Just ordered this book:Prophetic Untimelinessby OS GuinnessAmazonhttp://www.amazon.com/Prophetic-Untimeliness-Challenge-Idol-Relevance/dp/0801065607/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6449147-6795269?ie=UTF8&;s=books&qid=1188585397&sr=1-1Anyone familiar? ... Comments? ...Christian Book PreviewsOs Guinness Biohttp://www.christianbookpreviews.com/christian-book-author.php?isbn=0801012600Denver JournalProphetic Untimelinessby OS Guinnesshttp://www.denverseminary.edu/dj/articles2004/0400/0407.phpThe book is divided into three sections, which take up the challenge of responding to Guinness's distressing thesis: (1) The Tool That Turned Into a Tyrant, (2) Shorn of Our Secret Strength, and (3) Restoring the Archimedean Point. The first section brings what typically remains in the cultural background into the foreground: our sense of time. The modern Western sense of time differs radically from that of earlier ages and from some other cultures even today. Time is quantified ever more precisely by the mechanical clock; it is rendered precise and makes the coordination of events easier. Yet it puts us under pressure to meet its exacting demands. "Time is the ultimate credit card; speed is the universal style of spending". But in our rush for relevance we often forfeit wisdom. Moreover, we falsely think that the new is probably the true and being "progressive" is obviously better than being "traditional." C.S. Lewis referred to this as "chronological snobbery." We thus become historically myopic (if not oblivious) and fail to learn from the past, Christian or otherwise. Yet without an anchor in the past, we become prey to the passing fads of the present and so become unfit to face the future faithfully. As Daniel Boorstin put it, "Homo up-to-datum is a dunce."The gist of Guinness's second section, "Shorn of Our Secret Strength" is summarized by the lament that the faith-worlds of great Christian leaders such as Wesley, Edwards, Wilberforce, Spurgeon, Carl Henry, John Stott, and others is vanishing among contemporary evangelicals. "In its place a new evangelicalism is arriving in which therapeutic self-concern overshadows knowing God, spirituality displaces theology, end-times escapism crowds our day-to-day discipleship, marketing triumphs over mission, reference to opinion polls outweigh reliance on biblical exposition, concerns for power and relevance are more obvious than concern for piety and faithfulness, talk of reinventing the church has replaced prayer for revival, and the characteristic evangelical passion for missionary enterprise is overpowered by the all-consuming drive to sustain the multiple business empires of the booming evangelical subculture" (p.54). But what is the antidote?The last third of the book charts the way of radical faithfulness and biblical fidelity. It gives no formulas, since formulas are part of the problem for a church in captivity to contemporary culture. The summons is daunting: "Thinking and acting Christianly in the blizzard of modern information and change requires the courage of a prophet, the wisdom of a sage, and the character of a saint--not to speak of the patience of Job and the longevity of Methuselah" (p. 56). We must hear and heed the call of a transcendent God, not culture. We must turn from "sola cultura"--the implicit if not explicit creed of most evangelicals today--back to "sola Scriptura." In so doing, we must be willing to embrace loneliness, as did the Hebrew prophets and to stand "against the world, for the world" before "the audience of One." We need courage, faithfulness, and the Cross of Christ, which "runs crosswise to all our human ways of thinking" (p. 100).There is no better spokesman for this untimely but godly cause than Os Guinness. Ponder his words, however strange they may seem at first. Then lament over the worldliness and triviality of so much of evangelicalism. Then rise up and challenge the idols of relevance wherever they appear and counteract them by speaking the truth in love, come what may (Ephesians 4:15; 1 John 5:21).Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D.Professor of PhilosophyDenver SeminaryMay 2004
