Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Pages
160
Publication
Eerdmans (1988), 160 pages
Description
How can biblical authority be a reality for those shaped by the modern world? This book treats the First World as a mission field, offering a unique perspective on the relationship between the gospel and current society by presenting an outsider's view of contemporary Western culture.
User reviews
LibraryThing member jkepler
Newbigin hits the question of what is required for an authentic missionary encounter between Jesus' gospel and Western culture--in its secular, pagan, post-christian, atheistic, and hardened expressions. I found I agree with much of what he argues, but at many points felt like he was saying in the
He ends the book with seven recommendations for the church to act upon if we hope to proclaim the good news in a way that its heard by our culture in the West.
Excellent, engaging book.
Show More
mid-eighties things that Francis Schaeffer had said 20 years earlier.He ends the book with seven recommendations for the church to act upon if we hope to proclaim the good news in a way that its heard by our culture in the West.
Excellent, engaging book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Steve777
Too dense to listen to- better to read.
LibraryThing member goosecap
I don’t remember exactly what I was expecting it to be, and I surely do not know all of what it should be, and he does not always stay firm in all of his worst points, but I certainly was surprised.
…. I mean, I heard about this guy in a Brian McLaren book, but I honestly did not get much
I think although it’s billed as ‘get the gospel out to these Westerners’, he forbids people from believing what a great many Western Christians do believe already, and without whose position the gap between Christianity and Western culture would be much greater, so....
I guess I would be more sympathetic if he were saying, You can’t be lax and be a leader, or something like that, but it seems to be more like: I’m entitled to be the leader, because I’m the one here who’s a Christian—which is an attitude that could inspire, and has inspired, more bitterness than I want to give. He seems like the sort interested in the Enlightenment and philosophers, more so than in the Bible or some saint, even if he attaches himself to the philosophers mostly so he can remain within shouting distance. But he does not seem to understand the stance that arose in Europe and America in the years after the Wars of Religion, among the upper classes, that having the rulers think that they were entitled to rule because they were the only Christians or whatever, wasn’t going to produce peaceable and effective government. A lot of less helpful things came out of that—a lot of paralysis by analysis being the obvious baggage—but you can’t just wish them away by refusing to understand them or be fair to them. Christ bids us to love; perhaps a corollary to that can be to be fair. If you’re just so entitled that you say, Somebody’s gotta be Caesar, so it has to be me, because it just has to be, that’s not going to make you necessarily be Caesar, it’s not going to make everyone a Christian, it’s not going to make all doctrines that diverge from yours vanish without a trace, and it’s not going to make God so pleased with you that everybody makes you Saint Caesar the Wise.
(“A truth that’s told with bad intent/Beats all the lies you can invent.” Blake)
Now, I do see that in the modern world we tend to lack community, and it is a burden to bear. But when people like this remind me in their own little way that the alternative seems to be these clericalists who ‘do not go in, and do not allow those who were going in to go in’, then I am reminded that our rulers should not be clericalists.
And he does seem to want Christians As Such to be the rulers. Never mind what Jesus says about Caesar, he never mentions it, what some nostalgic Victorian says about how Caesar is and by right ought to be Christendom matters more.
.... But he can certainly know certain things even if he can’t judge well IMO; I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I wasted my time completely and didn’t learn anything (ie, delete the book from my profile).
…. Anyway, maybe all that is too much to write, you know. The main surprise, right, was just this: I didn’t know that I could read German! ^^ I can with many words and long- and complicated-ideas think!
…. Until worship the Crucifier you do, please me, thou shalt not. :P
…. I don’t think that there’s one f*ck*ng Bible quote in the whole book, just conservative philosophy, but he has the balls to say that liberals are all “anthropologists”. What about the woman at the well, you kraut-y freak, was that conversation an adventure in anthropology and therefore blasphemy?
…. Oh no wait, there’s one, although it condemns him. Can you use the axe of science to hew against science? (Verily if you do, you shall be among the losers, lol.)
I think he has almost a class bias against the Bible. It may be good to keep the crackers in line, but it’s not a book for wise white men….
People like him often remind me of the two brothers, one says he will work for his father and the farm and does not, and the other says he will not and changes his mind. Which one is to be commended? The one who’s polite to dad, right? Ha! Isn’t the idea that, whether or not you read the Bible, write about the Bible—one day Moses, one day Jesus—or are transformed by the Bible, is all irrelevant, so long as you Say It’s Better, In Theory.
