This book is no exception. Given to me by a friend to read, I found it to be vintage Swindoll: biblical, fair and balanced. The author begins with an excellent description of post-modernity and the church’s vigilance in protecting the church from its potential harmful effects. I quote:
“We have slipped from what we used to call a ‘modern world’ into a ‘post-Christian’ – era. That’s why we find ourselves in a world that is less friendly to the church and more than over disconnected from the Bible. So it’s no surprise that today’s citizen is more biblically ignorant than people of virtually any other time since the Dark Ages.” p. xiii.
Well said. That’s why a group of missiologists who have become known by some as emergent have entered into a conversation about how the church can more effectively minister the gospel in the rapidly changing world.
Then Dr. Swindoll begins a critique of those emergent leaders (of which there are a few) who have attempted to adjust the church by liberalizing her theologically. Swindoll’s concerns are valid and I am in total agreement with him at this point. Many so called emergent thinkers are theological conservations such myself and see no need to re-negotiate our theological positions. Dr. Swindoll’s concerns are shared by and almost identical to the Board of General Superintendents, Church of the Nazarene. Dr. Swindoll refuses to make straw men out of emergent leaders and set them on fire, like so many “concerned” people are doing. In fact, Swindoll quotes Melanehton who was later quoted by both John Wesley and Phineas Breese: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty, in all things, charity”. And then he warns the church to avoid “the long drift” away from orthodoxy.
To Dr. Swindoll I say: Amen and well done.” Some “concerned” friends of mine would do well to read “The Church Awakening.”
I give this book 4-1/2 stars out of 5.
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