine, Vol. 30:3, Fall 2014

About the Author

Crystal L. Downing, distinguished professor of English and film studies at Messiah College, has published widely on the relationship between Christianity and culture. She is the author of Writing Performances: The Stages of Dorothy L. Sayers and How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith.