Reforming or Conforming?: Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church (Paperback)
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Publisher: Crossway/Good News Publishers
Author: Johnson, Gary L. W. & Ronald N. Gleason (editors)
ISBN-13: 9781433501180
Binding: Paperback
List Price: $20.00
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"...any attempt to synthesize Christianity with something else will inevitably diminish the truth of Christianity. To diminish the truth of Christianity is to dim the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. This book provides another helpful warning against such an attempt."
- K. Scott Oliphint, Westminster Theological Seminar
Publisher's Description: Thirteen Reformed scholars take on postmodern evangelicals and provide a solid, biblical critique of their ideas.
While self-described "post-conservative evangelicals" enjoy increasing influence in the evangelical world, they represent a significant challenge to biblical faith. Popularizers like Brian McLaren (of Emergent Church fame) trade on the work of scholars like Stan Grenz, John Franke, and Roger Olson, whose "innovations" represent a major makeover of traditional and historic evangelical theology. This is especially the case with the doctrines of Scripture, the atonement, and the character of God—all of which stand at the center of evangelical Christianity.
In Reforming or Conforming?, scholars such as John Bolt, Scott Clark, Paul Helm, and Paul Helseth join editors Gary Johnson and Ron Gleason in analyzing and critiquing the ideas of those who promote postmodernism as a positive force in theology. Pastors, laymen, and college students will find this book a helpful resource in understanding and refuting postmodern evangelicalism. Includes a foreword by David F. Wells.
Contributors:
- Paul Wells
- John Bolt
- Paul Helm
- Scott Clark
- Paul Kjoss Helseth
- Jeffrey Waddington
- Guy P. Waters
- Phil Johnson
- Martin Downes
- Greg Gilbert
- Gary Gilley
Editor Information: GARY L. W. JOHNSON, pastor of the Church of the Redeemer, Mesa, Arizona, holds a DTheol from the University of South Africa.
RONALD N. GLEASON, pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Yorba Linda, California, holds a PhD in systematic theology from Westminster Theological Seminary.
304 pages
Published September 2008 |
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"Reforming or Conforming is a serious feast of reflection on theology and ministry, and it offers the reader a rigorous wrestling with some of the issues and problems that arise from trying to derive a doctrine of the church out of the potent cocktail of postmodernism. These essays touch on some of the major flashpoints in the current conversation about what the church needs to be, think, desire, and do if it is going to be effective in engaging our culture. These authors (some of whom are among the brightest of a young generation of faithful, conservative, classical evangelicals, and some who are already numbered among our tried and trusted scholars), frankly, view the so-called post-conservative and emergent solutions to our present dilemma as dead ends. But they tell you why, with clarity, persuasiveness, and humor. All of these writers believe that the very first thing the church needs in our time is a doctrine of the church and theology of ministry that is based on the Bible rather than the mood of the moment. If you are skeptical of these neologies being pushed ubiquitously in the churches of "what's happening now" then this book will provide substance to confirm your hunches and to help your understand why the ground is moving under your feet. If you are tugged in the direction of a rethinking of the church in light of emergent critique of evangelicalism, then you need to reckon with the rejoinder provided in these essays."
- Ligon Duncan, Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, President, Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals
"Though there is nothing new under the sun, this book is most timely. When so many in the pews are asking questions about the emergent church, great is the need of thoughtful and courageous theological analysis. These distinguished authors recognize the importance of the ECM's emphasis on mission. They nevertheless warn that the radical, cutting edge represents the latest form of liberal compromise with fallen culture. They point out that in cutting the heart (the cross) out of the gospel, as all forms of liberalism in the past have done, these modern false prophets, if unchecked, will lead many unsuspecting and theologically unprepared evangelicals into serious and soul-destroying heresy."
- Peter Jones, Director, truthXchange, Scholar-in-Residence and Adjunct Professor, Westminster Seminary California
"In the midst of significant evangelical cultural conformity, the authors of this volume appear to have one primary message. It is a message that has been heard elsewhere, many times and in many ways, but which is difficult consistently to apply. The message is this: any attempt to synthesize Christianity with something else will inevitably diminish the truth of Christianity. To diminish the truth of Christianity is to dim the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. This book provides another helpful warning against such an attempt."
- K. Scott Oliphint, Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminar
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