I talk about the Bible a lot. In John, there’s the love-thought-abstraction-particle, and Paul is a religious-particle-think-y thing, and there are others too, not that they’re important.
You go help dad. I’ll help too. But you go help him. That’s right. Run along.
Star Wars Imperial Officer: Move along.
Why? Because, I Am Not A Scientist. Oh, hypocrite of hypocrites, will you not be warned? Will you not be rightly guided? Surely if you say to your Lord, We followed Jesus, but you followed him not, your Lord will be stern in judgment, and you will be among the losers; hell will be your home.
Sorry.
If you follow not Jesus, hell your home will be.
Fixed it.
…. What a singularly ridiculous conversation.
Liberal Unbeliever: I am convinced that the mind is the only thing that exists. The world is a floating brain, in liquid.
Conservative Unbeliever: But oh Ho Ho, what about white men? We’ve always been the rulers, because we kept the crackers in line!
…. Surely they do not believe, except for a few of them.
…. Anyway, although I’m committed to “holy envy”, I’d also like to read about conservatives who think it’s a sin, and not because I want to shout back. I do think that this is a very conservative book, however it was intended to be, which is a little obscure at times. Whether this review is shouting back is not for me to decide; for me, I can only write in criticism what I think needs to be said.
…. To recap though, it’s not so much a dialogue between Christianity and science—both the Bible and science—but an attempt to use science to show that science is bad, so that we have neither one.
…. He seems far more interested in defending the power of the Church to act, for what he won’t say, than in saying what keeps the Church’s actions pure; by this all men will know that you are my disciples, that you call down twelve legions of angels on the illogical.
…. After all, the world already values reason because it is useful; more rare is it to value a love which does not seem to serve one’s interests.
…. Anyway, he won’t talk about the Bible because he’s coy, but he’ll insult everyone who’s even a bit like the big bad anthropologist because he’s grand. And the Bible could have handled it; it is “lowly to the beginner” but “enveloped in mysteries” (Augustine). The conservative philosopher, the Christ-less aristocrat, who grasps at the Church’s worldly influence, but who cares little for the Bible or its divine author, risks being haughty to the beginner, but a clanging cymbal once you get to know him—brassy but signifying little.
…. “We can’t all start from nothing; we have to be told the truth. What’s the truth? Well, it’s a lot of things. I don’t really believe either side, I just believe the truth, and we’ve all got to believe the truth, since we’re in this together.” Right, ok. Thanks.
“At least we’re all Christian.” Do we go the same church?…. Do you and your conservative atheist friends go to the same church?…. !
…. “But something terrible happened when you shared your bologna sandwich with the Jew. You forgot that Caesar-Christ is Master of the human race, not the Jew!”
What cruelty becomes possible, when you let in a little abstraction.
…. I mean, I heard about this guy in a Brian McLaren book, but I honestly did not get much
Show More
Brian, or Jesus, from him. (If only everyone were a Christian, and no one knew mercy! If only I could cheat man of his choice, the devil of his prize, God of his throne!)I think although it’s billed as ‘get the gospel out to these Westerners’, he forbids people from believing what a great many Western Christians do believe already, and without whose position the gap between Christianity and Western culture would be much greater, so....
I guess I would be more sympathetic if he were saying, You can’t be lax and be a leader, or something like that, but it seems to be more like: I’m entitled to be the leader, because I’m the one here who’s a Christian—which is an attitude that could inspire, and has inspired, more bitterness than I want to give. He seems like the sort interested in the Enlightenment and philosophers, more so than in the Bible or some saint, even if he attaches himself to the philosophers mostly so he can remain within shouting distance. But he does not seem to understand the stance that arose in Europe and America in the years after the Wars of Religion, among the upper classes, that having the rulers think that they were entitled to rule because they were the only Christians or whatever, wasn’t going to produce peaceable and effective government. A lot of less helpful things came out of that—a lot of paralysis by analysis being the obvious baggage—but you can’t just wish them away by refusing to understand them or be fair to them. Christ bids us to love; perhaps a corollary to that can be to be fair. If you’re just so entitled that you say, Somebody’s gotta be Caesar, so it has to be me, because it just has to be, that’s not going to make you necessarily be Caesar, it’s not going to make everyone a Christian, it’s not going to make all doctrines that diverge from yours vanish without a trace, and it’s not going to make God so pleased with you that everybody makes you Saint Caesar the Wise.
