Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Reclaiming the Center

As you can see from the ad below, Crossway decided to offer a one-week special (35% off) on the book, Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times. It was co-edited by Millard J. Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth, and yours truly.

Contributors included D. A. Carson (who reviewed Stan Grenz's Renewing the Center), Douglas Groothuis (on defining and defending truth), J. P. Moreland and Garry DeWeese (on foundationalism), R. Scott Smith (on language and epistemology), A. B. Caneday (on language games and speech-act theory), Steve Wellum (on biblical authority), Kwabena Donkor (on an African perspective on postconservatism), William Travis (on pietism and the history of American evangelicalism), Paul Helseth (on the "fundamentalistic" characteristics of postconservatism), Chad Owen Brand (on defining evangelicalism), and James Parker III (on whether it's time to write a requiem for postmodernism), and Millard Erickson (on what post-postmodernism will look like).

We were thankful that noted leaders from both the more left-of-center and right-of-center streams of evangelicalism appreciated the book. For example:
“For those evangelicals who—like myself—are increasingly troubled by extravagant claims made by various evangelical scholars about the nature of the ‘postmodern’ challenge, as well as by earnest calls to develop new epistemological and theological perspectives in response to this challenge, the writers of these essays shed much light. This book is must-reading for everyone who wants to promote a clear-thinking evangelicalism for our contemporary context.”

Richard J. Mouw, President and Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Seminary

“Compromise and confusion stand at the center of evangelicalism’s theological crisis, and a clear-headed and convictional analysis of the problem has been desperately needed. Thankfully, Reclaiming the Center has arrived just in time. . . . My fervent hope is that it will open evangelical eyes, humble evangelical hearts, and awaken this generation to the peril of accommodationism.”
R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Finally, I'd make one clarification/qualification: this isn't a book about the emerging church movement per se. Rather, it's a book about some of the key ideas that have been foundational to this conversation.

Reclaiming the Center