Book Review: The Image of the City by Charles Williams

As a collection of essays, it's hard to give this a single rating. Three of the essays are as good as anything I've read: "Natural Goodness," "The Cross," and "The Way of Exchange." I assigned the first of the three in class to talk about the Fall and the Problem of Evil; the third of the three deserves to be taken seriously by anyone who thinks relationship and narrative should affect theology (by which I mean it deserved to be taken seriously by everyone). Williams coined the phrase "holy Luck" to describe the chance events that bring people into our spheres of influence, and months later I find myself still thinking of that. His theology of "exchange" may be more relevant now than it was in the 1940's. It's not all this powerful: I find the first section and last section to be least relevant because they are very literary and focused on Williams's Arthurian writing, which I have not read. But as for the high points of this book, there's nothing higher.