Postmodernism

Christians often strike me as the most Freudian of people. Say what you like, I have a sneaking suspicion that Freud, rather than Augustine, Luther, or Calvin, probably offers the best insights into the way that Christians really think and act. Let me explain with some examples. The other day I was...

A friend of mine, some five years ago now, introduced me to Vigen Guroian when he suggested I read Inheriting Paradise (Eerdmans, 1999), a short but immensely satisfying meditation on the relationship of theology to gardening. Earlier this year, I was pleased to find that Guroian had continued his...

Recently, I had occasion to fly to Korea via San Francisco. Flying across the US on a clear day is one of those rare pleasures which really allows you to get the geographical measure of the place: how flat much of the country is; how the snow-capped Rockies push the land upwards towards the sky in...

"To invert a famous quip of Gore Vidal, in theology, it is not enough for heretics to fail; the church must succeed." Last summer, I was fortunate enough to spend some weeks working at a church in Scotland, just outside of Edinburgh. It was certainly good to enjoy extended time back in the old...

I do not have the space in this brief review to give a summary of the content of the whole of this remarkable book; rather I will mention just a couple of highlights. Last year I had the students in my Apologetics and Understanding Contemporary Culture class read Total Truth . Almost without...

This is a very difficult review to write. The difficulty first became apparent to me several months ago when I realized that I was enormously behind my intended deadline of October, 2005. Due to a variety of circumstances, I have been very late in getting this review completed, and the powers that...

By all accounts, Rob Bell, the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, is a very "hip" guy. As Andy Crouch, a writer for Christianity Today remarked, "You could say he puts the 'hip' in discipleship."[1] Bell's recent book, Velvet Elvis, is a hip attempt to help...

Over a decade ago, David F. Wells, began a project to "explore the places of intersection between different aspects of the Christian confession and our (post)modern world" ( Above All Earthly Pow'rs , hereafter AAEP , 12). The project began with his stellar volume No Place for Truth (hereafter NPFT...

Contending for the Faith: Lines in the Sand that Strengthen the Church offers a well-argued response to many of the contemporary issues facing the church in an increasingly pluralistic and postmodern environment. The book is comprised of twenty-five articles, chosen from over two hundred, which...

In his new book Revolution , George Barna makes the staggering claim that faith in America is in the midst of an "unprecedented reengineering." This revolution is so important Barna unashamedly wants to convince his readers to join in. I believe Mr. Barna's motives are good. I also believe...