(“A truth that’s told with bad intent/Beats all the lies you can invent.” Blake)
Now, I do see that in the modern world we tend to lack community, and it is a burden to bear. But when people like this remind me in their own little way that the alternative seems to be these clericalists who ‘do not go in, and do not allow those who were going in to go in’, then I am reminded that our rulers should not be clericalists.
And he does seem to want Christians As Such to be the rulers. Never mind what Jesus says about Caesar, he never mentions it, what some nostalgic Victorian says about how Caesar is and by right ought to be Christendom matters more.
.... But he can certainly know certain things even if he can’t judge well IMO; I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I wasted my time completely and didn’t learn anything (ie, delete the book from my profile).
…. Anyway, maybe all that is too much to write, you know. The main surprise, right, was just this: I didn’t know that I could read German! ^^ I can with many words and long- and complicated-ideas think!
…. Until worship the Crucifier you do, please me, thou shalt not. :P
…. I don’t think that there’s one f*ck*ng Bible quote in the whole book, just conservative philosophy, but he has the balls to say that liberals are all “anthropologists”. What about the woman at the well, you kraut-y freak, was that conversation an adventure in anthropology and therefore blasphemy?
…. Oh no wait, there’s one, although it condemns him. Can you use the axe of science to hew against science? (Verily if you do, you shall be among the losers, lol.)
I think he has almost a class bias against the Bible. It may be good to keep the crackers in line, but it’s not a book for wise white men….
People like him often remind me of the two brothers, one says he will work for his father and the farm and does not, and the other says he will not and changes his mind. Which one is to be commended? The one who’s polite to dad, right? Ha! Isn’t the idea that, whether or not you read the Bible, write about the Bible—one day Moses, one day Jesus—or are transformed by the Bible, is all irrelevant, so long as you Say It’s Better, In Theory.
I talk about the Bible a lot. In John, there’s the love-thought-abstraction-particle, and Paul is a religious-particle-think-y thing, and there are others too, not that they’re important.
You go help dad. I’ll help too. But you go help him. That’s right. Run along.
Star Wars Imperial Officer: Move along.
Why? Because, I Am Not A Scientist. Oh, hypocrite of hypocrites, will you not be warned? Will you not be rightly guided? Surely if you say to your Lord, We followed Jesus, but you followed him not, your Lord will be stern in judgment, and you will be among the losers; hell will be your home.
Sorry.
If you follow not Jesus, hell your home will be.
Fixed it.
…. What a singularly ridiculous conversation.
Liberal Unbeliever: I am convinced that the mind is the only thing that exists. The world is a floating brain, in liquid.
Conservative Unbeliever: But oh Ho Ho, what about white men? We’ve always been the rulers, because we kept the crackers in line!
…. Surely they do not believe, except for a few of them.
…. Anyway, although I’m committed to “holy envy”, I’d also like to read about conservatives who think it’s a sin, and not because I want to shout back. I do think that this is a very conservative book, however it was intended to be, which is a little obscure at times. Whether this review is shouting back is not for me to decide; for me, I can only write in criticism what I think needs to be said.
…. To recap though, it’s not so much a dialogue between Christianity and science—both the Bible and science—but an attempt to use science to show that science is bad, so that we have neither one.
…. He seems far more interested in defending the power of the Church to act, for what he won’t say, than in saying what keeps the Church’s actions pure; by this all men will know that you are my disciples, that you call down twelve legions of angels on the illogical.
…. After all, the world already values reason because it is useful; more rare is it to value a love which does not seem to serve one’s interests.
…. Anyway, he won’t talk about the Bible because he’s coy, but he’ll insult everyone who’s even a bit like the big bad anthropologist because he’s grand. And the Bible could have handled it; it is “lowly to the beginner” but “enveloped in mysteries” (Augustine). The conservative philosopher, the Christ-less aristocrat, who grasps at the Church’s worldly influence, but who cares little for the Bible or its divine author, risks being haughty to the beginner, but a clanging cymbal once you get to know him—brassy but signifying little.
…. “We can’t all start from nothing; we have to be told the truth. What’s the truth? Well, it’s a lot of things. I don’t really believe either side, I just believe the truth, and we’ve all got to believe the truth, since we’re in this together.” Right, ok. Thanks.
“At least we’re all Christian.” Do we go the same church?…. Do you and your conservative atheist friends go to the same church?…. !
…. “But something terrible happened when you shared your bologna sandwich with the Jew. You forgot that Caesar-Christ is Master of the human race, not the Jew!”
What cruelty becomes possible, when you let in a little abstraction.
Show Less
Original publication date
1986-04