The Table

Above All Earthly Pow'rs

David F. Wells

In our postmodern world, every view has a place at the table but none has the final say. How, as Christian faith adjusts to a new culture, should the church confess Christ?

"Above All Earthly Pow'rs," the fourth and final volume of the set that began in 1993 with "No Place for Truth," paints a picture of the West in all its complexity, brilliance, and emptiness. As David Wells masterfully depicts it, the postmodern ethos of the West is relativistic, individualistic, therapeutic, and yet remarkably spiritual. Wells unabashedly locates American postmodernism's roots in the last century's waves of immigration — waves that, for all their diversity, have brought with them numerous new religions and a cultural relativism born out of confusion and a fear of offense. Wells also carefully differentiates between intellectual and popular postmodernism; while few Americans read Foucault or Derrida, nearly everyone is subject to the permeating flood of TV ads.

Wells's book culminates in a critique of contemporary evangelicalism aimed at both unsettling and reinvigorating readers. Churches that market themselves as relevant to consumption-oriented postmoderns are indeed swelling in size. But they are doing so, Wells contends, at the expense of the truth of the gospel, as the trappings they adopt come laden with theological consequences. By placing a premium on marketing, the evangelical church is in danger of selling authentic engagement with culture for worldly success.

Welding extensive cultural analysis with a formidable theological contribution, "Above All Earthly Pow'rs" will grip pastors, educators, and all serious readers concerned about the fate of evangelical Christianity.

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The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Timothy Keller

The End of Faith. The God Delusion. God Is Not Great. Letter to a Christian Nation. Bestseller lists are filled with doubters. But what happens when you actually doubt your doubts?

Although a vocal minority continues to attack the Christian faith, for most Americans, faith is a large part of their lives: 86 percent of Americans refer to themselves as religious, and 75 percent of all Americans consider themselves Christians. So how should they respond to these passionate, learned, and persuasive books that promote science and secularism over religion and faith? For years, Tim Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced “doubts” skeptics bring to his Manhattan church. And in The Reason for God, he single-handedly dismantles each of them. Written with atheists, agnostics, and skeptics in mind, Keller also provides an intelligent platform on which true believers can stand their ground when bombarded by the backlash. The Reason for God challenges such ideology at its core and points to the true path and purpose of Christianity.

Why is there suffering in the world? How could a loving God send people to Hell? Why isn’t Christianity more inclusive? Shouldn’t the Christian God be a god of love? How can one religion be “right” and the rest “wrong”? Why have so many wars been fought in the name of God? These are just a few of the questions even ardent believers wrestle with today. In this book, Tim Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations and reasoning, and even pop culture to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth.

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The Mission of God

Christopher J. H. Wright

Most Christians would agree that the Bible provides a basis for mission. But Christopher Wright boldly maintains that mission is bigger than that there is in fact a missional basis for the Bible! The entire Bible is generated by and is all about God's mission.

Beginning with the Old Testament and the groundwork it lays for understanding who God is, what he has called his people to be and do, and how the nations fit into God's mission, Wright gives us a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture. This new perspective provides a solid and expansive basis for holistic mission. Wright emphasizes throughout a holistic mission as the proper shape of Christian mission. God's mission is to reclaim the world and that includes the created order and God's people have a designated role to play in that mission.

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The Forgotten Ways

Alan Hirsch

Hirsch offers some excellent insight into signifcant questions of ecclesiology. The Forgotten Ways offers insight into what Hirsch calls the "apostolic genius" and mDNA (missional DNA). It is thoughtful, biblical, and practical.

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The Great Giveaway

David E. Fitch

This is a searing but loving insider critique of the individualism that marks North American evangelicals. Fitch, senior pastor of the Life on the Vine Christian community in Arlington Heights, Ill., blames an embrace of modernism for attempts by evangelicals to "individualize, commodify, and package Christianity." He criticizes mega-churches that end up functioning like capitalist businesses with CEO-style pastors judging success by the number of "decisions for Christ" produced. Each chapter outlines the various ways evangelicalism has "given away" its influence and then offers concrete practices designed to help the church reclaim its mission. Fitch's most scathing criticism is saved for the evangelical willingness to embrace modern psychology, which he blasts as patient-centered rather than Christ-centered. He challenges evangelical churches to think smaller (in terms of congregation size), place less focus on coercive evangelism, return to communal catechesis, offer more liturgical worship and provide opportunities for small group intimacy where Christians can confess their sins, repent, read scripture and pray together regularly. Intellectually rigorous, this book's critical tone will undoubtedly upset many conservative evangelicals, but will point the way for the more moderate ones for years to come. (Oct. 15)

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The Multiplying Church

Bob Roberts Jr.

Read any research report on the state of the church and you'll find the same results:  Christianity in American is on the decline.  While evangelism is exploding globally as never before, here in the West it has been slowly but relentless fading.  Megachurches, emergent churches, house churches ... none of our attempts to remake, reinvent, or reconstruct the church has made a difference.  What can?

Bob Roberts Jr. is founding pastor of the 2,500 member NorthWood Church outside of Fort Worth, Texas, which is recognized as a leader in church multiplication.  Using the experience at NorthWod, he shows how multiplying churches can be a natural, regular function of every church to reach the 70 percent of Americans without a meaningful church relationship.  The focus should be on "church mothering" by imparting the DNA for multiplication in all church.

The Multiplying Church returns to an early-church model of multiplication where a single church sent laypeople out to start other communities of believers.  Each new church in term gave birth toother churches.  This approach can make all the difference in your  own church's outreach.  Instead of individual an doccasional church planting, the focus in on continual "church mothering," where the mother church imparts the DNA for multiplication in its church plants.

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