Thought I’d start posting reviews here along with on my GoodReads account…
The Courage To Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World by David Wells
An excellent read and challenging critique. This book is a summary of Wells’ previous 4 volumes, so at times I wished I could have gone deeper into some of his arguments in order to fully understand them. But nonetheless, a very challenging, edifying, and refining read for me. Wells challenges the church “Let God be God” in the church and cling to the solas of the reformation. Here is a quotation that is close to capturing both the thesis and the tone Wells uses throughout the book.
“In practice, many evangelicals – especially those of a marketing and emergent kind – are walking away from the hard edges of these truths in an effort to make the gospel easy to swallow, quick to sell, and generationally appealing. They are well aware of the deep cultural hunger for spirituality in the West, and they are trolling these waters. The problem, however, is that this spirituality is highly privatized, highly individualistic, self-centered, and hostile to doctrine because it is always hostile to Christian truth. Evangelicals gain nothing by merely attracting to their churches postmoderns who yearning for what is spiritual if, in catering to this, the gospel is diluted, made easy, and the edges get rounded off. The degree to which evangelicals are doing this is the degree to which they are invalidating themselves and prostituting the church.” (p. 237)
Weekly Notables (22)
Posted in Books, Christian Life, Commentary, Supremacy of Christ, Theology on June 4, 2009| 1 Comment »
The last “Weekly Notables.” I have resolved to read more edited, published writing rather than spontaneous “off the cuff” blogging. I’ll still send some good links along sporadically.
Reading: Francis of Assissi said what? Preach the Gospel, Use Deeds When Necessary.
Health: Do you think you know pain? Check out this guy‘s visibly wincing pain at mile 22 of the San Diego Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon.
Reading: Lot’s of it. D.A. Carson’s contribution to the church is real nice, and so is making nearly all of it availabe for free.
Listening: Free audio download from Christianaudio: Eugene Petersen’s Christ Plays in Ten-Thousand Places.
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